It would be fair to say that AI and the rise of chatbots have kicked off a colossal gold rush for fitness apps. The combination of generations' worth of training knowledge packed into a device you carry to the gym in your pocket meant the best workout apps were already popular, but now they can adapt on the fly to your needs or queries.

Fitbod is one of those apps, and it’s one this writer knows very well, having used it for a couple of years. It’s a workout app with a big focus on generating plans for your chosen goal, whether that’s powerlifting or weight loss, and blends cardio exercises with an impressive catalog of strength exercises.

I caught up with Allen Chen, Fitbod’s cofounder and CEO. He’s a UCLA computer science graduate who’s also a NASM-certified personal trainer, making him something of a unicorn in the space.

A decade under the influence

Fitbod launched in 2015, long before the letters ‘A’ and ‘I’ were shoehorned into just about any product. I asked Chen what the biggest changes in the development of fitness apps have been in the last 10 years.

“The biggest shift is the move from generic training plans to truly personalized strength training, but the most striking thing is actually what hasn’t changed,” he said.

“Resistance training was the core of health and fitness when we started, and it remains the core today. It transcends trends. You’re seeing gyms actively swap out cardio equipment for free weights and functional training spaces because that’s what members want.”

“What has changed is how people relate to their workouts. When Fitbod launched, most users were following generic programs they found online, the same templates everyone else was running. Today, people expect personalization. They want a program that reflects their individual schedule, available equipment, recovery status, and fitness goals.”

“What’s new is that they also expect understanding and support, not just a recommendation. It’s no longer enough for an app to tell you what to do. People want to know why they’re seeing a certain exercise, weight, or workout structure, how it connects to their goals, and what to do when progress slows down. That’s the direction the category is moving in, and it’s a big part of where we’re investing.”

Chen says Fitbod is tied to real strength-training inputs, and not generic broad-knowledge prompts. “The foundation of Fitbod has always been adaptive workout planning. The first version of the app was about solving a hard algorithmic problem: given your workout history and muscle recovery state, what’s the optimal workout today? That was genuinely novel in 2015.

“The recent AI acceleration has dramatically expanded what’s possible on top of that foundation. We’re moving from simply generating the right workout to helping members understand their data, interpret their progress, and get more active coaching inside the app.”

Fitbod doesn’t offer a chatbot like the Google Health Coach, but that’s going to change soon, with an upcoming feature called Coach Chat.

“We think about [Coach Chat] in four roles,” Chen explains. “First, as an interpreter, it helps explain things like, 'How does Fitbod help me improve my squat?' Second, as an analyst, it can summarize patterns and help diagnose issues like, “Why has my squat plateaued recently?”

“Third, as a coach, it can guide the next step: 'How do I break out of this plateau?' And fourth, as a motivator, it can reinforce progress and help users stay consistent when they feel discouraged.”

Coach Chat is one part of a salvo of improvements that also includes Workout Insights. This will help users understand why exercises and weights are recommended. Chen says AI can make Fitbod feel “much more human, more transparent, and more supportive”.

“When users hear ‘AI,’ they sometimes expect instant magic. The reality is that the system gets materially better with more user data. Someone with six months of logged workouts gets a fundamentally different experience than someone in week one. Keeping users consistent long enough to see that compounding effect, that’s still the real product challenge.”

“This year alone, we’ve rolled out and expanded features like Focus Exercises, Exercise Percentiles, Injury Mode, Plate Calculator, Live Heart Rate, and broader localization work. We’ve also been developing prototypes and internal tools, including Coach Chat, Chart Generation, Insights M0 and M1, an Internal Evaluation Tool, and a Pydantic Insights Tool, all aimed at making the product smarter, more explainable, and more useful.”

Next steps

With AI becoming an increasingly common part of daily life, Chen says it’s going nowhere.

“In two to three years, AI will have crossed the threshold from novelty to expectation. Users won’t just want an app that generates a workout, they’ll expect it to explain itself, adapt in context, and support them through the inevitable ups and downs of training.

“Systems that can interpret training history, diagnose patterns, explain recommendations, and motivate users in a way that feels timely and personal. In other words, the best products won’t just say, 'Here’s your workout.’ They’ll also be able to say, “Here’s why today looks different, here’s what to focus on, and here’s what your recent data suggests.”

Can users trust programs build by AI? Chen, unsurprising, says yes — and he also doesn’t think trustworthy AI coaches as a concept will devalue personal trainers or traditional programming.

“Trust is a huge issue in AI fitness. If a user can understand why they’re being asked to squat lighter today, or why a plateau might be happening, they’re far more likely to stay engaged and consistent.

“As for devaluing traditional programs, I’d argue the opposite. AI handles more of the science, interpretation, and day-to-day adaptation, which frees coaches to focus on what they’re uniquely good at: judgment, accountability, and the human relationship. The best coaches will become more valuable, not less.”

That trust is important when Fitbod (or another app) recommends you go for a PB when you’re ready, but how does the company balance the need to push a user to a new goal witb the risk of injury?

“It’s something we take seriously. Any system generating workout recommendations at scale carries injury risk if it isn’t built with the right constraints,” Chen acknowledges.

“Most common failure modes are volume spikes, too much, too fast, and failing to respect recovery signals. Fitbod’s architecture is specifically designed to guard against that. The muscle recovery model tracks fatigue at the muscle-group level, and the system adapts recommendations based on training history, recovery, performance, and user feedback.”

“We’re conservative with newer users, and the app is built to adjust if someone struggles with a weight, takes time off, or changes exercises.”

“That same philosophy carries into newer product work. Features like Injury Mode are part of a broader push to make Fitbod more supportive when real life interrupts training. And with future coaching features, we want to help users understand not just what to do, but when to scale, when to modify, and how to train more responsibly.”

“Responsible AI fitness isn’t about pushing people harder at all costs. It’s about helping them progress safely and sustainably.”

Apple’s Health app and Android’s Health Connect functionality will have a role to play in that future, too.

“The long-term vision is a system that knows not just what you lifted last Tuesday, but how well you’ve been recovering, how your heart rate is responding during training, and what that means for what you should do today. Over time, better data infrastructure makes it possible for coaching to become more proactive.

"Instead of only reacting to what a user logged after the fact, the app can become better at helping them understand what’s happening in the moment and what adjustment makes sense next.”

Finally, I wanted to ask how best to take advantage of Fitbod’s feature set. I’ve been using it for a while, but it never hurts to learn more.

“Treat setup the way you’d approach your first session with a personal trainer. Give it real information: your actual fitness level, your real goals, your actual schedule, and your real equipment. The quality of what Fitbod generates is directly proportional to the quality of your inputs.”

“Second, log consistently, especially when you change something. When you swap exercises, adjust weights, change reps, or work through a plateau, that data helps the system learn. The program compounds with use.”

“Third, use the features that make progress visible. Focus Exercises [like squats, bench press, and other cornerstone lifts] are a great example because they help users stay anchored to lifts they care about most. Metrics, percentiles, charts, and insights all matter because they turn vague feelings into something measurable. That’s especially important on the days when progress feels invisible.”

“And more broadly: strength training is one of the highest-leverage health investments most people can make. It affects metabolism, bone density, injury resilience, longevity, and day-to-day quality of life. If you’re not doing it, start. If you are, get more systematic about it. That’s exactly what we’re building Fitbod to support.”

• Google Health 5.02 is now rolling out to users
• It comes with several new features and bug fixes
• The reaction online is becoming more positive

The big switch for Fitbit app users to the Google Health app could've gone a lot smoother than it has, but with the latest update that's rolling out to devices now, Google seems to be gradually addressing a lot of the complaints that have been aired.

As spotted by Android Police, Google Health 5.02 is heading to phones now. There's also a forum post outlining some of the changes: the ability to put more metrics on the Today view and an easier way to rearrange them, fixes for editing and deleting sleep sessions, and a return for the Hourly Activity chart.

There are also numerous "bug fixes and stability improvements", as well as improvements to nutrition logging. A lot of these changes focus specifically on parts of the app that users had complained about, so it seems Google is listening to feedback.

We also have the promise of more updates "in the coming weeks", so Google Health should continue to get better over time. There was also a significant update earlier this month that dealt with several problems that had been reported in the app.

User reactions

Google Health app 5.02 update - June 2026 from r/fitbit

There's been plenty of reaction online to the revamping of the Fitbit app as Google Health. Many of the old features were changed, moved, or cut out entirely — while the change understandably frustrated those who had been using the app for years.

Based on the feedback we're now seeing, Google is slowly winning people over again, though there's still a lot of work to do. "It seems they're genuinely working hard to improve it," says one Redditor, while others are praising the Google team for "solid work" and generally being more positive.

That doesn't mean everyone is convinced yet though. One post says there's "no fixes to the real issues" (like better syncing and importing), while others point out that the algorithms used by the app are still unreliable.

The new AI coach is still getting criticized as well, for being too intrusive and verbose: "Nobody wants two paragraphs after a walk through the park," says one user on Reddit. "A one-liner and the ability to expand is needed here."

• TechRadar is running a live Q&A in the lead-up to our Oura Ring 5 review
• Leave a comment with what you're most interested in hearing about below
• You can ask questions all week before the Q&A closes

The Oura Ring 5 only started shipping just over a week ago, but it's already causing a stir, with early impressions mostly positive across the board — thanks to being such a substantial, visible upgrade over the previous model.

I'm currently testing what Oura claims to be "the world's smallest smart ring", and while I can't yet access every feature in the app — some require at least 30 days of continuous wear to establish personal health baselines — the ring design itself is a big step up.

It's significantly more petite than the Oura Ring 4, both in form and weight, which gives it a much better fit and makes it more comfortable to wear. While I'm still in the process of determining a final verdict on its performance, accuracy and value, I'm happy to answer any questions you might have.

Want to know if it feels noticeably different compared to the Ring 4? If you can still wear it while typing or lifting weights without it feeling bulky? Or how long the battery really lasts? Drop your question in the comment box below, and I'll get back to you.

This live Q&A will remain open until early next week, when my Oura Ring 5 review will be published. Because I won't yet have unlocked every new feature that's available, my verdict will be based on an early assessment of what I have been able to test in just over two weeks.

That's why I'm opening this testing period up to you. I want to know what your biggest questions are about what could be the best smart ring available. Of course, I'll be looking at its price, design, features, and performance to determine a final value score, but I know that won't cover everything.

There are countless questions I imagine many of you will likely have before clicking buy on a $399 / £399 / AU$649 smart ring — or $499 / £499 / AU$799 if you're considering one of the more premium finishes — so let me know what you're weighing up, and I'll try to help where I can.

What are TechRadar saying about the Oura Ring 5?

I already know from the early results of the poll above that most TechRadar readers don't want to spend the extra $50 / £50 / AU$80 that the Ring 5 costs over the Ring 4, but many of you said you would wait to see what the reviews say.

If that's you, this is your chance to get a behind-the-scenes look at the testing process. As I noted above, I haven't yet been able to explore all the new features Oura Ring 5 brings, but some of the basic features are unlocked after 10 days of wear, so I can give you early answers on whether they're actually useful.

Which brings me to another caveat, because I live in the UK, I don't have access to every new feature that Oura is currently rolling out, which means I won't be able to test the new 'Lab Uploads', 'Brain Health Study,' and 'Health Radar' at all.

That's a shame because those three features are among the most sought after, judging by the results of the above poll, which shows that the majority (40%) of TechRadar readers are most excited to try 'Health Radar: Blood Pressure Signals'.

'Brain Health Study', 'Nighttime Breathing', which is part of 'Health Radar', and 'Lab Uploads' also ranked highly among readers, raising the question of whether the Oura Ring 5 is most suited to those who live stateside.

Let me know if missing out on those new features is a deal breaker for you? I'll be considering all aspects, like these regional limitations, in my review.

I’ve been testing the best fitness apps for many years now, and while I’m very grateful they all exist (after all, no one app will work for every user), it’s hard not to feel as though things have stagnated somewhat.

The AI boom (or bubble that could burst, depending on who you ask) means we have more options for AI fitness algorithms to pore over data than ever before, whether you’re using them on a phone or one of the best smartwatches.

BetterMe is a more holistic app that I’m used to, wrapping in just about every tenet of fitness and wellbeing, and while it’s a little overwhelming at first, I’ve slipped into a nice rhythm with it.

Not just curls and squats

My go-to fitness app is Fitbod, and it has been for years. I appreciate its relative simplicity, its regular updates, and the fact that I can track how each muscle set grows in strength (plus the Spotify Wrapped-alike end-of-year review is always fun).

BetterMe, in many ways, dwarfs Fitbod and other rivals in terms of its sheer scale. This Ukrainian app has existed for almost a decade, and it shows — it’s absolutely packed with features that run the gamut from food plans to guided challenges, and a more traditional way of using it as a digital notebook to track reps and weights.

Workouts themselves are easy to follow, with rest stops between sets built into each program, along with warm-ups. You can also stream your workout info to your TV or Mac, which is a nice touch if you want a larger canvas for your metrics.

I also appreciate the “Common Mistakes” section. If you’ve not used a particular piece of gym equipment before, for example, this can highlight the best way to do so safely. For leg extension (one of my favorites, for example), it advised against heavy lifting, high reps, going too fast, or locking the knees.

If you are looking to use BetterMe without a membership, you can use many of the workout tracking tools without needing to pay anything, but you’ll have access to an encyclopedia of exercises if you want to pay for a one-week plan or above, like the paid tiers of many other fitness apps like Google Health Premium.

That’s where BetterMe’s ambitions will be tough to take for some: by incorporating so much under one umbrella, it’s fairly pricey, especially once you start adding additional options like Mindfulness to the standard plan framework that you can get for $14.99 (around £11 / AU$21) a month.

It’s also not always entirely clear how much each extra option will cost, because payment information is obfuscated in the app and on the BetterMe website. This is a design choice that, admittedly, makes me feel a little uneasy about using the app. There is, thankfully, a week’s free trial to test BetterMe.

Value packing

And yet, if I wanted a one-stop shop for fitness, this is where I’d lay my money. BetterMe offers calorie and hydration tracking, meal plans, meditation, and exercise guides.

It’s not uncommon for a fitness app to have a sort of ‘Dashboard’ view with key metrics, but BetterMe’s relatively minimal colors and visual stylings make it much easier to see a week’s worth of workouts at a glance.

One of my favorite parts is the way each day is mapped out like a sort of task list. It begins with mindfulness exercises, then logging calories, a workout, a weigh-in, water intake, and more.

I’m also a big fan of the workout categories. Some apps dump a whole bunch of exercises into a list and call it a day, but I appreciate that there are Micro Workouts for those days where time is limited, pilates plans (including wall variants), and more focused exercises like boxing, chair yoga, and kegel for sexual wellness.

Many of these can then be splintered off into specific muscle categories, meaning there’s a ton of value here for those who like to mix things up regularly and keep their body guessing.

There really is so much content here that, after weeks of testing, I’m still not sure I’ve seen the bottom yet. While I’m not entirely sure BetterMe is the workout app I’d choose given how many features I wouldn’t use regularly, if you’re looking for something that offers a mind-boggling all-in-one solution, it’s one of the slickest, most comprehensive fitness apps I’ve tested.

I've been reviewing the Google Fitbit Air this week, testing all its features in a bid to figure out where it sits among our lists of the best fitness trackers — and those features include the new Google Health app and its premium Google Health Coach service.

Fitbit users have been furious at the changes, and Google has rolled out a number of quality-of-life fixes, but there's no deviating from the nature of the app. Like it or not, Fitbit Premium has transformed into an AI-first service — and Samsung is apparently next.

When I began testing it, I was fully prepared to go all-in with my inherent dislike of chatting and interacting with AI via text. Outside of testing, I wasn't a regular Fitbit user, so I didn't have the rug-pull removal of community features, such as badges and challenges, factoring into my process. I was judging the app purely on its own merits.

But by the end of the testing period... I actually quite liked it. Below, I've outlined exactly why. There are things I disliked about the premium portion of Google's controversial new app — so for transparency's sake, I've outlined those too.

Google Health Coach: The pros

1. Flexibility

The base Google Health app has features spread across four tabs, and looking for features and metrics meant trawling through the entirety of the app, which I didn't love. It wasn't intuitive to use. Unlike apps like Whoop and Oura, there wasn't a 'tag' system to record extenuating factors like jet lag or illness.

This is where I actually enjoyed using the AI coach, by using it to compensate for this lackluster design. After a gym session, during which I noted my sets, reps and amount of weights lifted, I copied and pasted my notes into the Google Health Coach's 'Ask Coach' field and told it to log that session. Not only did it do so with the correct moves and amounts, but it also recommended a workout for me to do later in the week to hit alternating muscle groups.

I asked it to design three gym sessions for me based on a 5x5 set-rep structure, focusing on pushing, pulling and legs as my key muscle groups, and it did just that. I told the Coach I was feeling ill, and it incorporated this into future feedback on exercise and rest. You can use this one feature as a 'macro feature' to operate the rest of the app, and it's incredibly flexible.

2. Memory and context

While the coach is overzealous with the summaries it provides, hiding vital information in reams of text, it did at least provide useful content and context. When I logged a short 2.5K run, for example, the Coach said "this is a solid way to test your lungs after that cold", remembering that I had been ill and placing a shorter run in that context.

Anything you tell the Coach is logged and remembered, from your gym goals to asking it to dial down its sycophantic tone, and this is a useful tool for a fitness app when it comes to surfacing important context. If you failed to complete the prescribed bench press reps on set 3 of 5, for example, the Coach might point to your recent illness or low readiness score as the reason why.

