Google Just Bought Fit bit—And All Its Data—For $2.1 Billion

For people who don't closely follow the wearable’s and fitness tracker space, the phrase "Fit bit" has become an all-encompassing term for any non-Apple-Watch device you wear to monitor your health. After all, the company has been doing its thing since 2007 when the space was a lot less crowded. This week, however, Google dropped $2.1 billion to buy Fit bit in hopes that it will bolster its Wear OS platform. By now, we’re used to Google buying other companies. In fact, back in January, it bought a different smart watch-related company from Fossil for $40 million. Buying Fit bit is huge, though. Millions of users have trusted Fit bit with data about their health, including sensitive topics like menstrual cycles. Now, that data goes to Google. However, Fit bit specifically called out the idea that the health data customers have provided won’t help ads target them, at least for now. What does this mean for Fit bit users? It’s hard to tell at the moment, but it seems like everything should be business as usual for a while. Fit bit just announced some new hardware a few months ago and began rolling out its premium subscription service and those still seem on-track as normal. Google bought smart thermostat company Nest back in 2014 and we’re really only seeing the full effects of that acquisition now. In 2019, Google shifted a lot of its Home products to the Nest brand. In doing so, it also changed the way in which third-party products integrate into the smart home platform, which caused some issues with devices that previously worked as expected.
If you were thinking about buying a new Fit bit, you're probably still totally fine to do so. If you're currently using a Fit bit and you're not entirely sure where your health data is going now, check out the Fit bit statement for some more details and then decide for yourself. If you’re thinking about getting an Apple Watch during all of this, I still recommend Series 3 because you can get it pretty cheap and it doesn’t have the ECG sensors inside of it, which take it from being a fun and useful gadget to a scary and serious medical device.
Google’s big buy isn’t the only game in town when it comes to tech news. Here’s a quick look back at other stuff you may have missed while you were getting your 10,000 steps in each day.

By – Abhishek Singh
Content - https://www.popsci.com/google-bought-fitbit-tech-news-roundup/