Fitbit users will be required to have a Google account by 2025
New Fitbit users need to use Google accounts starting next year.
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Google is coming for Fitbit users. Google is starting the migration away from Fitbit accounts, with users required to move their data to a Google account to keep using the fitness trackers.
The first step was the rebranding from Fitbit to Fitbit by Google. That happened last year, following the Fitbit sale.
In 2023, Fitbit by Google will implement Google accounts for Fitbit users. The company mentioned that this isn’t the same as using Google to sign into your Fitbit account, so expect to migrate your accounts over.
The reason for the account separation was one of the conditions imposed by European regulators to greenlight the Fitbit purchase.
Google agreed to keep Fitbit data away from Google’s main data stores. They also had to promise not to use that data for targeted advertising in the European Economic Area until after 2030.
In the European Commission’s own words, the merger commitments “will ensure that the market for wearables and the nascent digital health space will remain open and competitive.”
It will be a voluntary migration for existing users, with any new accounts needing to use a Google account. This is very similar to how Google changed how logins worked when it bought Nest.
By 2025, all Fitbit users will have to migrate to a Google account or risk their devices stopping working.
There are a few questions around this that Google will have to work through. Will all devices be compatible with the new accounts? Will there be some kind of discount so users can upgrade to compatible ones if not?
When the Nest account migration occurred, multiple bugs caused havoc. Google will have to do better this time around.
Fitbit devices create personal fitness data, and the transfer will be covered by restrictive privacy laws in Europe and elsewhere.
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