3. Food Logging

By simply snapping a photo of your food and uploading it to the AI, the Google Health Coach can log food and drink. The Google Health Coach provided exact measurements of packaged food that I photographed, including sugar, salt and fat content, with just a photo and the instruction 'log this'.

It also provided reasonable estimations of home-cooked meals, provided I added some context like "Log this lentil-potato curry", along with helpful information such as the average fiber content of lentils and macronutrient estimations for the meal. It's not going to be pinpoint-accurate when working off a photo, but if you're interested in losing or gaining weight, it's a useful baseline to go off. The more detail you can give it, such as weights or portion sizes, the better.

Google Health Coach: The cons

1. The sycophantic tone

An ever-present issue with chatbots is the sycophantic "Great job getting after it!" style of overly cheery yet somehow very corporate enthusiasm that rings hollow coming from a glorified predictive text machine, and it's no different here. The ersatz friendliness and desire to please you is everything I loathe about interacting with chatbots.

Fortunately, a simple request to the chatbot can remind it to be less encouraging and more neutral in tone, although this can take multiple tries before it gets the message.

2. The fact that it's Google

If I were being cynical, Google's decision to force former Fitbit Premium and current Google Health Premium subscribers to interact with an AI chatbot mirrors the decisions of its business as a whole. AI Mode is a constant in Google Chrome, while Google Search's AI summaries cannot be bypassed or turned off.

Google is a data and ad company that is now AI-first as a rule, with interactions going towards improving its AI services. Google has pledged not to use Fitbit data as part of its Google Ads service — but it's only done so because it was forced to by a European Union directive when it bought Fitbit in 2020, and those commitments are legally binding for 10 years. I think in a few short years, it's conceivable that our health data will be feeding Google's algorithms and helping to 'personalize' our new agentic internet. In short, to feed us ads.

That doesn't change the fact that the Google Health Coach is a good service in its current form, and the best health-focused AI assistant I've ever used. But do go into any such usage agreements with your eyes open, especially as Google is keen for you to upload medical records into the app.

• Google has rolled out its first Google Health upgrades following user backlash
• It includes improvements to food logging and activity accuracy
• Despite the 14 new upgrades, it still hasn't scratched the surface for users

Ever since Google Health became the new app for Fitbit users, it’s been met with a tidal wave of criticism for its clunkiness and lack of vital features — but Google has rolled out a huge update after promising to make improvements a few weeks ago.

Yesterday (June 4) Google unveiled version 5.01 of the Google Health app, marking what the company says will be “the first of many improvements to come”. The update will continue to roll out over the next week in phases, and will depend on your carrier and device type, Google says.

The new upgrades are designed to fix a number of pain points which users flagged when they first made the switch from the Fitbit app. In total, there are 14 new improvements split across four different categories, starting with nutrition.

Building the negative feedback to its food logging functions, Google has upgraded this tool allowing you to view and log previously-created custom foods, as well as improved handling when transferring food logs from third party apps like MyFitnessPal. Additionally, Google has added more explanations and guidance for setting your personal macronutrient goals, which also comes with a more accurate nutrition and calories charts.

Exercise tracking has been another persisting issue for Google Health users, particularly with tracking and labelling runs. Google says it’s now fixed this issue and new and previous workouts will now be labelled correctly. It’s also fixed an issue where users reported missing splits in their runs, and Google says these have been restored — as has the Sleep Score tab, which a handful of users reported had disappeared.

Google hasn’t just patched up its fitness tracking tools, but is also rolling out general app improvements, including one for your Today Tab on Android where users reported seeing out-of-date metrics. You can view the full list of Google Health’s new updates on Google’s support page.

Is this enough of a crowd-pleaser?

Given the level of ferocity expressed by users who’ve been forced to abandon the Fitbit app for Google’s new fitness platform, it’s a good thing that Google is acknowledging these issues — especially for those who have just purchased the new Google Fitbit Air . However, it turns out that the 14 new upgrades only scratch the surface.

Since Google announced version 5.01 users have stormed Reddit once more to air their thoughts — one user called the app “an utter downgrade from Fitbit”. At the same time, others have flagged more functions that are still missing from Google Health.

One user in particular expressed their dislike for Google Health’s thumbs up/ down icons which they say appear on every item in the homescreen. This is understandable, it’s not supposed to be like Strava where fitness meets social media. In addition to this, another user flagged that when they’re recording an activity in Google Health, they’re unable to use any other part of the app, which seems bewilderingly restrictive.

As Google said, version 5.01 is just the first stage in its plans to give the Google Health app an overhaul, but how long it’ll be before the next stage arrives we don’t know. That said, if Google doesn’t want Fitbit users to make the switch over to rivals like Garmin, it needs to make these changes sooner rather than later.

Google Fitbit Air: One minute review

For a simple device, there’s a lot going on with the Google Fitbit Air. People feel very strongly about it, for better or for worse, and there’s been a lot of chatter and interest surrounding its release. My experience actually wearing the device has generally been very positive, with tracking accuracy comparable to that offered by my Apple Watch Ultra 3, which is pretty much the gold standard for wrist-based health tracking. Metrics relying on the tracker’s onboard heart-rate monitoring are reliable, matching the Apple Watch closely during work, rest, and exercise during my week with the Fitbit Air.

Set-and-forget trackers are clearly having a moment. Oura has released the Oura Ring 5 just one year after the Ring 4, and Whoop’s success has given rise to a number of copycats from brands looking to recreate the experience of a distraction-free screenless ‘focus band’ for a less premium price.

Google is one such copycat, but the screenless, slender form factor suits the Fitbit brand — the original Fitbit was a digital pedometer — down to the ground. It speaks to the core of what Fitbit used to be, before it became just another company churning out mediocre smartwatches running a limited proprietary operating system. Your Fitbit was always meant to be a discreet little device, and devices don’t come more discreet than the Google Fitbit Air. Weighing just 12g and using a very slender 17mm-wide band, the Fitbit Air is a lovely and (crucially) comfortable device to wear and use. It’s much more comfortable to wear during sleep than any full smartwatch I’ve ever tried (and I have tried a lot), or even the Whoop.

However, it’s hard to separate the Fitbit Air from the Google Health app, with Google’s redesign of the Fitbit app causing particular ire amongst Fitbit users. The app is a bit of a mess, and not intuitive to use, with features dotted all over the place. It feels like it’s designed to primarily function as a home for the AI Health Coach chatbot, which is very intelligent and perhaps the best in-app AI assistant I’ve tried, but it’s not the best way to operate a health app. Whoop’s balance of AI and on-page metrics is much better.

If you’re looking for a consistent screenless focus band to track different sorts of workouts like gym, sports, and yoga, alongside sleep, heart health and general wellness, you can use the Google Fitbit Air as is, paying just the up-front price, and keep your tracking simple.

Whether or not you can get onboard with the Premium option will depend on how much you like chatbots — I found its flexibility immensely helpful, but its constant chirpy summaries and insistence on hiding my data inside walls of text became annoying, so it’s a mixed bag for me. Overall, though, this is the best, most interesting Fitbit to have been released in years.

Google Fitbit Air: Price and availability

• $99.99 in the US
• £84.99 in the UK
• AU$199 in Australia

The Google Fitbit Air costs $99.99 / £84.99 / AU$199, and for that you get the tracker, a band of your choice, and a charger specific to the Google Fitbit Air — proving once again that Google seems to be allergic to making a charger that’s compatible with more than one device.

The Google Health Premium subscription, which gives you access to Google’s AI Health Coach, costs $9.99 / £7.99 / AU$14.99 a month, or $99.99 / £79.99 / AU$140 annually. Existing Google AI Pro members get it at no extra cost.

For comparison, the cheapest Apple Watch SE 3 starts at $249 / £219 / AU$399, while Whoop’s complex pricing structure begins at £169 / $199 / AU$299 per year for the lowest tier. The Google Fitbit Air’s pricing is cheap for what you get, with the Health Coach as an optional add-on rather than a mandatory subscription.

• Value score: 4.5/5

Google Fitbit Air review: Design

• Simple, screenless and elegant
• Light and comfortable
• App design is chaotic

The Google Fitbit Air’s design can be split into two components: the physical device, which is excellent, and the new Google Health app, which is a bit of a misfire.

Let’s start with the positives. The Fitbit Air comprises the tracker itself, and a wraparound band in a choice of three styles — a silicone Active band, the woven Performance Loop, or the polyurethane (pleather) Elevated Modern band. Each comes with their own color options, and a plastic clasp. On the underside of the tracker are the optical heart rate sensor, skin temperature sensor, and an accelerometer and gyroscope for counting steps.

It weighs just 12g, even with the Performance Loop strap, so it’s light and easy to wear, which is crucial for sleep tracking. I wore it on my right wrist, with a watch on my left during the day, and I didn’t feel like an obnoxious techie: unless someone looks closely, it just looks like a wristband, with the lack of a screen helping here. The Performance Loop strap that came with my review unit is the best-looking of the three options in this respect, but none of them look bad.

The tracker also has a haptic vibrate function — if you set an alarm in the app, this can be disabled with a tap on the top of the device. And that’s pretty much all the interaction you have with the sensor and band as a whole; everything else, as with one of the best smart rings or other screenless tracking options, is done via the app.

The app is where Google’s design falls down. Split into four tabs — Today, Fitness, Sleep and Health — the Google Health app features a dashboard with key metrics at the top, and insights or libraries of content below it.

But with information scattered across a quartet of tabs, it’s hard to find certain granular metrics or content you’re looking for compared to the old Fitbit app. I searched for Mindfulness content for 10 minutes before finding the five-minute meditation I was after, for example, and I often ended up starting new chats with the AI coach rather than resuming a chat from my history. It’s just not intuitive to use.

What is right in your face, for Premium users, is the AI coach, which cloaks your metrics in paragraphs of cheery text, so it takes longer to get to your information. It’s clever, and we’ll get onto its functionality in a moment, but I wish it summarized and contextualized less, and just offered more 'glanceability'.

• Design score: 3.5/5

Google Fitbit Air review: Features

• Set-and-forget tracker with a haptic alarm
• Good metrics
• AI Health Coach is a flexible macro-feature

The Fitbit Air records the usual metrics you’d expect with a modern fitness tracker, including step count, heart rate, floors climbed, sleep stages, and so forth. Fitbit’s Daily Readiness score shows you how prepared your body is for exercise, based on recent activity and sleep scores, while it also surfaces weekly cardio goals, hydration, and basic food logging. It can offer irregular heart rate rhythm notifications, which is great for potentially diagnosing atrial fibrilation, and allows you to take an ECG scan manually to monitor your heart health.

Basic tracking is all the free version gets you; there’s no workout builder, mindfulness content, way to log sickness, or any other extras beyond the numbers. It doesn’t add any special metrics for runners, such as stride or cadence, as many of the best running watches do. For some users who just want the numbers, this will be fine, with no need to subscribe to the Premium tier.

For Premium users, food logging can be done via the AI Health Coach, by taking a picture of your food. It’s very good at logging packaged food (it was bang on logging a crinkled package of chips with the message ‘log this’ as a 74kcal snack, also breaking down macros and salt content) but can struggle with plates of homemade food, although a basic description such as ‘log this lentil curry’ is enough for it to provide an estimation. The more information you can provide (weights and measures, etc), the more detailed it gets.

Those without the Health Coach can log food manually, as you can in other apps like MyFitnessPal.

The app also has access to Fitbit’s library of workout and meditation content, including individual moves, which you can use to build your own workout. Again, this is only available through the Premium subscription.

Through it all runs the AI Health Coach, which I actually found to be useful. Although there was no field to input illness as such, I typed my cold symptoms out to the Health Coach, and it remembered I was ill and adjusted its messaging and advice throughout the rest of the week based on my symptoms. I went to the gym without following one of the app’s pre-prescribed workouts, typed my sets and reps into the Coach’s ‘Ask Coach’ field, and it not only logged the workout, but suggested complementary routines to work different muscle groups for the rest of the week.

The AI Coach is a flexible ‘macro-feature’ that works well in conjunction with the rest of the app, and almost allows you to bypass the chaotic layout: you can just ask the Coach to serve you up what you need, which I’m sure was Google’s intent. Your use of the Coach will depend on your tolerance for chatbots: those who use Gemini or ChatGPT for everything will get a lot out of it, while those who loathe AI and just want numbers will likely loathe the Premium tier.

• Features score: 4/5

Google Fitbit Air review: Performance

• Performed well compared to the Apple Watch Ultra 3 in most scenarios
• Poor run estimations
• Battery life as described

As I noted when I compared the Google Fitbit Air against the Apple Watch Ultra 3, the tracker performed well during my 10K test run, at least for the metrics like heart rate and calorie count, which it can use its onboard sensors for. The metrics it uses my phone's GPS to estimate, like distance, were off significantly.

I’ve embedded the results below, but generally there was no statistically significant difference between heart rate or calorie estimations from the two devices. I'll be updating the review with confirmation of heart rate scores tested against a new Polar H10 chest strap, as my old testing unit has malfunctioned.

Previous

1 / 4

Next

Average heart rate

Google Fitbit Air

158

Apple Watch Ultra 3

161

050100150200

Average heart rate Data

Product	Value
Google Fitbit Air	158
Apple Watch Ultra 3	161

Average Pace

Google Fitbit Air

5.37

Apple Watch Ultra 3

5.47

01.534.56

Average Pace Data

Product	Value
Google Fitbit Air	5.37
Apple Watch Ultra 3	5.47

Calories burned

Google Fitbit Air

773

Apple Watch Ultra 3

750

0200400600800

Calories burned Data

Product	Value
Google Fitbit Air	773
Apple Watch Ultra 3	750

Distance

Google Fitbit Air

10.43

Apple Watch Ultra 3

10.03

03.757.511.2515

Kilometers

Distance Data

Product	Value
Google Fitbit Air	10.43
Apple Watch Ultra 3	10.03

My experience of tracking my sleep with the same two devices — I wore one on each wrist — was similar to the above, with close enough metrics but slightly different outcomes.

The Fitbit Air’s total sleep time estimation was within five minutes of the Apple Watch, and sleep stages were similar. However, while my sleep score was 90 with the Apple Watch, Fitbit registered it as only 81, citing a 10-point difference in sleep quality. However, the Google Fitbit Air’s sleep tracking has consistently registered my wake-up times during testing, successfully recording my early-hours bathroom trips and my cat jumping on my legs at 5am.

Because of the lack of a screen, GPS, and specialist metrics, regular runners won’t get a whole lot out of the Fitbit Air. Compared to my usual wealth of data from Apple or the best Garmin watches, I found it lacking, and my GPS map — imported from my phone, as the Air has no GPS of its own —- inaccurate, off by 400m compared to the Apple Watch.

Battery life is excellent, exceeding the seven days the device promised. Charging is fast, with just five minutes delivering a full day of battery life, and a full charge taking around an hour. The device is very comfortable to wear, as previously mentioned — I’ve barely needed to take it off all week.

• Performance score: 4.5 / 5

Google Fitbit Air: Scorecard

Google Fitbit Air: Should I buy?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

Also consider

How I tested

I wore the Google Fitbit Air for eight days straight. I ran a 10K while wearing an Apple Watch Ultra 3 and (malfunctioning) Polar H10 chest strap, and a shorter run with a Huawei Watch Fit 5 Pro, as comparison testing alongside my usual workout routines. I also wore the Apple and Fitbit side-by-side during sleep. I tested its alarm, tried the features of its premium Health Coach, and used the app's workout and mindfulness content.

First reviewed: June 2026

A huge chunk of our lives are spent online now — working, gaming, watching, reading, and communicating — and at the center of that is the router (or even mesh Wi-Fi system) that pipes the internet into your home.

While most of us are likely to forget about the router once it's set up, and get on with the business of getting online, there are numerous useful settings on these devices that are worth knowing about. And one of those is the guest network.

You'll find it on most modern routers and mesh systems, and its primary purpose is for guests, as the name suggests: you can give visitors to your home access to the web without letting them snoop around any other devices you've got hooked up to the Wi-Fi.

However, you can use this extra network for much more than just guests — it's suitable for any kind of device that requires internet access but is best kept away from your most important gadgets (like phones and laptops).

What to use your guest network for

When you go to look up available Wi-Fi networks on something you're using, a guest network shows up as a separate entry to your regular Wi-Fi network, though it's run through the same router or mesh Wi-Fi system (which handles the job of keeping the separate network running independently).

If guests connect to this additional network, they can get online, but they can't do anything else network-related: they can't look at your connected computers, tablets, or phones, they can't access networked printers or storage connected to the network, or start logging into and controlling your various smart home devices (from security cameras to smart speakers).

That kind of siloing is useful for other devices too, not just visitors. For example, you can put your kids on it: You can toggle the guest network off at bedtime, without interrupting your own access to the web. It's not the most advanced parental control feature, but it works (and it could be helpful if parental controls on your router are a paid extra).

Then there are TVs. These devices need internet access these days, but they also tend to do a lot of data collection for their manufacturers — including, perhaps, what other devices are on your network. Putting a TV on a guest network means it can't find out quite as much about you and your home.

It's also a good idea to put some smart home devices on your guest network too — the ones that it doesn't matter too much if your guests 'see' them connected (maybe a Wi-Fi plug or a smart coffee maker). The security protections on these devices can sometimes be less well put together than on other gadgets, and if they are compromised remotely, the potential threat is not as serious if they aren't connected to your main Wi-Fi network.

How to enable the guest network

There are a multitude of routers and mesh Wi-Fi systems out there on the market, so obviously we can't give you precise instructions for enabling the guest network on all of them. However, it shouldn't be difficult to find: most manufacturers put the feature somewhere pretty prominently in the settings.

