{"id":104242,"date":"2026-07-13T15:48:21","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T15:48:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/104242\/"},"modified":"2026-07-13T15:48:21","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T15:48:21","slug":"im-getting-google-health-premium-for-free-and-its-still-not-worth-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/104242\/","title":{"rendered":"I\u2019m getting Google Health Premium for free, and it\u2019s still not worth it"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The<\/p>\n

Brady Snyder \/ Android Authority<\/p>\n

The Google Fitbit Air<\/a> already caught my eye with its minimal design and subscription-free tracking. I wanted an alternative to smartwatches for sleep tracking and everyday activity detection \u2014 the $99 screenless wearable had everything I needed and nothing I didn\u2019t. When I learned that the optional Google Health Premium subscription comes with the Google AI Pro plan<\/a> I already pay for, that sealed the deal.<\/p>\n

Or so I thought. I\u2019ve been using the Fitbit Air and Health Premium for over a month, and I wish I could give this \u201cfree upgrade\u201d back to Google. The Google Health app clearly needs work<\/a>, but it\u2019s somehow worse for subscribers than it is for free users.<\/p>\n

Google should take the Gemini-powered Health Coach back to the drawing board, or at least give me a way to customize it.<\/p>\n

Does Health Coach make Google Health better or worse?<\/p>\n

32 votes<\/p>\n

Better<\/p>\n

16%<\/p>\n

Worse<\/p>\n

16%<\/p>\n

Sometimes better, sometimes worse<\/p>\n

28%<\/p>\n

I don’t use it<\/p>\n

41%<\/p>\n

The Google Health app is actually worse for subscribers<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Brady Snyder \/ Android Authority<\/p>\n

When Google first unveiled the new Health app, the Today page might\u2019ve been the most controversial change. It crams a few tiles displaying health metrics in the top third of the screen. The rest of the screen displays a scrollable feed of activity and sleep data, manually logged data, and Health Coach entries. I\u2019d see a new Health Coach entry every few hours, leading me to believe the free version would be barren.<\/p>\n

Google\u2019s Health Coach and its related AI features are the key selling points of the premium subscription, which costs $9.99 per month or $99.99 per year<\/a>. All the basics, like activity tracking, sleep tracking, health tracking, and wellness logging, are free for any Google Health user. These essential data points are exactly what I want to see when I open the Google Health app, and they\u2019re exactly what the free users get.<\/p>\n

I don’t need a daily reminder from Health Coach to sleep or drink water, so the streamlined experience of the free app is preferable to me.<\/p>\n

Without the Health Coach, the bottom portion of the Today view isn\u2019t blank. It\u2019s filled with activities, sleep sessions, and logged data, just without the verbose AI commentary Health Premium users see. I don\u2019t need a daily reminder from Health Coach<\/a> to sleep or drink water, so the streamlined experience of the free app is preferable to me.<\/p>\n

I could turn off Health Coach entirely. Open the Google Health app, tap your profile picture, and press Google Health settings. Tap \u201cCoach,\u201d and you\u2019ll see a \u201cTurn off\u201d button. But, as with too many Google AI features, it\u2019s all-or-nothing. I can\u2019t choose to cut Health Coach summaries from my Today view and still enjoy all the other perks. If I decide to disable the Google Health Coach, I\u2019ll lose most of my Health Premium benefits.<\/p>\n

Health Coach is basically a wordy educated guesser<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Brady Snyder \/ Android Authority<\/p>\n

Weeks into switching to Google Health, I can see the app\u2019s potential. I don\u2019t mind the colorful design or health tiles. They\u2019re my favorite part of the new app \u2014 but they\u2019re constantly obscured. By default, you can only fit six small tiles or two large tiles on the homepage. If you optionally use the expanded Focus view, you can double those numbers.<\/p>\n

