Google Health 5.0 is rolling out now as a mandatory update for Fitbit app users, and the timing lines up with something specific.
The new Fitbit Air, Google’s answer to the Whoop fitness tracking band, launches next week. If you plan to use it, Health 5.0 is not optional. You need the updated app to set the device up at all.
The new Google Health 5.0 widget
The old Fitbit home screen widget was a single circular step counter and nothing more. Health 5.0 replaces it with a Quick Access widget that gives you considerably more at a glance.
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At its largest, the widget expands to a 5×3 grid displaying up to six fitness metrics simultaneously. You choose which stats fill those slots, whether that is steps, distance, sleep, hydration, weight, readiness, or any other metrics you have set up.
If you prefer something more minimal, the widget scales down to show just one stat. The flexibility is a simple improvement over what was there before.
Tapping any tile on the widget pulls up the full stats for that metric. The widget itself keeps things functional with a heart icon in the top left that opens Google Health directly, a refresh button on the right, and a timestamp in the center showing when the data was last updated.
That last detail is a small but useful addition, since you can tell at a glance whether you are looking at current information or data from several hours ago.
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The Quick Access widget also mirrors whatever you have configured in the Today tab inside the app, so the two stay in sync automatically without any extra setup.
What the update doesn’t tell you
According to a hands-on review by Lifehacker, the Gemini-powered Health Coach, which Google has been promoting as a headline feature, has a reliability problem worth noting.
During testing, the Health Coach congratulated a user for hitting a sleep score of 99. The actual score was 85. The feature also pulled in Reddit threads as sources that had no clear relevance to the query, including at least one thread where the answer had been copied directly from ChatGPT. For a health-focused AI tool, that kind of inaccuracy is a real concern.
Let’s put the AI issues aside. Health 5.0 also drops several features that Fitbit users have relied on. Sleep animals, the Community Feed, Groups, direct messaging, food plans with calorie targets, and stress-check graphs are all absent from the update.
There is also a paywall shift worth noting. Features that were free during the Public Preview, including Health Coach chat and personalized fitness plans, now sit behind a Google Health Premium membership. That costs $9.99 per month or $99.99 per year.
The rollout started on May 19 and is expected to reach all users by May 26, 2026.