Whatever is managing the Wi-Fi around your home will most probably come with an app that runs on your phone, and if that's the case, the guest network option should be somewhere in that app. You might also be able to enable the guest network through a web interface for your router or mesh Wi-Fi system, accessed through your browser.

If you get stuck, refer to the documentation that came with your hardware, or run a quick web search that includes the manufacturer and model name of your router. If you're unsure about this, a quick glance at the device itself should tell you — look for a brand name, and a sticker with a barcode and serial number on it.

We'll give you one specific set of instructions, for Amazon's Eero mesh Wi-Fi systems. If you're using the Eero app on your phone, open the Settings tab, then tap Guest wifi network. Turn on the Enable guest network toggle switch, then tap Save (top right). You can enable and disable the extra network as needed.

Configuring the guest network shouldn't be an involved process, whatever type of internet access device you've got installed. You'll typically have to specify a name for the network (which pops up as an option when someone tries to connect to it), and then set a password which is required to connect to it.

You might have noticed the furore around users being forced to switch from the Fitbit app to the Google Health app this month, and it's an update that's happened on my phone too now: five years after Google acquired Fitbit, the Fitbit app is now no more, though the brand name lives in with the new Google Fitbit Air.

I don't mind the new app too much, even if it's not quite as well laid out or as intuitive as the old Fitbit one, but it's the Google Health Coach that I have the biggest reservations about. This AI-powered helper promises to provide personalized, insightful advice on your fitness and well-being, and you can interact with it in an easy, conversational way.

So far I'm not convinced, and I'll explain why. Note that I pay for Google AI Pro (mostly so that I can write about its features for work), so I get all the features of Google Health Premium and the AI Coach included. Separately, a lot of the AI Coach add-ons will set you back $9.99 / £7.99 / AU$14.99 a month.

Google Health Coach really is here to help

No sooner had I switched to the Google Health app than I was being politely but firmly onboarded with the AI Coach, to give me that bespoke fitness advice that I've clearly been missing up to this point. My coach and I started with a rather awkward conversation where I got reams of text on what the AI could do, and I politely asked to keep the well-being tips simple and general for now.

I like to keep track of sleep, steps, and how much water I'm taking in each day, and to counteract the health impacts of a desk job by keeping active. Beyond that though, and a bit of 5-a-side, I don't really have any health goals — I don't run or cycle, and I'm not looking to hit any specific targets through the rest of 2026.

Right from the first day of using Google Health, I opened the app to find a long block of AI-generated text — in that familiar, polished, peppy AI style — telling me about my recovery wins and that I'd logged eight hours of sleep. I also got a weather report included. So it was essentially taking up two-thirds of the screen to give me the same information I could get from a glance at the widget at the top of the page and a quick weather check.

The AI advice was of course followed by some preset responses I could use to report how I was feeling and continue the conversation, but I declined. As far as I can tell, there's no way to turn this Health Coach off, which seems strange — though presumably if you don't have the full premium subscription, you'll see less of it.

I have to acknowledge that the AI may get better over time, and I'm writing this after just a few days with it — maybe in future months and years it'll serve up some dazzling fitness insights. For now though, it seems to do a lot of stating the obvious, and using a lot of words and screen real estate along the way.

AI can and does make mistakes

At the bottom of your conversations with the Google Health Coach you'll see a familiar warning: "Coach is AI and can make mistakes. Not for medical advice." It's similar to the caveats you'll see under chats with the regular Gemini bot, or with the AI Overviews that now constantly pop up when you're searching for something in Google.

The inherently flawed nature of generative AI seems to be something that many people are just accepting now — that it doesn't really matter if AI makes mistakes, or that it gets it right often enough that a few inconsistencies can be overlooked. But this technology does genuinely make mistakes and spread misinformation, pretty regularly.

When I was researching this article, Google's AI Overviews told me a Google Health Premium subscription in Australia was AU$9.99 a month, and I had to go to the official Google post to find the right number. So we're on zero days since AI last made a mistake. Is it therefore wise to be relying on it for fitness and health advice?

Exactly how often will the AI Coach make mistakes? In what kind of areas? Is it going to tell me I got more sleep last week than I actually did? Will it put me on a six-month strength building program that actually reduces my strength? I'm sure it'll work most of the time, as our fitness editor Matt Evans has already found out, but what about when it doesn't?

I'd rather check my sleep and step stats myself, if it's all the same thanks Google — just like I have been doing for years. If Google is looking for ways to improve the AI Coach in future versions of its app, I'd suggest giving us a way to hide it behind a separate tab, so we can look at the most reliable data first.

I'll give the last word to the last message my AI Coach sent me: "{'call_tool':'end_of_conversation')".

• Google Health is now replacing the Fitbit app for most users
• Many Fitbit fans are unhappy about the switch due to missing features
• Google has promised that regular updates and fixes are coming

We're now at the stage where the Google Health app has replaced the Fitbit app for most users on Android and iOS, and Google has just posted an update promising regular improvements and bug fixes, as well as committing to listening to feedback — and there's an awful lot of feedback to get through.

We got a hint of the user revolt that was coming when the Google Health update started rolling out, but now that everyone has the new app, the number of negative reactions has increased exponentially. Users are complaining about missing features, poor user interface choices, and AI they don't really want.

"It's just an atrocious app," is one of the reactions on Reddit that sums up the general mood. Other commenters describe the Google Health update as "unbelievably bad", "clunky", and repeatedly showing "incorrect data".

While a few bumps along the road are to be expected in a major switch like this, it seems users really, really don't like what they're seeing. Previously loyal Fitbit fans — many of whom have owned Fitbits since before Google acquired the company — now say they're switching to Garmin and other competitors.

Fixes and upgrades on the way

wtf is this bs app? I want a refund from r/fitbit

A lot of complaints center around the new look of the Google Health app, which is busier and more cluttered than the old Fitbit one. There's a lot of room given over to the Google Health AI Coach too, though advanced AI features are only available for those with Google Health Premium (previously Fitbit Premium) subscriptions.

According to the survey we ran earlier this month, only 20% of you will be handing over money for the extra AI Coach features, and that's a sentiment reflected in the feedback we're seeing online: most users would still rather analyze their stats themselves.

The food logging capabilities of the new Google Health app have come in for a lot of criticism too, and this is actually something Google says it will address. The ability to "add custom food viewing, creation, and logging" is included on a lengthy list of upgrades due to roll out starting this week.

Other bug fixes and improvements cover issues with exercise tracking (including runs that are inaccurately labeled), calorie tracking, and missing Sleep Scores, as well as making the AI Coach "more concise" in its answers. Google clearly has a lot of work to do with its new app, and that's reflected in the reaction from users.

We all knew this was coming eventually. In the five years since Google completed its acquisition of Fitbit, there have been enough changes — such as every Fitbit app user needing mandatory Google accounts, Fitbit community features getting axed, and smartwatches reduced in priority in favor of Google’s own Pixel Watch — to signpost that Fitbit users would eventually become Google users.

Now, the Fitbit app is about to become Google Health, in a mandatory update that’s part of a sweeping AI-powered app redesign, coinciding with the launch of the new Google Fitbit Air (yes, that’s the full name, and you can expect any future Fitbits to have the ‘Google’ prefix in there too).

What does this mean for existing, longtime Fitbit users? Do you have to update? What if you already own a Fitbit? What about Fitbit Premium? And are there any changes to the way Google is handling your data? We’re here to answer all your questions with this handy guide.

1. The update is happening for all Fitbit users — whether you like it or not

If you’re a Fitbit user on either the free or premium tiers, you’re getting updated to Google Health. Google Health is billed as a new version of the service, that’s also replacing Google’s native, now-redundant Google Fit and Google Health Connect apps.

It works with Apple Health, Peloton, continuous glucose monitors like Lingo, and hundreds of other apps and devices, so you don’t have to be on an Android phone to use it despite being a Google app. It’s billed as “a cleaner view of your health and wellness”, organising your data across four tabs — Today, Fitness, Sleep and Health.

Once your app updates, you’ll see a new logo, a new layout, but you’ll still be able to access all your old data and use all the best Fitbits (among other devices) to collect health information.

2. It’s now a home for medical records too

Google Health will also allow you to host your medical records on the app, allowing you to export and share data, creating reports accessible via sharable ‘smart health’ QR codes to share with doctors and medical providers.

In a press briefing, Google reaffirmed the commitment it made on acquiring Fitbit, to keep health data separate from Google Ads. That commitment, made with the EU commission in 2020, is legally binding for at least 10 years.

3. Fitbit Premium is now Google Health Coach

While Fitbit had a free and premium tier and Google Health continues that tradition, like so many of the best fitness apps nowadays, Google Health’s premium option is now based around an AI fitness coach. The Google Health Coach has been ‘grounded in scientific and well-established coaching and fitness frameworks’ according to Google, with a Consumer Health Advisory Panel of experts providing feedback and guidance for the coach’s development, to limit any potential harm caused by AI training advice.

The Coach, built with Gemini, can access your data and answer questions about health and wellness, creating training plans which change weekly depending on your performance, offering recipes and nutrition advice, answers questions about injuries, and sleep analysis. It’s described as ‘world-class expertise that’s always available whenever you need it. It constantly adapts based on your personal health and wellness metrics and is uniquely tailored to your goals and real-life circumstances’.

With so many AI-powered training advice services out there, Google is working hard to try and lead this category. It even accesses your medical records or menstrual cycle information should you give it permission to do so. That legally-binding commitment from Google not to use our health information for advertising does make me feel better about allowing Google Health Coach access to this information.

4. The Google Health Coach offers Nutrition Logging

Google Health Coach has a feature similar to Garmin Connect+’s Nutrition Tracking feature: Nutrition Logging, which allows you to set up an adjustable calorie target and upload photos of your meals, which the Coach will use to estimate a calorie or macro count.

You’ll also be able to upload the information manually, but intelligently analysing a quick photo for a calorie or macronutrient count is a useful tool for those serious about losing, maintaining or gaining weight.

5. The price isn’t changing much

Access to Google Health’s premium tier, including Google Health Coach, costs $9.99 / month (other regions TBC, but it’s about £7.50 / AU$14) or $99 / year (around £75 / AU$140). Google Health retains a free tier which allows you to access your uploaded data without the AI-powered insights. The new Google Fitbit Air now comes with just three months of Premium, rather than the six months you get with current-gen Fitbits.

That’s around the same price as Fitbit Premium, which also costs $99 / £7.99 / AU$14.99 a month. Premium subscribers still get access to a library of recipes and workout content from the Fitbit Expert Trainers: however, it seems clear the original Fitbit group challenges and other community features will not be returning anytime soon.

I’d actually heard about the Bevel app before Whoop, makers of some of the best fitness trackers (albeit also some of the most expensive) filed a lawsuit against the creators of the app. It was mainly through ads on my Instagram feed. I eventually bowed to the pressure and downloaded it to see what it was all about.

Then news broke that Whoop had sued Bevel for various things including patent infringements and creating an app that had a likeness to Whoop’s app. So it felt like an apt time to see whether Whoop had a reason to be annoyed to the extent that it had to get legal about it all..

Bevel, which is described as an AI health companion app and a competitor to some of the best fitness apps, launched in 2024. Whoop launched in 2012, so has been out in public for a lot longer than Bevel. Like its hardware, Whoop’s companion app has gone through some changes. Whether those changes were influenced by Bevel or vice versa is a matter that will no doubt be heavily discussed as part of that lawsuit.

I wanted to see for myself if the Bevel app was exactly like the Whoop one. Here’s what I found out after using it for a few weeks.

Before talking about the app, it’s worth explaining how Bevel actually works. Unlike Whoop, there isn’t Bevel hardware you need to buy. Instead, it lets you sync data from wearables you already own. That currently includes the Apple Watch, Oura Ring 4 and the best Garmin watches. It also works with Strava if you mainly track your workouts there too.

It will actually let you sync data from multiple devices and also ensure you’re not pushing duplicate data from those devices into the app. So if you take your Oura to bed to track sleep and do everything else with your Apple Watch during the day, you can have all the data in one place.

The app is free to use, with a subscription element also available to unlock additional features. The subscription works out to paying $79.99/£49.99 a year to subscribe. To put that into context, the cheapest Whoop subscription tier costs £169/$199 a year.

Bevel does give you the option to trial the premium version for 14 days as well before deciding whether you want to pay up. I decided to try the free version first before moving onto premium to see what you gain from upgrading.

How Bevel works

The Bevel app is essentially broken into four sections. You have the main Homescreen where you’ll see a snapshot of your data. There’s also a journal page, a place dedicated to collating your fitness data and a tab for showing more health and nutrition-centric metrics like weight and heart rate variability baselines.

As mentioned, all of this data is driven from the device you decide to pair to it. So if your device can’t track a particular piece of data, it won’t be shown. I was testing it with a Garmin Forerunner 970, so only the data I didn’t see was weight. Had I been manually inputting that into Garmin’s Connect app, then that would’ve been pulled through as well.

Straight off the bat, that homescreen does scream Whoop app. Mainly through the inclusion of Strain, Recovery and Sleep progress rings, helping you understand the strain you’ve put on your body, how much recovery time you need and how much sleep you’ve banked. Whoop uses the same metrics, it just orders them slightly differently on the homescreen.

Bevel has a journal feature, just like Whoop has. It also has a health monitor section that hones in on similar data such as temperature, resting heart rate and SpO2 levels. There seems to be a bit more of an emphasis from Bevel on your fitness data, simply because it’s able to harness that data from devices that are more complete in sports tracking terms compared to Whoop, which doesn’t record GPS data. You also have the ability to build workout templates inside of Bevel’s app.

When you go Premium, you’re basically turning on Bevel’s AI-powered intelligence insights to get more tailored guidance and recommendations from your data. Again, this is a feature that Whoop offers through its own companion app, with the premium subscription built in. These insights appear below the Strain, Recovery and Sleep rings on the homescreen. You can expand the insights to launch Bevel’s AI coach that you can ask about your data or even whether it’s the smart move to workout that day or put it off for another day.

Does Whoop have a case?

’ll start by saying that I’ve really liked using Bevel. It’s great that you can pull in data from multiple devices. I know my Oura Ring 4 is a better, more reliable sleep tracker than my Garmin watch. I also know that I can trust the heart rate data from my Garmin, especially as I pair it to a heart rate monitor during exercise. I also appreciated Bevel’s approach to collating fitness data. It made identifying good or bad trends in my data an easy and straightforward thing to do.

On the premium front, Bevel’s AI coach is one of the better examples of an AI coach I’ve experienced on a fitness app. The insights felt refreshingly concise and engaging enough to pay attention to. Crunching your data to respond to queries can be a little slow at times, but what it generates can be useful enough to shape decisions made about your day or night.

So does Whoop have a case? Well, there’s no doubt that many of Bevel’s features look a lot like Whoop’s ones. The rings, health monitor and journal definitely stick out as being presented in a similar way. The big question is who did them first? There are suggestions that Bevel might have been first to include some of those elements that also appear in Whoop’s app.

Fundamentally, while Bevel’s app is similar in look, my experiences have still felt different enough. Whether that’s the presentation of certain data or the fact Whoop seems to place a bit more focus on aspects like sleep compared to Bevel, which imports data from other fitness ecosystems.

If someone asked me for recommendations for an app that feels like Whoop and doesn’t require a Whoop, Bevel would instantly spring to mind. However this lawsuit plays out, I’m hoping Bevel is still around after it. The free version has certainly been good enough to stay on my phone homescreen.

• Military personnel are leaking data on Strava
• Public activities have been found around UK bases
• Keeping Strava runs private is a simple fix

If you need another reminder, make sure you're careful about the Strava data you're posting publicly and sharing with the world at large: a few days after a French naval officer gave away his warship's location with a Strava run, sensitive data from more than 500 soldiers in the UK has been exposed as well.

An investigation from The i Paper turned up Strava routes and profile information posted by British military personnel at several sites across the UK — including bases in Northwood, Faslane, and North Yorkshire.

One of the runs posted publicly is labeled 'Security Breach', suggesting the soldiers involved are aware that their activities can be seen — and aren't too fussed about who might be looking at where they're exercising.

As pointed out in the report, the locations of these bases aren't secret. However, Strava runs can give away details of which personnel are posted where, and how members of the military are being moved around.

'Frankly ridiculous'

The i Paper was able to identify submariners and their families via Strava activity logs posted around HMNN Clyde in Faslane, the home of the UK's Trident nuclear submarines. Photos of warships entering the port have also been posted through the app.

"The fact that individuals are using personal accounts in a restricted area allows foreign states to piece together small pieces of information that you can potentially build up about an individual's life," security expert Dan Lomas told The i Paper.

A UK military intelligence official approached for comment said it was "frankly ridiculous" that this amount of information was being posted publicly — and by military service people at all levels, it would seem.

Whether or not your job is related to national security, you should be careful about the data you post to Strava. You can manage this through the Privacy Controls section of Settings — to find it, tap the cog icon up in the top right corner of the You tab in the Strava app on your phone.

• Fitbit rolls out some "significant updates" to its app for Premium subscribers
• This will include a 15% boost to "sleep staging accuracy"
• Google is also letting you link your health records to the Fitbit app in the US

If you subscribe to Fitbit Premium, you're about to get some new features inside the Fitbit app, as part of the Personal Health Coach feature that launched last year — and one of the upgrades is a better detection algorithm for judging when you're actually asleep.

As per Google's announcement, the incoming updates will apply "an additional 15% increase in sleep staging accuracy" to your stats. The algorithm should be better than ever at recognizing when you're sleeping and when you're just relaxing with a good book.