Still, at least half of your Today view will be taken up by AI-generated summaries if you\u2019re a Health Premium subscriber. The Fitness page is worse. I can\u2019t see a single workout or activity on this page without scrolling past Health Coach prompts and the guided workout library. The Sleep page has the same problem, with a Health Coach sleep recap taking priority over the actual data. The final page, Health app, is data-dense with zero distractions, and it\u2019s easily the best one.<\/p>\n

If the Health Coach’s analysis isn’t medical advice and might not be accurate, it’s simply coloring objective data with educated guesses. <\/p>\n

If the Health Coach summaries were genuinely useful, this would be easier to forgive. Instead, they\u2019re long-winded and conversational for seemingly no reason. In the photo above, Health Coach used a header, five sentences, and a closing question to relay only two metrics: step count and calories burned. I can think of many visual ways these metrics could\u2019ve been better conveyed than with AI-generated text, such as an engaging hourly graph or chart.<\/p>\n

\"Google<\/p>\n

Brady Snyder \/ Android Authority<\/p>\n

Health Coach isn\u2019t as dynamic as I would like, either. The Fitbit Air\u2019s automatic activity detection has been poor so far, identifying almost anything as a walk or run. You can manually adjust the activity type in the app after the fact, so that\u2019s what I did. Only the Health Coach entry didn\u2019t update, leaving me with a confident recap of a run that was actually a pickup basketball game.<\/p>\n

It also bugs me that Health Coach summaries come with a disclaimer: \u201cAI responses may contain mistakes, not for medical advice.\u201d To be clear, this is a necessary disclaimer given the nature of AI<\/a>. However, this makes me wonder why my Google Health app feed is cluttered with information and advice Google acknowledges I can\u2019t fully trust.<\/p>\n

If the Health Coach\u2019s analysis isn\u2019t medical advice and might not be accurate, it\u2019s simply coloring objective data with educated guesses.<\/p>\n

Google can fix Health Premium by making it optional<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Brady Snyder \/ Android Authority<\/p>\n

As it currently stands, my Google Health Premium subscription is a net negative to the Health app. I see the Health Coach\u2019s summaries, questions, or prompts almost everywhere. It blocks the health and activity data I want to see. Subscribers get the worse version of the app, because free users see a concise timeline of their activity, sleep, and logged data without the superfluous AI text.<\/p>\n

Google could solve this issue by making Health Coach an intentional, optional feature you choose to engage with. The groundwork is already there. There\u2019s a floating Ask Coach button for Health Premium subscribers that hovers over every Health app page. Let me tap this button to engage with Health Coach, rather than see a handful of daily summaries that shroud the hard data points I want to review.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Brady Snyder \/ Android Authority<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think the Health Coach makes the Health Premium subscription worth it. Right now, it\u2019s the opposite<\/a>. The bright spot here is that Fitbit and Pixel Watch users won\u2019t miss out if they don\u2019t subscribe to a Health Premium plan.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d rather use the Fitbit Air with the standard Google Health app than with the Health Premium version \u2014 and that\u2019s a problem.<\/p>\n

Google Fitbit Air<\/a>\"Google\"AAGoogle Fitbit Air<\/a><\/p>\n

Screen-free fitness tracker \u2022 Affordable price \u2022 Excellent sleep tracking<\/p>\n

The Google Fitbit Air is the company’s first screenless fitness band.<\/p>\n

The Google Fitbit Air combines Fitbit’s trusted health tracking with Google’s smarter insights in one app. It works with both Android and iPhone and brings fitness, sleep, medical records, meals, and hydration tracking into a single, easy-to-use health hub.<\/p>\n

Thank you for being part of our community. Read our\u00a0Comment Policy<\/a> before posting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brady Snyder \/ Android Authority The Google Fitbit Air already caught my eye with its minimal design and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":104243,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[24,20036,132,1429,20120,24375],"class_list":["post-104242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-google","tag-ai","tag-fitbit","tag-google","tag-google-ai","tag-google-health","tag-google-health-premium"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104242\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}