Google says it's pumped more training data into the sleep tracking AI, so your naps and sleep stages should now be more accurately tracked. That in turn will mean more useful insights and advice as to how to improve your sleep schedule and overall health.

The updates will track "not only how much sound sleep you got, but how long it took you to get there" Google says. These upgrades should start appearing over the next few days for those using the Personal Health Coach (which remains in "Public Preview" status).

A fuller health picture

There are some other improvements to talk about too. Google says it's adding the ability to link your health records to the Fitbit app, for users in the US — again, this only applies to Premium subscribers with access to the Public Preview of the Personal Health Coach.

Connecting health data will mean you get a "fuller picture of your health" according to Google, and it's keen to emphasize the tight security and privacy controls around the feature. None of this health data will be public or used for ad targeting.

One example Google gives for how this can be useful is if you're trying to lower your cholesterol: the health coach will be able to see exactly where you're at with this, rather than giving you generic guidance that could apply to anyone.

Other imminent upgrades include support for continuous glucose monitor devices in the Fitbit app. If you're a Premium subscriber and haven't already signed up for the Public Preview of the health coach, you can check your eligibility here.

• Strava has rolled out new workout profiles in its latest mobile update
• The new activities include padel, basketball, volleyball cricket and dance
• They're being rolled out to users globally, and Strava has teased that there's more on the way

As far as the best fitness apps go, Strava remains one of the most popular fitness subscription services out there, having the edge over the likes of Fitbit Premium and Garmin Connect as it's tracker-agnostic. Now it's adding even more workouts to its roster of activities.

If you’ve updated your Strava app, you’ll now find the five new workouts are dance, basketball, volleyball, cricket, and, padel (i.e., the world's fastest-growing sport). This increases Strava’s plethora of workout options to over 50 and, according to the platform, its new additions were some of the most in-demand activities from users, and now they’re finally being rolled out to its 180 million+ users.

Although it’s a relatively small upgrade, the addition of these new workouts lifts a huge restriction that kept users from accurately logging these types of activities before. Despite Strava’s diverse range of activities, users who frequently participate in the activities listed above would have to use the generic ‘Workout’ option to log their activity sessions (providing they were logging natively in Strava), resulting in inaccurate tracking metrics.

With the designated padel, basketball, volleyball, cricket, and dance tracking options, it makes room for more sports lovers to enjoy activities that are less common than the likes of running or cycling, which Strava initially built its brand on. But the biggest win is that users can now track these specific activities without second-guessing the accuracy of the results, which Strava highlighted in its announcement:

“Rather than having to record these sports as a “Workout”, enthusiasts of these five newly-added activities can now specifically select their favorite in the sport picker menu before recording in Strava.”

Though its five new workout profiles are new to the Strava experience, other fitness tracking apps jumped on this bandwagon a while back. The Apple Watch's standard Workout app has supported tracking profiles for dance, volleyball, cricket, and basketball for quite some time, though it has yet to roll out a padel option.

Aside from its new exercise options, Strava has given its mobile app experience quite the glow-up recently. Its new Premium tier feature Instant Workouts takes your recent activity logs into account to generate personalized recommendations across 40+ different sports activities. Strava has also rolled out a WorkOutdoors-style feature for Apple Watch users, allowing you to view and follow a pre-generated route map.

However, Strava has a lot more going on behind the scenes, and as well as its slew of new workouts the company has teased that more activity types are on the way for users this year, likely part of improvements ahead of its long-rumored IPO. We’ve reached out to Strava for a comment, and will update this story when we know more.

Centr: One minute review

Not many fitness apps have the name of a bona fide Hollywood star on them. Chris Hemsworth, the actor who plays Thor, puts his money where his muscles are with Centr, a holistic workout app that manages just about every aspect of your fitness journey. The app packs content on food to helping you plan rest days, and, of course, the exercise sessions themselves, and it does a pretty great job across all aspects.

There are daily workout classes accessible within the app, as well as self-guided workout plans that incorporate both strength training and cardio, with ratios based on your chosen goal. I was impressed with is the diversity of workouts on offer; while I’ve primarily used Fitbod over the last couple of years, that particular app essentially just keeps rotating exercises and workouts forever, with no real plan outside of the user setting a goal.

That made Centr’s way of working, with exercise plans spanning days and weeks, much easier for me to stick to, especially as it does a great job of layering in rest days or active recovery. Centr can work with the equipment you have, whether that’s bodyweight-only exercises, a full gym, or anywhere in between, and the whole app feels thoughtfully designed so that it’s easy to switch out exercises or substitute in different weight amounts.

Aside from workouts, there’s a really impressive recipe section that made me want to invest more in meal plans, and mindfulness tools for winding down after a hard day’s work. One of my favorite features is that your plan is viewable online via the Centr website, making it easier to plot your progress or prepare included recipes on your laptop.

The rub is that all of this comes at a high price, at least if you’re paying monthly. $30 a month will be a tough pill to swallow for many more casual users, but you can save a ton by going for the $139.99 / £114.99 / AU$360 annual plan. There is a free trial, but you can only enjoy that for a week, so be sure to make the most out of it.

For those looking for a holistic fitness and wellbeing tool, Centr will tick a lot of boxes. Not only is it packed with features, but the app is much easier to navigate than some rivals that do less.

Centr: Price and availability

• Monthly cost is high at $29.99 / £19.66 / $29.99 per month
• Annual plan considerably lowers costs to $11.67 / £9.58 / AU$13.33 per month
• iOS and Android

Centr is available worldwide on the App Store and Play Store, meaning it’s ideal for both iOS and Android users.

It works out to $29.99 / £19.66 / $29.99 per month, which is more than many of its rivals like Fitbod or PUSH, but paying for a year brings that down to $11.67 / £9.58 / AU$13.33 per month, a sizeable drop.

Centr: Scorecard

Centr: Should I buy?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

Also consider

How I tested

I took Centr to the gym over the course of three weeks, working out with the app installed on my iPhone 15 Pro Max and then an iPhone 17 Pro Max. I also used the web interface to more easily read the recipe guides.

• The Runna app is being integrated into Amazfit watches
• Amazfit’s Zepp app also has a fresh design and a new badge system
• The changes are coming to the Amazfit Balance 2 and T-Rex 3 Pro for now

Despite not being the biggest name in the game, Amazfit makes some of the best budget running watches on the market – and if you’ve been thinking of picking one up, now is a good time, as the brand has just seen two updates that help make it an even better choice for budget-conscious fitness fans.

The first is that the popular Runna app has just added support for Amazfit watches. Runna is one of the best fitness apps around, with impressive analysis tools and a great community to join, so getting it on your Amazfit watch is a significant boost.

Specifically, the partnership between the two firms means users will be able to sync workouts from Runna to the Zepp app on their Amazfit watch, then send completed activities back to Runna, meaning the link-up works in both directions. The integration is rolling out with the Amazfit Balance 2 and T-Rex 3 Pro devices, but other products are expected to gain support in the future.

Runna has given Amazfit users some tips on how to best use the new capabilities. As well as that, be aware that you’ll only be able to sync running workouts for the time being, and we’ll have to see whether support is added for other workout types in the future.

A fresh coat of paint

That’s not the only improvement coming to Amazfit watches, as the company has also announced that its Zepp app is getting a major facelift thanks to a refreshed interface and a new badge system that’s designed to keep you on track with your health and fitness goals.

The changes come in version 10 of the Zepp app, which is available on iOS. There, users have noticed a new interface has been implemented, with a reorganized home screen, plus more distinct sections for your activities, metrics, training plans and more. The design refresh also sees a wider range of colors in use, as well as a more modern look and feel for the app.

Aside from the freshened-up interface, the Zepp app has a new Badges tab that aims to introduce an element of gamification to your fitness. Badges are awarded for hitting personal bests, long-term goals, achievements and challenges, while you can also see badges that you haven’t yet unlocked. The goal seems to be to reward you for staying active and to encourage you to continue your fitness progress over time.

With these two big changes – the Runna integration and the Zepp app’s new design – Amazfit users have received a couple of welcome features that should help improve their experience. And with Runna saying that it’s “actively working with Amazfit to extend workout syncing to other devices,” there could be further changes on the way.

• Fitbit users have more time to switch to Google accounts
• The new deadline is May 19 (pushed back from February 2)
• Switching is quick and straightforward, via the Fitbit app

Not long after Google bought Fitbit in 2021, it became clear that Fitbit accounts would be swallowed by Google accounts – but if you're yet to make the switch, Google is giving you a little bit more time to get around to it.

As per the official support page (via The Verge), the lights will go off for Fitbit accounts on May 19, 2026: after that time your Fitbit account will no longer work with Fitbit devices. The deadline for downloading your data is a little later, on July 15, 2026.

Previously, Google had said Fitbit accounts would stop working on February 2, which is Monday. That itself was an extension, because the original plan was to get everyone migrated over to Google accounts sometime during 2025.

Google hasn't said why the deadline has been extended, but presumably there are either technical challenges with it, or there are still a substantial number of users who haven't done this yet – and Google doesn't want them to miss out.

How to switch

When you transfer your Fitbit account information over to a Google account of your choice, all your fitness data and stats will be carried over, and the app will stay the same. Basically, you're just changing the email address you use to log in.

If you're not happy with Google having your health and fitness stats, you can export the data from your Fitbit account, and then request that your account is closed. Any Fitbit accounts that haven't been migrated by July 15 will be deleted by Google.

You can find full instructions for transferring your Fitbit account over to a Google account on Google's support hub. Essentially, you can do it from the Settings page in the Fitbit app for Android or iOS, and just follow the prompts on screen.

The process seems to be fairly painless and there haven't been widespread reports of users having trouble with switching from Fitbit and Google. The move has certainly gone smoother than the Gemini for Home upgrade currently rolling out.

The Apple Watch may not have changed all that much in the last decade and change, at least from a design and hardware point of view, but the watchOS platform that powers it has undergone several major reinventions over its life cycle, usually to better match Apple’s ever-changing software design languages on its other devices.

Whether you’re using the Apple Watch to track your calories, triage your notifications, or maybe even call or message someone while your phone is on charge, watchOS is a core tenet of many users’ lives now – but it’s not always good news.

In the last 10 years that I’ve been using an Apple Watch, I’m still surprised by how some apps simply don’t take advantage of some of watchOS's best features.

Don’t skip the Dock view

I should preface this by saying I’m not naming and shaming apps here. Some developers are flying entirely solo, others have big teams, and each has its own challenges in that regard. Still, when I first began using an otherwise excellent fitness app on my Apple Watch, I was flabbergasted when it simply displayed an app version number when opening the Dock icon, with no other way to navigate except to go back to the app list and open the full version of the app. It was the kind of frustrating pain point that leads to uninstallation.

I assumed it was a bug, and then months and months later, it persisted. It’s gone now, thankfully (although not before I’d drafted this very article), but it got me thinking about the disparity between some apps on the Apple Watch.

Many do a great job of being almost as useful on your watch as they are on your phone. Spotify, for example, does a solid job of jumping between your watch and phone, along with smart TVs, games consoles, tablets, PCs, Macs, and much more. It makes sense that the user experience is just as slick on-watch as it is anywhere else.

Still, others leave plenty to be desired. Missing Dock widgets are a nuisance, although perhaps not too unexpected since Apple likes to change how the Dock is accessed, but it’s certainly a concern just how many apps aren’t very easy to reach or use when you need them. This is key when you’re poking at your wrist because your phone is out of reach.

Out of sync

Another major issue is syncing, although I’m fairly certain this is an Apple issue. My fitness app of choice (yes, the one that just displayed a back-end app version number for months) now has a very functional UI on the Apple Watch that allows me to log reps and adjust weights without reaching for my phone.

Still, sometimes I’m sat and using my phone anyway, so it’s frustrating to see the sync between the two get a little confused. For example, I might crank a weight from 20kg to 25kg on my watch, only for it to revert back on the iPhone app, or vice versa when I switch devices the other way.

When you just want things to work with minimal fuss so you can finish your set and get home, it adds up when you’re constantly deleting weights to re-add them.

More egregious is audio downloading, which I am certain is Apple’s own doing. Whether it’s podcasts or music (both through third-party apps), I find my Apple Watch almost always needs to be reset, to be be able to download audio from apps like Pocket Casts or Spotify to play without a phone.

An excellent citizen

My favorite watchOS app, though? Strava. Credit where it’s due, the orange running app is absolutely fantastic.

It makes great use of the dock, lets you instantly switch settings while running so you don’t have to take your eye off the route for more than a second or two, and the communication between phone and watch is seamless, so you can access all your routes and metrics from either device in moments.

Simply put, it's good at the basics and it's easy to use. I’ve taken to using it much more than other apps because it’s a great citizen on the Apple Watch, especially with all the recent revamps – and I wonder how many other fitness apps would see more success if they could say the same.

Inconsistent syncing, and a lack of general consensus over what to do with the dock, are all things holding third party apps back. The Apple Watch is a device millions of us use every day, but these small issues are ones that can mount up.

Apple is keen for developers to get on board with new features every time WWDC comes around, but there are other, longstanding features of the Apple Watch I’d love to see addressed in the coming months. The most-used Apple Watch apps are the ones that get the basics right.

• Online privacy app Surfshark analyzed 16 different fitness apps
• It reported on how much personal data these apps collect, with Fitbit and Strava collecting the most
• Here's what it means for users of these apps, and a few simple ways to better protect your privacy

It’s fitness season, and now that the holidays are over a lot of people will be downloading a new fitness app to go with their resolution to get fit, build muscle or lose weight in 2026.

But fitness apps are as data-hungry as any other app, logging and sometimes sharing personal data – including sensitive information you might rather keep private.

A study from online security firm Surfshark looked at 16 of the top fitness apps, including Fitbit, Strava, Apple Health, PUSH, Centr and more, using TechRadar’s own list of the best fitness apps in conjunction with other sources, and ranked them in terms of how much data they collected.

The rankings are based on the different kinds of data collected, such as location, contact information, health or search history. Surfshark also looked at whether the app used data for tracking.

Apple defines tracking as “the act of linking user or device data collected from your app with user or device data collected from other companies’ apps, websites, or offline properties for targeted advertising or advertising measurement purposes.

“Tracking also refers to sharing user or device data with data brokers."

The Surfshark report also recorded which apps were collecting data that they don’t actually need for app functionality. You expect a fitness app to collect health and fitness data, for instance, but you might not expect it to collect information about your search history or advertising data.

Four apps collect ‘sensitive data’, a category of data pertaining to race or ethnic background, sexual orientation, fertility data, genetic information, biometric data, or even information about your employment status or trade union membership.

All the information was gathered from Apple’s App Store. You can see a screenshot below of Fitbit’s listing on the App Store, which illustrates some of the different kinds of data collected.

The results

Fitbit is top of the list, collecting 24 different kinds of data, including advertising and sensitive data. Of these, only five kinds of data are needed for app functionality, with the remaining 19 ranked as 'beyond app functionality'. In other words, according to Surfshark, Fitbit is harvesting 19 kinds of data it doesn’t actually need to run the app.

However, Surfshark states that Fitbit doesn’t use this information for tracking.

Next up is Strava, which is arguably more even more hungry for your data. It collects 21 different kinds of data, and Surfshark says none of the data collected is essential to running the app. It also shares data for tracking with third parties, according to the report. However, no sensitive data is collected.

Next up is Nike Training Club, which collects 20 different kinds of data, including sensitive data, and uses it for tracking purposes.

Centr was found to be at the bottom of the pile with just three kinds of data collected, although even it shares data for tracking purposes. The report said PUSH sets itself apart as “the least invasive app”, collecting data without linking it to users.

What does this mean for users?

While Fitbit being the data-collection leader isn’t necessarily surprising (it’s run by Google and linked to your Google account after all, and Google is a famously data-hungry operation), it doesn’t share your personal or sensitive data to third parties, according to the report – possibly because it’s been prevented from doing so.

When Google first acquired Fitbit in 2021, there were concerns by leading economists that the merger would “monetize health data and harm consumers”. Consequently, the European Commission stipulated that the merger could go ahead, but with a 10-year ban on using health data for marketing purposes.

Strava, an app based on sharing your location, has been in hot water for privacy issues plenty of times. It has accidentally revealed military bases in war zones by releasing heatmaps of user activity. Journalists have also used Strava accounts of government officials to predict the whereabouts of heads of state, including Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin, and it was reported by our sibling publication Cycling Weekly that hackers can find out where you live on Strava, even if you use tools to hide the start and end of an activity.

Perhaps scariest of all is the possibility that some apps collect and share sensitive data, a class of personal information about your identity and health, including fertility data for people using apps to track their periods, along with biometric and even genetic data. While these kinds of data have extra legal protections in some areas like the EU, thanks to GDPR, there’s no special protection for this sort of data in the US when it’s shared outside of a medical context.

5 ways to protect your privacy

It’s hard to uncouple from the complex network of shared personal information that is the modern smartphone. Everything is connected, and the more it’s all shared the easier it is for us to be hacked and tracked. Agreeing to use these apps, which otherwise offer some really great services, means consenting to their use of your information in this way.

However, you can mitigate what and how much data is collected, and retain some semblance of control over who accesses your data.

1. New accounts: Rather than using the same email for everything, you could create a new account, one not tied to your personal life, specifically for logging into data-hungry apps.
   
2. Check your permissions: Update the permission settings in your phone regularly. By doing this, you can deny some apps permission to track your location or personal data when appropriate. You can also change the settings on certain apps from tracking you all the time to ‘While using the app’ to retain a degree of control.
   
3. Minimize location leaks: Walk or run a short distance away from your home before starting a location-sharing activity on Strava or an equivalent app.
   
4. Check the small print: When downloading apps in future, always scroll down in the App Store or Play Store to check what data the app collects before agreeing to its terms of service.
   
5. Multi-factor authentication: To avoid being hacked as a result of a data leak, make sure all email addresses you use to sign up for these apps have multi-factor authentication enabled. It’s a simple trick that prevents your email account being hacked in up to 99% of cases, according to Microsoft.

New year, new you – and the same challenge of sticking with your workout goals once the January (or February) buzz wears off. The good news is that in 2026 you don't have to rely on willpower alone.

A growing body of research suggests that the best fitness apps, in conjunction with the best smartwatches like the Apple Watch, can nudge people into moving more by combining tracking, gentle prompts, and smart reward loops.

Some apps focus on turning your runs or rides into a social game, while others quietly build streaks and routines in the background as you get on with your day. Across all of them, the aim is the same: to make looking after your health feel easier, more rewarding, and just a little bit more fun, keeping you in training once the New Year sparkle has faded away.

What does the science say?

Most fitness apps are built around the same core idea: if you can see what you are doing, get gentle nudges to keep going, and feel rewarded for your effort, you are more likely to stick with it.

Research backs that up; a large 2021 meta-analysis found that people who were given activity trackers or smartphone fitness apps increased their physical activity compared with those who weren't using the technology.

Under the hood, these tools use a handful of well-tested behavior-change tricks, including self-monitoring, goal-setting, timely prompts, streaks, and social support, but they package them in very different ways.

In this guide, we'll look at how five popular apps use those ingredients to help you move more in 2026.

1. Strava – social kudos to help you run more

Strava is equal parts social networking app and training log.starts to feel like a social network rather than a lonely spreadsheet or note in your phone.

Every run, ride, or hike is logged with GPS maps, pace charts, and – crucially – a stream of kudos and comments from your friends and other app users.

The app leans hard into that community angle: you can join local clubs, chase segments on your regular routes, and jump into monthly challenges that compare your effort with people training on the same roads and trails.

That social network-style layer matters.

When social scientists followed 329 runners from five Dutch clubs on Strava over 11 months, they saw a clear pattern: runners who attracted mor The kudos gradually started running more often, and the behaviour of their most interactive “kudos-friends” rubbed off on them over time.

If you thrive on friendly competition, shared routes, and the sense that someone will notice if you skip a session, Strava’s mix of detailed tracking and low-key peer pressure can be a powerful way to stay consistent in 2026.

2. Runna – personalised coaching

Runna is what you get if you crossed a human running coach with a very organised calendar app.

You plug in your goal – from a first 5K to a marathon personal best – plus your current fitness and how many days a week you can realistically train, and it builds a personalised plan that slots into your schedule.

The app adjusts sessions when life gets in the way, adds strength and cross-training where it makes sense, and now, under Strava ownership, even links to a new Races by Runna platform that helps you discover events.

If you like ticking off clear workouts, seeing your progress unfold towards race day, and letting the app worry about the numbers, Runna’s coach-in-your-pocket approach can make it much easier to stay on track in 2026.

3. PUSH – turning strength training into numbers

PUSH is aimed at people who love the numbers behind their training as much as the feeling of a good lift. In the app, you build or choose workouts, track sets and reps, and see how your performance changes over time, rather than just scribbling numbers in a note.

The onboard AI can guide you towards sensible progressions, nudge you to add weight when lifts are consistently moving well, and rein things in when you are clearly flagging. Underneath that friendly UI is a training philosophy built around velocity-based training, where the speed of a lift is used as a stand-in for intensity and fatigue.

Studies on this approach – including research using PUSH-compatible sensors – suggest that tracking bar speed is a reliable way to judge how heavy a set really was, and when you should stop before your form falls apart.

If you are motivated by seeing trends, graphs, and numbers creep in the right direction, PUSH can make it much easier to stay engaged with your gym plan right through 2026.

4. Apple Fitness & Activity rings

Apple’s Activity rings on Apple Watch boil your day down into three simple circles – Move, Exercise, and Stand – that you are nudged to close, one by one, as you go about your life.

Add in Apple Fitness+ classes, sharing your rings with friends, and regular weekly summaries on iPhone, and you get a steady drip of reminders, streaks, and tiny wins that keep your goals in sight rather than buried in a settings menu.

Behind the scenes, Apple has been studying how people actually respond to all this, offering us a perspective from an extremely widely used app.

The Apple Heart and Movement Study – an ongoing collaboration with Brigham and Women’s Hospital – has reported that people who regularly close their rings tend to show better patterns in cardio fitness, sleep, and other health markers than those who rarely do.

5. Peloton – group-class motivation

Peloton has shaken off its “just for spin bikes” image – the Peloton App now stands on its own as a full training platform you can use at home, in the gym, or outdoors, with or without any Peloton hardware.

You get live and on-demand classes across strength, running, walking, yoga, meditation, rowing, and more, all fronted by instructors who are as much coaches as they are entertainers.

Over the last couple of years Peloton has also leaned into smarter guidance, with structured multi-week programmes, revamped badges, and, more recently, its Peloton IQ system. For you, that means less faffing and more doing.

If you know you respond well to upbeat instructors, a visible timetable, and the gentle pressure of seeing other people in class with you, the Peloton App can turn repeated sessions into a routine.

We’re only two days into 2026, but in what’s become something of an annual tradition for Apple Fitness+, Apple is ushering in a slate of new workout programs designed to help you get in shape in the new year, while also teasing upcoming episodes of Time to Walk, Artist Spotlights, and special guests who’ll appear in select workouts.

These additions will help keep the content fresh for regular users and may encourage newcomers to try Fitness+ in the first few days or weeks of 2026.

And none of this comes with a price increase. Apple Fitness+ is sticking with its existing pricing: $9.99 / £9.99 / AU$14.99 per month, or $79.99 / £79.99 / AU$119.99 annually. It’s also included with the Apple One Premier plan, and you can get a free trial when you purchase select Apple devices, such as an iPhone or Apple Watch.

Jump into HIIT, yoga, or strength

Let’s start with the new workout programs: you can choose a workout type to adopt or return to, and stick with it for the long haul. It’s all about finding a rhythm with either HIIT, yoga, or strength – or maybe all three if you’re up for the challenge – and building a strong foundation.

Apple’s Fitness+ team will offer new-year workout programs in Strength, HIIT, and Yoga, each lasting four weeks with three workouts per week. Classes are shorter by intention, designed to make the commitment easier and make it easy to fit sessions into your schedule. Over four weeks, each program builds progressively from class to class.

The length of each class will vary by program – ‘Build a Yoga Habit’, ‘Back-to-Back Strength and HIIT’, or ‘The Strength Basics’ – but will be as short as 10 minutes. All of them launch on Fitness+ on Monday, January 5, 2026.

Looking ahead to February 8, 2026 – the date of Super Bowl LX and the Apple Music halftime show – Fitness+ will add three new workouts to Bad Bunny’s existing Artist Spotlight series.

Before that, on February 2, 2026, the next spotlight series will feature Karol G, with five workouts set to her music. She’ll join a roster of artists Fitness+ has already spotlighted, including Bad Bunny, The Killers, Taylor Swift, and Bruce Springsteen.

Time to Walk returns

Time to Walk remains one of Fitness+’s most distinctive offerings. Designed for the Apple Watch, it’s a walking workout led by a celebrity or influential figure sharing stories, music, and photos you can view right on your wrist. It’s developed a bit of a cult following, and Apple is continuing to expand it with new episodes.

Fitness+ has confirmed three upcoming Time to Walk additions for 2026, with more on the way. First up is Penn Badgley of Gossip Girl, The Young and the Restless, and You fame, followed by Mel B and Michelle Monaghan in the weeks ahead.

If you’re looking for more familiar faces, Apple’s 2026 Fitness+ lineup delivers. Allie Bennett, fitness creator and lifestyle personality, Luke and Paul Harwerth (aka TwinSauce), and Remy Park will also appear in upcoming workouts.

This isn’t the first time guest stars have joined Fitness+ Trainers, but it’s a notable expansion – and one that could signal even more creator-led workouts if the workouts resonate with subscribers.

Overall, while there are no major overhauls, it’s clear that Apple is continuing to invest in Fitness+. The added focus on structured programs and curated collections could make the service feel more cohesive and easier to stick with long-term, while also helping to attract new subscribers or re-engage those who haven’t fully leaned into Fitness+ yet.

It’ll be interesting to see how Fitness+ evolves throughout 2026 – and whether Apple’s rumored AI Health service ultimately comes to fruition.

My perfect fitness app is one that doesn’t track fitness. I don’t need metrics on how many times I breathed in a race, how many times I swerved to avoid bad drivers when cycling or how many times I sneeze nightly. I need something that motivates me, not creepily watches me while I sleep – and since I started using AllTrails I’ve found my match.

AllTrails is a path-finding app. You use it to search for routes, ranging from short runs around a park to massive hikes through the desert, all sourced from other adventurers. The journeys are plotted on a map, so you can see what’s around you; you can even follow them if your route doesn’t take you too far off the grid that the internet cuts out. However I prefer using the app solely for research; I don’t want to be staring at my phone when I’m in nature.

AllTrails offers three subscription tiers: the free one, Plus which has a few useful extra features like offline maps and better search functionality (for $35.99 / £35.99 / around AU$56 per year), and Peak ($79.99 / £79.99 / around AU$125 per year) which lets you create your own routes on the app or modify existing ones. I’ve only ever used the free tier.

I was introduced to AllTrails earlier in the year, and since starting, I’ve found it to be one of my go-to apps for when I’m abroad, and even for fitness. If one of your new year’s resolutions is to get more outdoorsy, it’s the app I’d recommend.

Charting a route to AllTrails

I first used AllTrails at the beginning of the year while travelling Australia, when my travelling companion and I were disagreeing about which day hike to do in the Macdonnell Range. I wanted to do Mount Zeil, partly because Google told me it was the highest peak in the Territory, and partly because I’d seen it on a drive and said “that one”. I always stand by my impulse decisions.

My friend talked me down: to make it to the top and back before the 40-degree weather set in, we’d need to leave at about the same hour that our current bar was due to close. Instead he pulled out his phone and showed me AllTrails. It offered us loads of other options in the area, and we quickly filtered it by our feasible walking time, what we wanted to see on the route and how close it was from Alice where we were staying.

Next thing I know, we’ve picked a different hike; we got to leave at a much more social hour, do a hike which was feasible in the time before the 11am sun curfew, and got amazing views. Exactly what we needed, and all from a phone app. I’m usually the kind of person who pours scorn on those who offset decision making to apps, but we used AllTrails’ photos and testimonies from other hikers to guide our decision. I didn’t feel like I was relying on some algorithm to dictate my holiday.

Later in the year I was in Salzburg; drinking beer, eating chocolates and testing a smartphone, and I was absolutely captivated by the mountain that towers over the city. The Untersberg, smiling in the early-morning sun and watching through the evening mist. As soon as I saw it, I wanted to climb it.

However, I was in Austria on a romantic weekend with my girlfriend: scaling a massif wasn’t on the agenda. But I could still use AllTrails to research the hike, with its routes much more informative and captivating than what I gleaned from Google Maps or guidebooks.

And I did use AllTrails after all; my girlfriend and I took a shorter walk up a hill in the middle of the city that I wouldn’t have known was so easily scalable without the app. We took a nice jaunt up a medium incline, got some incredible views and felt like we’d earned a return to the beer hall I’d fallen in love with.

The AllTrails convert

Thanks to Australia and Austria (an unintentional combo), I’m an AllTrails convert – and I’ve used it on other trips and when I’m at home.

I really like using the app to find destinations or areas to visit, that guidebooks or websites don’t mention. If I see a hotspot of pins on the map, I know that’s an area to see in a city or landscape, and if it’s off the beaten track that’s even better. It’s how I found a garden walkway in Paris and a mountain scramble in Gwynedd that I never would’ve found from other sources.

Another thing I’ve been using AllTrails for is to discover new running routes. After finishing my first marathon at the tail end of 2024, I’ve been struggling to find great motivators to keep doing long-distance runs, but AllTrails has helped me add a bit of novelty into the mix.

I’ve been able to find new routes and tracks around my part of London, allowing me to explore the South East better, and also followed brand-new routes. As runners will know, repeating the same run again and again gets stale fast.

Unlike the unhealthy obsession that many well-known fitness apps can foster, my use of AllTrails felt healthy. It wasn’t making me want to get perfect scores on arbitrary metrics, go on really long runs to win social kudos, or strap some weighty manacle onto my wrist at night just to learn that said tracker is stopping me sleeping.

Instead, its offerings inspired in me a sense of wanderlust, gently nudging me out the door with a carrot rather than a stick. If you want to be more outdoorsy or healthy in 2026 then heed my advice: get rid of all your other ‘fitness’ apps and just use AllTrails.

• A new Plan for Care feature is now available in Fitbit Labs
• It appears to be US-only for a select number of users
• The feature uses generative AI to prepare you for a doctor visit

It's been an interesting few months for Fitbit, what with new AI-powered software features and the promise of new hardware in 2026, and there's now a new feature in testing that's intended to take the stress out of your next visit to the doctor.

It's called Plan for Care, and according to Fitbit it will help you get "personalized support" when assessing your symptoms at home and getting ready for a doctor's appointment. It's available now in the Fitbit Labs testing platform for "a select number of users".

There are two key features here: the option to chat through your symptoms and what they might mean, and a preparation tool for brainstorming what you could say to your doctor and what the visit will potentially involve.

As per Fitbit, data collected through Plan for Care "will be used by Fitbit for research and development purposes to improve these and future health features", so bear that in mind. Fitbit has instructions here for managing the data it has access to through Fitbit Labs.

Disclaimers abound

"This Lab is for investigational use only and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, mitigate, prevent any disease or condition, or be used as a substitute for professional medical advice," says Fitbit.

The feature was originally spotted by Android Authority. The app code refers to a US-only test, and generative AI, and admits that the responses may be "offensive, incomplete, out-of-date or clinically inaccurate or misleading" – a rather hefty disclaimer.

Fitbit doesn't mention generative AI anywhere in its announcement, but that seems to be what's powering this – raising the usual questions about whether or not we should be relying on AI tools for any kind of health or medical advice, even in experimental form.

If Fitbit's AI can't diagnose issues or replace medical advice, and may be inaccurate or misleading, should it really be available in the app? Fitbit clearly thinks so, and it's not alone – Apple is working on something similar too.

• A new AI coach is heading to Fitbit Premium users
• Some US users on Android are now seeing the update
• The extra AI features offer insights, advice, and more

Google recently promised new Fitbit devices for next year, but there's an app update landing right now for Fitbit users that brings with it personalized coaching on fitness, sleep, and wellbeing through Gemini AI.

According to Google, the update is arriving first for Fitbit Premium users in the US on Android devices, with an expansion to iOS coming soon. It's also being labeled as a Public Preview – in other words, it's still a work in progress.

Some users on Reddit are now starting to see the update, though clearly it's rolling out in stages, so even if you are in the US, using the Android app, and signed up for Fitbit Premium, it might be a while before you get these new features.

Essentially, the extras you get added in to the app are similar to the chats you might have already had about your fitness with Gemini. The AI will take a look at your stats, and come up with some ideas for setting goals and making improvements.

How it works

With Gemini AI embedded in the Fitbit app, everything can be more conversational. You could set a goal like "I want to be able to run without getting out of breath" rather than setting a steps target, for example.

You still get all your key stats, but there's AI commentary alongside it – celebrating goals, suggesting next steps, and more. You can then ask questions about the data you've logged, workout plans, ongoing trends, or whatever you like.

A redesign for the app comes alongside all this extra AI, to fit everything in on screen – which looks a bit overwhelming at first. The new Today tab is front and center, combining key metrics with personalized AI feedback on your recent activity levels and sleep.

Google says there might be some "rough edges" in the preview, and is inviting feedback from users on what works and what doesn't. At the moment, it's still possible to switch between the new and old app interfaces with a few taps.

• The Strava and Garmin legal drama just took another big twist
• Strava has dropped its lawsuit against Garmin, with the two companies seemingly settling behind the scenes
• Where does that leave Suunto, which is also suing Garmin?

It looks like the legal battle between Strava – one of our best fitness apps – and Garmin – makers, of course, of the best Garmin watches – is coming to an end.

Three weeks after Strava filed a patent-infringement case against Garmin, stating the latter's segments and heatmaps features violate an agreement between the two companies, Strava has officially dropped its lawsuit against Garmin.

Strava filed a brief update on October 21 to say it "voluntarily dismisses" the action. We spotted this via DC Rainmaker, having kept an eye on the Strava-Garmin situation as it developed.

The full update reads as follows:

“Pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 41(a)(1)(A)(i), Plaintiff Strava, Inc., by and through its undersigned counsel, voluntarily dismisses the above-captioned action, without prejudice."

In practice, dismissing without prejudice means the decision is not final, so Strava could choose to file again in the future. However, for now, it means that any features Garmin users are making use of that could potentially infringe on Strava's patents are unlikely to disappear in the near future.

If you're in the market for a new Garmin watch, Strava is no longer actively trying to halt the sale of future Garmin devices infringing on its patents, so expect plenty of Garmins to still be available in the upcoming Black Friday sales.

So is it all over?

Yes, and no. After filing the lawsuit, Strava's chief product officer Matt Salazar explained in a Reddit post that Garmin was trying to force it to beef up the Garmin branding on Strava whenever it used data from a Garmin watch, and said Strava wouldn't stand for this abuse of user data.

Strava's Reddit community did not respond the way Strava expected, and the company eventually complied with Garmin's requests. Now it's also withdrawn its patent infringement lawsuit, leaving no further active spats with Garmin.

However, the question of "why" remains to be answered. There's speculation online that because Strava is going public in the near future, it wanted to reduce branding from external sources and nix competing features to boost the value of its shares – but of course this is all hearsay, and we may never know for sure.

What about Suunto?

Garmin is also being sued by rival watch-maker Suunto, which filed around the same time as Strava, although for unrelated reasons. These supposed patent infringements center around hardware and software features, such as some golfing features.

At the time of writing, that lawsuit remains unresolved. This dispute aside, Suunto is releasing some great hardware at the moment – you can check out our recent review of the Suunto Race 2, in which we gave it 4.5 stars – and could become a genuine challenger to Garmin as a maker of the best running watches.

• Fitness app Runna just launched Races by Runna, a new race-finder platform
• Users can choose a race and 'seamlessly' integrate it with Runna's plans
• 'Tens of thousands' of races in 'multiple countries' promised for expansion

Fitness app Runna is well-known as one of the best fitness apps for runners, thanks to its AI-generated and adaptive workout plans. Now it's launching a platform to find you the right race to participate in too – and automatically generate a training plan to lead you right up to race day.

Runna has unveiled Races by Runna, a new website said to be 'separate' from its popular app while still operating with 'seamless integration'. The new platform will be a search engine that enables users to find and sign up for races in multiple countries, although we don't yet know which regions are being rolled out first.

Races by Runna will allow runners to 'browse thousands of events worldwide without juggling multiple tabs or incomplete listings', simplifying the signup process. Users will be able to browse races via tags, ranging from the standard distance and times of year to more specialist tags filtering for events with specific elevation levels, climates, night runs and even dog-friendly races.

Runna states that once a race is selected, users with a Runna account will be able to 'instantly' build a personalized Runna training plan around it. Presumably, if you enter a 10K race in three months, you'll be able to input your desired times into your Runna app and follow the instructions to generate a plan based on both your goals and the route. All that's left is to shop for some of the best running shoes to help you cross the line.

This is one of the first major new features from Runna following its acquisition by Strava earlier this year. In a statement included in the press release, Runna's CEO and co-founder Dom Maskell said: "we realized that we were well positioned to build the world’s most comprehensive race discovery platform and it’s been a true labour of love from our team. Having Strava alongside us will help further strengthen our credibility in this field.”

The platform is now available in public beta, with expansions planned to events in 'multiple' countries.

Analysis: A comprehensive all-in-one solution

Finding a race can be challenging: often, it's a case of scrolling through races alphabetically across multiple listing sites until you find something that happens to be both within driving distance and far enough ahead to suit your calendar. Even then, it's a bit of a shot in the dark, and different sites host different events.

Races by Runna could be about to change all that. Even if you're not a Runna subscriber – and it's a really good app, earning 4.5 stars in our official Runna review – a comprehensive tagging system to filter for the races you want seems like a no-brainer.

I opened the early version up and tried searching for a nature-filled 10K 'fun run' in or around my local city, and I got a perfect match on an event taking place next March, that fit my criteria exactly. I most likely wouldn't have heard about the event had I not tried searching on Races.

With Strava's backing – bringing along partnerships with major events companies such as Let's Do This – it seems like a recipe for success. With the public beta now available, I'll be diving in to find my next race very soon.

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• Last week, the Fitbit app got a redesign with Dark Mode
• The much-requested feature has been a long time coming, as many competitor apps have been using this design for years
• Here's how to switch Dark Mode on and off using Settings

The Fitbit app is undergoing some big changes. To coincide with the launch of the Google Pixel Watch 4 (you can read our early impressions in our Google Pixel Watch 4 hands-on review) it's getting a personal AI health coach in the US and, as far as we're aware, UI changes as well.

However, before those changes come into effect, Google has given the Fitbit app a significant facelift already, with the launch of Dark Mode.

The Fitbit app, since its inception, has always been set against a bright off-white backdrop regardless whether the rest of your phone is in Dark Mode or not.

It's resisted change even though competitors for the crown of best fitness app, such as Apple Health and Garmin Connect, have been on dark backgrounds to make parsing through complex graphs and planning workouts easier on the eyes.

In my opinion, it's crazy that despite the popularity of the best Fitbits, it's taken so long for the companion app to get a Dark Mode. It's a simple inversion that makes the experience of using the app so much better for most people.

However, if I was being completely cynical, it might have taken so long because Google simply didn't know what to do with Fitbit.

I've written plenty about Google's neglect of the brand while folding the best hardware features into its Pixel Watch series, but it seems as though after last year's app redesign, Dark Mode and this year's heavy investment into the AI health coach, Google's finally seeing a way for Fitbit to exist within Google's complex ecosystem going forward.

When I opened my Fitbit app this morning, Dark Mode was already enabled. However, in case yours hasn't switched over automatically or you're looking for manual adjustment, here's how to toggle Dark Mode on and off.

• Ensure your Fitbit app is updated to version 4.50. If not, navigate to Software Updates in your phone's settings
• In the Fitbit app, tap your profile image and go to Fitbit Settings
• In Settings, tap the new Theme option
• You can choose between System Default, Light or Dark options
• System Default will match Fitbit to your phone's theme, so if you use Dark Mode on your phone's operating system, Fitbit will switch automatically

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The reveal of the Google Pixel Watch 4 was the main bone thrown to Google's health and fitness ecosystem at this year's Made by Google 2025 live event and the Pixel 10 launch. The watch was undeniably impressive – starting at $399 / £349 / AU$579, it includes all-new features like on-wrist Google Gemini AI, all-new workouts, replaceable parts, and a satellite SOS service. We can't wait to review the watch in full, but you can read our early Google Pixel Watch 4 review for our first impressions.

However, another fitness feature was briefly mentioned alongside the new hardware: a personal AI health coach. During a segment with celebrity Peloton trainer Cody Rigsby, it was announced via a stock-footage sizzle reel that the health coach, powered by Google Gemini, was "always available, always adapting, backed by science, and uniquely tailored to you". It'll begin previews in the US in October, presumably rolling out to other regions shortly after, as part of a redesigned Fitbit app.

Aside from touching on performance, health and wellness, and sleep (and featuring NBA all-star Stephen Curry as Google's 'performance advisor' whatever that means), very little was said about what the Coach would actually do or look like. In fact, we got more information from a YouTube video which was shared by Google, but not publicized or shown during the presentation itself. I've embedded it below.

Clearly, it shows that the user can ask questions about their health and fitness, and the AI coach will pull data from their Fitbit and contextual information (such as the user tweaking their back) to provide contextual fitness advice, such as altering their sleep schedule or replacing a high-impact cardio session with a gentler yoga flow.

However, considering how much was shown about other Google Pixel devices and features during the live event, the health coach was barely touched on. I'd love to know more; how is the AI health coach "backed by science"? What features will it have? Will it interface with the Pixel Watch 4? What does 'Stephen Curry, Performance Advisor' actually look like? What will its name be?

Below are some of the features I think the AI health coach needs to adopt (read that as 'steal from other apps') to be a truly revolutionary tool and an industry leader. Forget celebrity endorsements and flashy sizzle-reels

1. Interfacing with non-AI devices

The Google Pixel Watch 4 may have Gemini on-wrist, but the vast majority of users of even the best Fitbits will be sporting devices with no AI capacity. While the AI assistant is likely to process and answer questions on your phone, it would be cool if certain features, such as any workouts or running routes the AI comes up with, could be pushed to your Fitbit watch to follow along on-wrist.

This would require the AI to first devise the plan, then export the plan into a format the watch can use, then push the plan to your watch. We imagine it would then remind you to sync your watch again to ensure the plan loads, but this would allow Fitbit or older Pixel Watch users to still use the AI service to its fullest extent just by subscribing to Fitbit Premium – which, of course, is where the money is.

2. Adaptive training plans

While the AI health coach video above shows the AI suggesting tweaks to its training plan, such as replacing a high-impact cardio session with a low-intensity yoga class to support the user's bad back, it stopped short of suggesting adaptive training plans of the kind used by AI-powered training apps such as Runna.

Truly adaptive training plans take into account your performance as well as your preferences: if you're doing better than expected and hitting goals beyond what your training plan had prescribed for you, it can intelligently recognize this and up the intensity.

For example, Samsung has 140 different running coach plans for all sorts of distances and fitness levels, automatically shifting you to easier or more challenging plans based on your performance during workouts. If you're struggling with the speed and distance Samsung recommends, it'll make things easier next time.

3. Plateau-breakers in strength training

Cardiovascular training is easy for fitness watches to record because it uses metrics the watch can record on its own, such as heart rate, distance, time, and speed. Making a fitness watch or app relevant for strength training has always been a challenge: a watch can make a good guess at the number of reps in a set, but there's no way for it to automatically record what kind of weight the user is picking up.

Most weightlifting apps take the form of a combination journal and workout planner. PUSH, which we rated the best app for strength training, offers AI-generated workout plans, a built-in rest timer, journal functionalities, and even recommends 'plateau-breaker' exercises. If you find yourself recording the same amount of weight on a particular exercise, PUSH will recommend a move that will help you build the strength to clear the bar next time.

We'd love it if the AI fitness coach could recommend similar exercises, do so intelligently, and prompt users to try them. Very few people would think to ask Gemini "what's a plateau-breaker exercise for a 70kgs bench press?" but might give an exercise a go if prompted to do so.

4. Scanning your plates

When it comes to health, exercise is only one-third of the battle, with the other two-thirds being sleep and nutrition. Each affects the other. Nutrition suffers the same problem as weightlifting: the need to manually record a number, be it calories, grams of protein, or something else.

The success of apps like MyFitnessPal was down to attempting to automate the process by having an automatic calorie estimation for the most common foods, or the ability to scan barcodes to provide nutritional information. There are quite a few third-party apps now that offer, or promise, calorie estimation of a meal via a quick photograph of a plate.

This is not a perfect process, and many of these apps seem more than a little suspect and data-hungry to me. But with Google Gemini and all the image-recognition photograph tools it enables, there's an opportunity for Google to incorporate something really interesting here: an easy way for people to monitor their nutrition, and add their macros and calorie counts to the vast amounts of information the AI health coach draws from. Simply take a photograph of your meal, tell the AI what it is, and it could automatically estimate nutritional stats.

5. An inclusive approach

We saw the AI chatbot give encouraging advice to someone who had hurt their back, which has given us some indication that context is key for the Fitbit AI health coach. But every suggestion we've seen so far is for people who fall into some degree of normalcy: those who would benefit from, or are able to take part in, regular exercise such as walking and running workouts.

But what about the outlying points on the graph? People who are very underweight, or very overweight, the elderly, or perhaps those confined to a wheelchair. Will the health coach be sufficiently science-backed to cater to the marginalized as well as the majority? We hope so.

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• Strava has been updated with new features for paying subscribers
• That includes AI-powered Routes and tappable locations
• The app’s leaderboards have also been purged of cheats

If you’re a fitness fanatic you’ve probably heard of Strava. The health tracking app is popular among athletes and enthusiasts alike, and it’s just been updated with a range of new features for subscribers.

According to a blog post on the Strava website, the new features “blend on-the-go flexibility with community-driven reliability,” meaning the app gives subscribers “smarter, community-powered tools to explore and compete with confidence.”

So, what do you actually get with the update? First, there’s a new Routes experience. Strava says this comprises “updated AI-powered Routes” that can offer suggestions based on the app’s Global Heatmap. That means more flexible and reliable options that are based on user contributions, the company claims.

From June, points of interest will be tappable, and this can allow you to find out more information about the place in question (such as an eatery or beauty spot). It also means you can create a route that either goes directly to the point of interest or incorporates it along the path, and this will show data like elevation and estimate arrival time.

Then from July, subscribers will be able to drop a pin onto a map in Strava and create an “efficient, activity-specific route from A to B.”

Leaderboard fairness

Beyond these new features, Strava says it's also taking steps to ensure that leaderboard times have been achieved fairly. To that end, the app’s machine learning model has been updated to reprocess the 10 most popular spots on the ride and run leaderboards. This has resulted in the removal of 4.45 million activities that were either filed with the wrong sport type or were recorded in vehicles. Strava says this means the leaderboards will now “reflect true performances.”

Strava is also adding more live segments, with double the number compared to previously. You'll be able to access these segments whether you’re a subscriber or not, but paid members will get a few added features here, including extra screens with comparison metrics.

If you love Strava and use it every time you head out on a run or a ride, these updates might have piqued your interest. Just make sure you take one of the best fitness trackers with you the next time you hit the road.

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• Hiking app AllTrails has just released a new subscription tier with AI features
• We asked AllTrails' Chief Technology Officer how AllTrails reconciles AI's environmental impact with the app's mission statement to help people enjoy the outdoors
• He says AllTrails takes steps to reduce energy cost and maximize efficiency when deploying AI features

Earlier this week we reported that hiking app AllTrails had launched a new subscription tier: Peak, a more expensive subscription plan which makes use of AI tools to enhance your outdoor experience.

These tools include a Community Heatmap, a common feature on the best fitness apps such as AllTrails and contemporaries like Strava. The Heatmap shows where other users are often hiking, allowing you to sort trails by popularity.

Other features include Outdoor Lens, which uses your phone's camera to identify plants, insects, and landmarks, and Trail Conditions, which provides up-to-date information on not just weather, but ground conditions, snowpack, and even mosquito activity on different parts of your trail.

The AllTrails Peak subscription tier costs $79.99 / £79.99 (around AU$125) per year, likely due to the cost of the AI being used.

It's well known that AI is an energy-intensive technology – one of the most popular statistics bandied about is that ChatGPT-4 uses the equivalent of 519ml of water, slightly more than an average bottle, per 100-word email generated. This stat comes from the University of California, Riverside, in a study produced in collaboration with the Washington Post.

AI doesn't, therefore, appear to be an environmentally friendly technology to use at the moment, due to its energy and cooling requirements. AllTrails, however, says it's dedicated to preserving the great outdoors that its users love; the company is partnered with the Leave No Trace and One Tree Planted nonprofits, and contributes 1% of its annual revenue to environmental organizations.

When I spoke to AllTrails' Chief Technology Officer, James Graham, about the new subscription tiers, I also asked him if AllTrails' use of AI was at odds with the company's environmental messaging.

Being careful about AI

"Great question. That's something we think about with every feature we build," Graham told me.

"Our data scientists take time to build features like this more efficiently... We think about the size of the model, and for many of our features, we don’t need to use the largest, highest-intensity model possible, so we don’t always use the top-of-the-line model which consumes the most energy. We’re very deliberate with how we use it."

AllTrails, it seems, tries to mitigate the impact of AI's power consumption and enormous cooling requirements by using smaller, more efficient models specifically developed to implement its features with minimal impact. But Graham also thinks that as AI evolves, its demands will decrease, telling me, "As new technology comes out, we’re already seeing the energy cost of using AI is going down, and we believe that trend will continue,"

While the energy demands for each individual instance of AI use may decrease, the increasing overall usage of AI could offset these savings. A January 2025 MIT report states that data centers already account for 1-2% of global energy usage: by 2030, this could reportedly reach up to 21% due to the demands placed on AI.

If more developers used smaller models and more energy-efficient processes we might avert this dire prediction. However, while the AI tools used by AllTrails look impressive, and are designed to spur more people to spend more time outside, which can be to the benefit of environmental causes, concerns will persist about AI's wider usage, and what it really means to 'leave no trace'.

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• AllTrails has debuted a new premium subscription tier, Peak
• Peak comes with a raft of AI tools including Community Heatmaps, Trail Conditions and Outdoor lens
• It costs $79.99 / £79.99 (around AU$125) per year

Another day, another premium AI-powered subscription tier added to one of the best fitness apps. Following hot on the heels of Garmin, Strava, Polar, and Whoop, AllTrails has announced its latest subscription tier, Peak, which comes with a bunch of cool-looking AI tools.

AllTrails Peak, the new, most expensive membership tier at $79.99 / £79.99 (around AU$125 for Australian readers), includes everything from AllTrails Plus and the app's free tier Base, and adds a series of AI tools:

• Community Heatmap offers insights into AllTrails users' activity, allowing you to filter routes by recent popularity. It shares some similarities with Strava's recent Night Heatmap feature, but it's for hiking routes to identify which routes other hikers are using.
• Trail Conditions is likened to "an app all of its own" by Chief Product Officer Ivan Selin, aggregating 15 different weather factors every hour across the entirety of the trail. Selin says the feature will tell you "not just to expect snow, but how deep and where the snowpack will be," as well as other factors such as ground conditions and even mosquito activity.
• Custom Routes is a machine learning-assisted program designed to allow AllTrails users to create their own trails from scratch.
• Outdoor Lens uses your phone's camera, AllTrails' bank of photographs, and AI to identify landmarks, plants, mushrooms, and even insects. Outdoor Lens is not available at Peak's launch, and will be coming "a little later this summer".

AllTrails Peak's AI-powered features seem very comprehensive. However, the price hike (no pun intended) is significant, as AllTrails Plus costs just $35.99 / £35.99 per year (around AU$56). In our AllTrails review, we said the premium tier was worth it only for regular hikers, so the increase is likely to only be truly worthwhile for power users.

Base subscribers get access to a new Points of Interest feature to help users explore along the trail, and Plus subscribers also get Offline Areas, a feature allowing users to download a map of a large area and access all the trails within that map.

Analysis: A costly, powerful set of tools

Once heralded as Apple's iPhone app of the year, AllTrails' most premium tier is expensive enough that only very frequent recreational hikers and those who spend a lot of time outdoors will be tempted. A $45 / £45 price hike is not a small increase, especially when you're paying annually in a single lump sum.

However, dividing that price over 12 months leaves you with $6.66 / £6.66 a month, which isn't a dissimilar price point to Garmin Connect+ ($6.99 / £6.99) or Strava Premium ($11.99 / £8.99). For that price, you're getting (what seems to be) a very comprehensive set of AI-powered tools, ones that go far beyond those services' paragraphs of advice created by generative AI. Garmin, in particular, has been lambasted for the apparent design laziness in the AI features on its paid tier.

As an AllTrails user, I'm particularly excited to try the Trail Conditions and Outdoor Lens features, although I'd be unlikely to spring for the full subscription. As someone who's excited by (and largely clueless about) different plants and trees, it would be nice to have a tool I can use on the trail that will help me identify certain species.

Besides, as someone who lives in the UK, where the threat of rain is never far away, the Trail Conditions would allow me to time my hikes to ensure a minimal chance of downpours. Plus, it would improve my chances of packing the right shoes!

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It’s getting harder and harder to keep up with the number of apps AI isn’t namechecked in these days, but arguably no fitness app pushes the technology harder than Zing.

The app launched in 2021 and has found success putting a face and a name on your robo-trainer, pushing users further each time while using algorithmic data to calculate the best workouts and rest periods.

While that’s not out of the ordinary, the app even features chatbot-like conversations you can have with your trainer, making it feel as though you’re talking to a human.

The AI’s positivity is a little too much at times (please don’t make me do more squats…), but it adds a personal layer to a field that’s dominated by very good but very sterile alternatives.

Zing Coach: Price and availability

• Free trial for 1 week
• Subscription service costs £19.99/$19.99 price per month

Zing is free to try for a week, but it’ll cost you around £20/$20 for a month thereafter. Thankfully, the annual plan is drastically cheaper, which comes in at £59.99/$59.99.

That actually makes it cheaper than Fitbit Premium (when paid annually).

Zing Coach: Design and UX

• A lot of elements
• AI is one tap away
• Personalization Level is handy

While most fitness apps have an easy-to-read dashboard with some key metrics, Zing’s huge array of features could make it more cluttered than its rivals.

Instead, the whole thing ends up feeling pretty intuitive, with a series of tabs along the bottom of the screen. Workout takes you to your next session, while Analytics shows your progress, muscle recovery, and a handy ‘Personalization Level’ to help you know when the app has got the hang of how you work out.

Then there’s a ‘Circles’ feature for competing or training with friends, and a section for your unique plan’s progress. In the middle of it all, the ‘Zing’ logo gives you access to the AI chatbot with a single tap.

That chatbot can handle pretty much anything you throw at it, like “what’s the difference between deadlifts and Romanian deadlifts?” or “what’s an easy meal plan to follow?” Not needing to jump between menus to ask those kinds of questions means you can get back to your day, or get an answer right when you need it mid-session.

Zing Coach: Features

• AI workout plans with chatbot-like advice on hand
• Body scan adds extra personalization

In many ways, Zing is a lot of tools in one. It offers AI-built personal workout routines where you can specify your fitness levels, equipment, and goals, but it can also help generate a meal plan, hydration targets, and much more.

It also ties nicely into other services, notably Apple HealthKit, which means it can read data that other apps have left there. That means that, even if you’re not using one of Zing’s own workouts and you’re tracking a run on Strava instead, it’ll credit you the activity towards your streak.

There’s an additional Body Scan purchase that can help you calculate your lean mass, body fat, and more. The app can then use this data to calculate your optimal fitness plan.

This feels a little like magic, using your phone’s camera to analyse the data from you standing in a certain position, or leaning on photos you’ve taken earlier.

It’s a snapshot that then feeds into the data Zing helps you work with, giving it more data points to help it hit your goals.

Unlike many of its rivals, Zing can actually watch you work out to help you adjust your form, too, as well as fitness and flexibility tests.

Zing: Performance

• Links into your existing workouts
• AI coaching is more personable than rivals

Zing Coach leans heavily on its AI tools, and while that may evoke a groan from those of us who have seen those letters thrown into everything, here it actually makes sense.

Each time you build a workout, the app kicks into gear with a full-screen animation showing what you should be doing, while always keeping that chatbot handy in the bottom corner if you have any questions.

Every animation feels so carefully designed that it honestly feels a little like it’s been built by the UI gurus at Apple. It’s clean, easy to tweak, and full of information.

It can even integrate with your calendar to set a new workout routine, adding an appointment schedule on the days you choose.

Perhaps my favorite feature, however, is the workout ‘Boosts’. When you finish an exercise in any other app, be that from tracking a walk to lifting weights, Zing will give a notification that it can help you eke out a little bit more from your session with a quick 15-minute workout.

The way it then dovetails into apps like Strava, Strong, Fitbod, and more makes it feel like a genuinely impressive all-encompassing app rather than one you train with and then forget about until you get to the gym next time.

Zing Coach: Should I buy?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

First reviewed: April 2025

With AI, the best fitness apps are now able to provide personalized and adaptive workout plans that aim to achieve your goals and provide insights based on your activities and health data.

How do you know which exercises are best for your body? Or how to translate your health data into a fitness routine? So many fitness apps are turning to artificial intelligence to answer these questions. AI programs can study your data and translate it into easy-to-understand information; some use that information to create fitness plans that change on a day-to-day basis depending on how well your workout went the day before, or even your activity over the last few years.

We’ve gathered five fitness apps who use AI in a variety of ways to improve the app and experience for users. Read on to see how these apps track and use your data and whether they’re worth the cost.

Runna

• Price: US $19.99/month or $119.99/year / UK £15.99/month / AU $30/month

Want to run a marathon? Improve your running times? Or simply run longer distances? Consider Runna, the running app that offers personalized running plans to achieve your goals. In addition to running plans, Runna offers nutritional tips, running form advice, and even strength and mobility exercises. Others seek out the app for community elements, like running events, a team of running coaches you can message, and a host of discounts and offers.

How it implements AI: Runna uses AI to generate your run plan. By monitoring your intervals, tempo, and time, Runna determines your pace status after each workout. Over time, the AI program can see trends in your running results, such as whether or not you’re hitting your pace status and if you need a new pace target or workout plan to achieve your goals.

Premium plan subscribers also have access to the beta version of a new Runna AI program called Workout Insights. After you complete your workout and rate it, Workout Insights pops up with thorough feedback produced via generative AI on what you did well, where you can improve, how your workout fits with your overall fitness goals, and some motivation and encouragement.

Verdict: 4.5 stars. Read our full Runna review

PUSH

• Price: $15.99/month or $64.99/year / UK £15.99/month or £99.99/year / AU $23.49/month or $144.99/year

Build muscles quickly and efficiently with PUSH Workout & Gym Tracker. This app provides tailored strength-based workout plans for gym-goers and tracks your fitness over time, letting users know when to increase their reps or weight and providing new exercises once targets have been achieved.

How it implements AI: After filling out a questionnaire about your workout routine, access to equipment, sleep and stress levels, and which muscles you want to focus on, PUSH’s AI creates a personalized strength training routine. The workout plan is detailed in terms of reps and weights, even providing a rep timer.

The app’s AI tracks your progress over time, providing you with new suggestions for weights and reps to maximize muscle growth once it sees that you can handle certain workouts. If you can’t complete a set with a certain weight, the AI might even create a plateau breaker exercise – such as an exercise with lighter weights or fewer reps – to help you stay on track.

Verdict: Our best fitness app for strength training. Read our full PUSH review.

Strava

• Price: $11.99/month (monthly), $79.99/year + taxes (yearly), $139.99/year + taxes (family plan for four accounts) / UK £8.99/month or £54.99/year / AU $14.99/month or $99.99/year

Track your running and cycling stats with the Strava app. It doubles as a social network, letting users share their workouts and routes or even join community-based running or cycling groups. It’s a great resource to find trails – be they on or off the road – in your area.

How it implements AI: Athlete Intelligence is the name of Strava’s generative AI program. It’s designed to provide users with easier-to-understand insights based on their activity data.

Upon uploading an activity like a run or a hike to Strava, the AI program offers feedback on your activity using encouraging language, as well as some thoughts on your overall exercise and fitness journey. By examining your speed, endurance, heart rate, pace, and elevation from the past 30 days of activities, Athlete Intelligence may suggest your next activity, celebrate milestones, or note overall fitness trends.

Verdict: We rated Strava highly in our full Strava review, although it was written before the AI features were introduced. Athlete Intelligence offers nice contextual information, but after using it for a week, we said: "for now, though, there’s not a lot that the AI can tell me that my fitness tracker isn’t [telling me] already."

AllTrails

• Price: $35.99/year / UK £35.99 / AU $35.99

AllTrails is a phenomenal resource to find trails to hike, walk, and cycle. With a subscription, users can create maps, plan trips, navigate and track their activities, and access stats. Within the community space on the app, you can suggest edits to trails, connect with others, and share trail lists.

How it implements AI: AllTrails uses AI in numerous ways. First, there’s TrailsGPT – an AI program that examines trip reports, comments, and images, and makes necessary edits to incorrect information. For instance, if a user accidentally wrote the wrong trail name, TrailsGPT would clean that up. The app also uses AI to search through photos submitted by users and pins those photos at the correct points on the trail map, so other hikers can see where certain photos were taken on the trail. Lastly, an OpenAI program creates a review summary at the top of each trail page, so you can get an overview of the feedback for each trail rather than have to read through all the reviews to get the latest updates on trail conditions or changes.

Bonus: If you’re a ChatGPT Plus Subscriber, you can access AllTrails’ chatboat called AllTrails GPT. This AI chatbot examines AllTrails’ database and answers questions users might have about trail conditions, what gear to bring for a specific trail, and more.

Verdict: Rated 4.5 stars in our AllTrails review, and the review summaries/photo pins are genuinely very useful.

Garmin Connect+

• Price: $6.99/month or $69.99/year / UK £6.99/ month or £69.99/year / AU $12/month or $120/year

Users can track their fitness activities and receive Garmin Coach training plans through Garmin’s Connect+ app. In addition to building out courses for a ride or run using the best Garmin watches, you can take advantage of animated exercises, and receive insights and suggestions based on your health stats. Friends, family, or fans can track your starting and stopping points during an activity with LiveTrack, via text alerts rather than the usual single link.

How it implements AI: Active Intelligence is the AI program that Connect+ uses to offer individualized fitness insights and suggestions throughout your day based on your health and overall activity data. These suggestions appear as small snippet-like paragraphs, created by generative AI, and even some graphs and charts.

Some users have noted that Active Intelligence doesn’t really differ from the insights that Garmin watches already provide and many have criticized the occasionally-redundant platitudes it offers, but perhaps this will change over time. Garmin Coach also utilizes AI to create workout plans for users and adapt those plans when necessary.

Verdict: Early users have not been kind, as the backlash shows.

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This morning, news broke that two of the services on our best fitness apps list were joining forces: Strava is buying Runna.

Strava, which we rated an excellent service at both free and premium tiers with a terrific social media platform and run-tracking integrations, doesn't really have much in the way of coaching, bar the availability of some static training plans. This seems to make Runna, another highly-rated app built around coaching plans, including an AI coaching service, a great fit.

As Strava CEO Mike Martin put it in an interview with TechRadar, alongside Runna CEO Dom Maskell, "The way that I think about it, it's like the world's largest team just got a new coach. I think that's a really exciting way to position it."

After reading the reactions on the Runna subreddit (cautious optimism, unlike the furor around Garmin's new Connect+ premium tier last month), I wanted to ask both CEOs, especially Martin, if there's a temptation to force Runna users to eventually onboard to a new system, in the same way Google has done with the Fitbit community.

Martin said: "I want to be really clear to both communities and user bases... A key component of Strava is that we are and remain an open platform for the entire connected fitness industry. So we expect to continue to do that, and that is the way that Runna is is integrated in with Strava as well.

"I think there's lots of interesting opportunities for us to accelerate both the support that we provide for the the running community between the two businesses. And just to put a fine point on it, this is a growth and investment play for us... not to do a forced integration play, or something like that."

A Runna for swimmers/cyclists?

I asked Maskell and Martin what the acquisition means for users of both platforms, and in the short term, nothing will change. However, it seems like a given Strava will eventually be able to use some of Runna's comprehensive workout plan-building Runna AI technology in some way.

I also asked what Runna will be taking from Strava: of course, Strava also offers features for cyclists, swimmers, triathletes, and all sorts of other disciplines. Could we see Runna-branded AI coaches for other sports in the future, with Strava's help and investment?

Short answer: not yet.

Maskell said: "It has always been our long-term intention to explore other sports one day. The reason why we didn't do triathlon kind of a couple of years ago is because it's very complicated to do. We would have to build a swimming app for the Apple Watch, and we would have to give customer support to cyclists, and all this kind of stuff. We wanted to really, really nail running before we started exploring other sports."

However, Maskell has revealed some changes to his roadmap: "We'll probably look to internationalize to non-English speaking languages, probably in the next couple of years. Strava has a lot of users... that number [of non-English speaking users] is very, very high.

"We might decide to translate a bunch of the coaching comments, all of the videos, all the kind of content in the app sooner, so that we're able to serve those users. I think that's the kind of thing that would make sense to expedite.

"In terms of other sports, I think that's more the long-term vision."

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We’ve compiled a comprehensive list of the best fitness apps and keep it up to date, but what constitutes ‘fitness app’ is a broad church these days. You need to be looking for something specific: if you're looking to build muscle in the gym, for example, you don't want Strava or Komoot, which tend to be on most 'best of' lists.

There’s a litany of muscle-building apps out there, and we’ve only scratched the surface of what’s on offer right now, with PUSH named (at time of writing) our best for strength training. Frankly, we’re gobsmacked at the amount of choices on offer for weightlifters: what happens if you don’t get on with PUSH, and want to go to a competitor? Which do you choose?

However, here at TechRadar we’ve tested enough fitness apps to fill, if not a gym, then at least a moderately-sized hard drive. Below are five of the best apps you could download and use today to guide you in your muscle-building journey, to prevent you from losing your whey on your swoly pilgrimage.

1. Fitbod

• Cost: $12.99 / approximately £10 / AU$20 per month
• Free version? Limited to three workouts
• Compatible with: iOS, Android

Fitbod was rated our best fitness app overall, with our reviewer stating: “with a huge catalog of exercises tailored to all types of equipment (including equipment-free exercises), it’s a great way to build your fitness over time”.

That sentiment hasn’t gone away. Although the free version amounts to little more than a three-day trial period, Fitbod’s subscription tier is excellent, automatically building a workout for the muscle groups you want to target and the intensity you want to hit using generative AI, drawing on an extensive workout library of hundreds of moves.

It’s less focused on cardio and more suited to beginner lifters than seasoned experts looking for a program, but Fitbod’s certainly got the edge over most of its competitors at the early stages of users’ fitness journeys.

2. Stronglifts 5x5

• Cost: $84.99 / approximately £65 / AU$135 for lifetime license
• Free version? 7 days free trial
• Compatible with: iOS, Android

Stronglifts 5x5 is a workout for those looking to shift serious steel. It focuses on five key movements: the barbell bench press, back squat, deadlift, overhead press and barbell row, and looks to get you stronger in those five areas by doing five sets of five reps of each of these five exercises.

By arranging the exercises in specific order and having such a restricted rep/set count, the app is intuitive, easy to use and even comes with a companion app for your best smartwatch. The app will help you work towards and break plateaus in these areas, and it’s really intuitive to use: five reps, mark the set done by tapping it, rinse and repeat.

You can get the app on an annual basis (in the UK, it’s £29.99, around $40 / AU$60) or opt for the lifetime subscription purchasable on the Stronglifts website, for $84.99 / approximately £65 / AU$135. You can get the program in non-app form for free though.

3. StrengthLog

• Cost: Premium features cost $109 / £98.90 / around AU$175 per annum
• Free version? Yes
• Compatible with: iOS, Android

StrengthLog probably has the most comprehensive free features out of any app on this list. Although more complete workout plans are on the premium tier, you can get by perfectly well with just the free version, which includes some basic complete plans, a comprehensive workout builder to make your own, and video guidance for each move.

The library is extensive and suitable for gymgoers, although I found a few more esoteric movements like wide push-ups were missing from its stable. It’s got weight logs too, so you can accurately monitor progress. My one gripe about this app is that before you start a program, check your gym has the right equipment – for example, mine was missing a lying leg curl machine.

4. Hevy

• Cost: $23.99 / £23.49 / AU$39.99 per annum
• Free version? Yes
• Compatible with: iOS, Android

Hevy, highly-recommended online, is a workout-tracking app with some social media elements, allowing you to follow other users like Strava. Like StrengthLog, it’s got plenty of free workout programs to follow even if you don’t pay for the premium version.

It’s quite in-depth, allowing you to log individual breakthroughs on exercises, such as one-rep-maxes, in addition to completing the prescribed sets and reps. Little touches like this make it really useful in the gym, as you might switch things up to test your strength now and again.

Like the others, it’s got little video tutorials, although these are also animated with a heat map of muscles worked.

5. PUSH

• Cost: $89.99 / £89.99 / AU$144.99 a year
• Free version? Trial only
• Compatible with: iOS, Android

Last but not least is our pick for best fitness app for lifters, PUSH. It’s an app that uses AI to automatically generate and modulate your exercise plan, to great effect. In our PUSH review, we called it “a brilliantly designed app with very few flaws”.

We really lauded its rest-tracking, and the interface is a joy to use. If you find yourself stalling, the AI will recommend ‘plateau breaker’ exercises to help you push past it. Unfortunately, its annual subscription is very expensive when paired with some of its contemporaries, which will make it prohibitive to some.

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• Strava just got four major upgrades
• The company has added new route filtering, a redesigned activity page, and a Strava Stickers upgrade
• The biggest change is a new proprietary map rendering engine

Strava has added four new updates to its app, including an absolutely massive 3D map rendering overhaul that promises a new level of detail to terrain and routes, making one of the best fitness apps around even better.

Strava's more modest changes include updates to Saved Routes filtering, a new Activity Details page, and Sticker exporting.

Strava subscribers can now search Saved Routes by keyword or filter them by sport type, distance, elevation, owner, or even surface type.

The Activity Details page is now more immersive, with a full-screen layout including route, photos, and videos showcased, letting you more easily see your best moments and achievements.

Thirdly, Strava Stickers can now be exported directly to Instagram Stories, and you can download them for use on other platforms. As mentioned, however, it's the 3D mapping that we're really excited about.

Strava's new 3D mapping

Strava has integrated its own proprietary mapping engine into the Strava app. The company says it will bring lifelike 3D terrain, detailed satellite imagery, and new map layers for winter trails and activities.

Strava's Map Rendering Engine (MRE) now uses a hilariously-named technology called FATMAP, a company it acquired in 2022. With the new maps, users will get more detailed insight into Avalanche Gradients, general gradients, aspect (the direction a slope faces), and improved winter map styles to help you plan cold-weather activity.

You can find the new maps in the Maps tab on the app, and they'll even show when you're looking back at previous activities. Strava says that it's going to keep building on MRE to add even more improvements and map innovations in the future, so there should be plenty to look forward to.

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COSORI Smart Nutrition Scale: Two-minute review

New for 2025 in the world of health and fitness technology is the enticing COSORI Smart Nutrition Scale. I actually first encountered it on TikTok where I've seen a couple of viral posts about it, and now COSORI has officially launched the Smart Kitchen Scale in the UK. See the Price and Availability section for full details.

As a fitness enthusiast with an interest in food and nutrition, but as someone who often struggles to track food and count calories, the COSORI seemed right up my street, and after my initial go at using the scale I have to say I'm really impressed. It's not perfect, and the methodology has a couple of obvious flaws I'll get to, but this is a nifty little kitchen gadget that will catch the eye of guests and make a great sub-£50/$50 gift for the gym enthusiast in your life.

Out of the box, 6he COSORI feels premium and well-built, which you'd hope for a scale that costs nearly 50 bucks. The plastic base houses three AAA batteries, while the platform is made up of food-grade 304 stainless steel that's designed to be easy to clean. The sizing is pretty generous, it's a lot larger than my bog-standard kitchen scale and feels more useful as a result, without being unwieldy.

The COSORI Smart Kitchen Scale is designed to provide you with accurate information about the food you eat, revealing the exact amount of calories, protein, fat, carbs, and micronutrients like fiber based on weight. Naturally, it requires a companion app where you'll access the database of food, scanning barcodes (or searching for food) as you go.

The scale arrives ready to use, with a QR code included for the VeSync app, I'd say installation, registration, and pairing all took less than a minute. The process to set up the scale was extremely easy and straightforward, with zero hiccups. So far, so good.

The COSORI Smart Kitchen Scale is so easy to use that there's very little to explain when it comes to its functionality. The VeSync app, which syncs with Apple Health and Fitbit, includes a daily food-tracking platform. You enter your target calories and your desired breakdown of protein, carbs, and fat, the big three 'macronutrients' essential to balancing a diet, shedding weight, or building muscle.

Once your numbers are locked in, you log food just as you would in apps like MyFitnessPal. The most convenient way to do this is by scanning barcodes. The process is super snappy, but has an obvious flaw. The food data comes from Nutritionix, which boasts nearly one million food items. However, if your food isn't listed, you'll need to enter the details manually or pick a substitute.

I did a quick go-around of my fridge and was surprised to find eggs and Greek yogurt from one household UK supermarket didn't show up. However, eggs from another large supermarket showed up just fine, as did some frozen berries from my freezer, and a body-building mainstay: Pringles potato crisps. Your mileage will definitely vary when it comes to what foods are supported, and might even depend on where you live and shop.

Manually entering the information isn't the end of the world, but it's certainly frustrating when the barcode scanner doesn't throw up results.

Once you've successfully identified your food, you simply pop it on the scale and the COSORI will automatically weigh it and provide you with a breakdown of all the nutrients in the food. Once you're happy with your amount, you simply tap 'Save and Add More', and you're done. Congrats, you've successfully logged the exact weight and calorific breakdown of the food you're about to eat.

In principle, you can use the COSORI Smart Kitchen Scale to track an entire day's worth of eating, with calorie tracking accuracy down to the nearest gram.

So who would benefit? While the COSORI can be used to simply weigh something, this is a lot of money to spend on a scale that you use purely for weight. The COSORI really needs to be used to its full potential to justify the outlay. I'd say that gym-goers, bodybuilders, and anyone trying to build a food regime to complement their fitness plan would absolutely love the COSORI.

It would especially lend itself to people who like to try new foods, mix up recipes, and experiment. By contrast, if you meal prep seven days of boiled chicken, rice, and broccoli every Sunday afternoon, you might be better off with a regular scale.

The COSORI is particularly helpful for giving you insight into calories and ingredients which don't have an obvious calorie makeup, like a spoonful of peanut butter. I distinctly recall one TikToker being mortified at just how many calories were to be found in a fairly meager serving of peanut butter, for instance. If you take an interest in your diet, calories, and portions, the COSORI could take you from a portion enthusiast to a culinary Rain Man.

While you could in theory use the COSORI alongside something like MyFitnessPal to track your food, you'd lose out on the snappy, automatic tracking and instant results that make the COSORI an attractive package. Therefore, anyone who's already heavily invested in a different food or fitness app might not want to make the switch. The COSORI app even features recipes, including recipes you can use with the best air fryers (some of which, coincidentally, are also made by COSORI).

COSORI Smart Nutrition Scale: Price and availability

• $39.99 / £47.42
• Coming to the US in June

The COSORI Smart Kitchen Scale is available now in the UK from Amazon at the cost of £47.42. In the U.S, you can buy one under the brand name Etekcity, also from Amazon, at the cost of $39.99. Both COSORI and Etekcity are subsidiaries of the VeSync brand, and these are the same product, but the COSORI version is also launching in the US in June.

Unfortunately, the product is not currently available in Australia.

COSORI Smart Nutrition Scale: Specifications

COSORI Smart Nutrition Scale: Scorecard

COSORI Smart Nutrition Scale: Should I buy?

Buy if it...

Don't buy it if...

Also consider

The Renpho Kitchen Scales are an obvious alternative to the COSORI, and a lot cheaper. However, you won't get that epic LCD display the nutritional information, and it's a bit smaller too.

How I tested

I paired the COSORI Smart Kitchen Scale with my iPhone, exploring all of the features of the app. I used the scale to weigh a number of household foods to determine accuracy, as well as the barcode scanner to test the food library function.

About 12 out of 15 of the best fitness apps actively share your personal data with third parties, de-facto selling out your privacy. Strava and Fitbit are among the most data-hungry, collecting 84% of all potential data points.

These are some of the worrying findings from new research released by Surfshark, one of the best VPN services on the market, after looking at data collection and sharing practices of the most popular fitness mobile applications.

"Our research shows that free apps share significantly more data with third parties compared to paid apps, highlighting the importance of evaluating privacy implications," said Tomas Stamulis, Chief Security Officer at Surfshark.

The hidden price of at-home training

To determine the real price of (often free) at-home training, the Surfshark team analyzed the 15 top fitness mobile applications. These include exercise trackers, workout apps, and personal training platforms.

Surfshark's analysis unveiled a pretty worrying scenario for fitness fanatics. As mentioned earlier, 80% of the analyzed apps share users' tracked data with third parties. These details include device locations, emails, user IDs, device IDs, or profiles. Nike Training Club leads the category, with four types of tracking data shared with third parties. These are coarse location (approximate, generally within a city block), some sensitive info, device ID, and product interaction.

In Apple's own words, "Tracking refers to the act of linking user or device data collected from your app with user or device data collected from other companies’ apps, websites, or offline properties for targeted advertising or advertising measurement purposes. Tracking also refers to sharing user or device data with data brokers."

Most apps (13 out of 15) also collect health and fitness information directly linked to users – Centr and Peloton are the only two applications that don't.

Overall the analyzed apps collect an average of 12 types of information out of the 35 potential data points available – with the least privacy-friendly storing nearly twice as much.

Strava and Fitbit came out as the most data-hungry apps, both gathering 21 unique types of data. In comparison, the most private workout application, Centr, collects just three types of data (User ID, Product Interaction, and Crash Data) with only one of these contributing to user tracking.

Worse still, three apps collect very sensitive information such as racial or ethnic background, sexual orientation, pregnancy or childbirth details, disability status, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, political opinions, genetic information, or biometric data. These include the Nike Training Club app.

Location data is another piece of information many fitness apps collect. Four apps, including popular running applications like Runna and Strava, collect precise location data linked to the user. Five apps collect only coarse location data, with two (Nike Training Club and Peloton) sharing this information with third parties.

As mentioned earlier, free applications collect and share the most data. After all, the only way they can make a profit is to sell your data to data brokers or run invasive ads on the app. This is why Stamulis from Surfshark suggests upgrading to a paid subscription whenever possible.

He also recommends considering whether the app can function without granting permissions that may not be necessary. "If such options aren’t provided, it raises important questions about the intent behind the data collection," he added.

For over a year I’ve tracked my strength and fitness goals through Push, a brilliant bodybuilding app that uses AI to generate workout plans, track progressive overload, and help you beat your PBs.

I love the app, gave it a glowing 4.5 stars in my Push app review, and hold it as one of the best fitness apps you can download right now.

After using it in the gym for six days a week, over the course of an entire year, I decided to try an experiment. Playing around with plan generation, Push suggested that, based on my recovery, I should try reducing the number of days I work out to help me progress.

On the face of it, the premise is quite simple, fewer workouts means more time for recovery, and the better condition you approach your next workout in the better you can apply yourself to the task at hand. Excited to see if more recovery would help, I gave it a shot… and I hated it. After just a few weeks of working out four times a week, I’m going back to six days on the iron for a variety of reasons. Here’s what happened.

Push gone wrong

What follows is absolutely not a knock on Push at all: I still think it’s a brilliant app and have faith in its AI-powered progressive overload. If anything, my failed attempt to switch up my work regimen is a stunning indictment of my own lack of time planning, motivation, and discipline. A skill issue, if you will.

I work out in the morning before work. I’m extremely fortunate to work remotely and live next door to a gym. Despite this, I always cut my timings in the morning as finely as possible. The four-day plan Push served up for me still involved working out the same muscle groupings for the same number of sets over the course of a week, as such the workouts were fewer, but considerably longer.

What should have aided recovery and improved results in the gym instead turned into a string of unfinished sessions. I’m a creature of habit and have spent years building up a bulletproof morning routine of pre-workout caffeine, meditation, exercise, and recovery.

Trying to shoehorn a 90-minute workout into the 60-minute slot I’d created was never going to be easy, and for whatever reason I just couldn’t make it stick. As I said, this is largely an indictment on me personally: I’m sure hyper-productive people used to creating rigorous discipline, such as David Goggins, could have figured it out, but I’m not David Goggins, I’m Stephen. I like BBQ base Dominos, procrastination, and sitting down for just a bit too long before I leave the house for an appointment. I am weak.

All Push, no shove

So Push’s amended plan with fewer, longer workouts completely scuppered my routine. For four days a week, I would go to the gym, try and squeeze in as much as possible, fail, and then come away miserable, bereft of my underachievement. But there was another problem. On the three days a week I wasn’t working out, I was suddenly completely devoid of the safety and structure I’d built my whole routine on. After spending nearly eight years working out six days a week before work, I started finding myself in bed at 8:55 am on a Wednesday morning, crawling to my desk in my pajamas absent caffeine, a shower, or any kind of motivation. I was a mess.

I know what you’re thinking, “Stephen, surely you could just go to the gym, run, and have a good stretch, to improve your cardio fitness and finally achieve the goal of touching your toes.” It crossed my mind too, but I just couldn’t muster the willpower to go to the gym to do anything other than lift weights. By the end of my failed Push experiment, I was doing the four-day workout weeks seven days a week, and just skipping the rest days built into the program.

A lesson learned

Beneath all of this self-deprecation and my glacial motivation, there’s a serious lesson to be learned. As the new year turns and we all set out to conquer another year of fitness goals, take heed of my mistakes.

Whatever you’re trying to achieve in fitness for 2025, do something you enjoy. Think about the routines you want to build, and the pillars already in place in your life that you can lean on. Don’t be afraid to experiment and tweak things, but if it doesn’t work out, don’t be afraid to move on to something new.

I undertook my four-day workout week in the hope of finding better recovery and improved results, instead, I found out that I actually love having a reason to go to the gym every day, and that old habits really do die hard. So for 2025, it’s back to six days a week in the gym for me, and back to the pursuit of finding other ways to improve my recovery and push through the next set of plateaus.

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If Santa has been good to you this year and you’ve found a brand-new Apple Watch under the tree, you might be wondering exactly where to start. If you’re new to Apple Watch and this is your first time using one, you might have heard about some of the great features and benefits, but strapping it on for the first time can definitely be a bit daunting.

So what exactly does the Apple Watch do? And how can you use it to change and improve your life? There are a ton of great features we could have chosen from, not least the App Store and its myriad selection of third-party offerings to elevate your experience. In fact, it’s so important we put together a whole extra guide, five Apple Watch apps you should download on your first Apple Watch.

But what about the things your Apple Watch already offers? Here are five must-do things for any brand-new Apple Watch owner, picked from a variety of capabilities to help demonstrate the breadth of different features and how they might impact your life.

These features will work whether you've got the very best Apple Watch, a mid-range Apple Watch Series 10, or a budget Apple Watch SE 2.

1. Record a workout

We’re starting off with an obvious one, use your Apple Watch to record a workout. Using an Apple Watch to track and record your calories, steps, and workout sessions is a great way to help monitor your progress, make gains and improvements, and stay well-rested and injury-free. You’ll get cool metrics like heart rate, time, and even effort measurement in some cases. It’ll also tell you how many calories you’ve burned, and give you access to controls for your music if you like to listen while you’re working out. Not sure where to start? Why not try a quick walk?

To track a workout on Apple Watch:

• Press the Digital Crown (the circle button on the side)
• Scroll down to Workout
• Find the exercise you want to record, and tap the tile

2. Pay for something

Whether you’re commuting, traveling, or just out for a quick stroll to the shops, you can use your Apple Watch to pay for goods using Apple Pay anywhere that Apple Pay or Contactless is accepted. A quick flick of the wrist and you can use your Apple Watch like a bank card. Not only can you store bank cards, you can also keep airline boarding passes, loyalty and reward cards, and even hotel room keys stored on your wrist. Using Apple Pay on your wrist adds one more layer of convenience to your experience of paying with your iPhone. If you’ve never used Apple Pay before, this one might just change your life.

To pay for something with Apple Watch:

• Add your bank card to the Apple Watch app on your iPhone (there’s a Wallet & Apple Pay section on the front page)
• Double-click the long side button on your Apple Watch
• Scroll with the Digital Crown to select your card of choice, then hold it to a card reader to pay

3. Make a phone call

You can use your Apple Watch to send text messages and iMessages to people, but somehow, making a phone call just feels a bit more special. You can make calls from your Apple Watch using your AirPods, or just your Apple Watch speaker. You’ll need your iPhone nearby unless you’ve got a cellular Apple Watch. The latter can make phone calls even when your iPhone isn’t lying around.

To make a phone call on Apple Watch:

• Press the Digital Crown
• Scroll to Phone
• Tap on a contact from the Favorites, Recents, or Contacts section, or simply dial a number using the button in the top left-hand corner

4. Find your way

Your Apple Watch is the perfect wearable navigation companion, with full Apple Maps support so you can follow turn-by-turn navigation directly on your wrist. You can use GPS for positioning, and your watch will even vibrate as you approach upcoming junctions or turns so you know when to check your wrist for the next instruction.

To navigate somewhere on Apple Watch:

• Press the Digital Crown
• Scroll down to Maps
• Press the Search icon in the bottom right-hand corner and enter a location with your keyboard, Scribble (write the letters with your finger), or your voice
• You can also set a route with your iPhone, which will automatically appear on your Apple Watch if it’s nearby

5. Look for your phone

I lose my iPhone around the house all the time, behind cushions, under blankets, and more. By far and away my favorite and most-used Apple Watch feature is the Find Devices app. If you’ve lost your phone (or you want to hide it to test this feature), you can use your Apple Watch to ping your iPhone. It’ll play a sound, and if you’ve got one of the best iPhones, such as the iPhone 15 or 16, and a new Apple Watch Series 10, it’ll even give you Precision Finding with directions and distance like you would an AirTag.

To locate your iPhone using your Apple Watch:

• Press the Side Button once
• Press the phone icon with two curved lines on either side
• It’s the third button, found to the left of the battery life percentage indicator

Master your Apple Watch

With these five skills mastered, you'll be a pro at using your Apple Watch in no time, but you've only just scratched the surface. You can use your Apple Watch to make calls to Emergency Services, play music, unlock your smart front door, make appointments, set timers, check the weather, read and respond to email, do Math, track your sleep, and much more.

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If 2025 is the year you’ve finally promised yourself you will actually get fit, lose weight, run that marathon, or lift those weights, then you should make sure you have as many tools at your disposal as possible.

Starting a new fitness challenge, program, or routine can be really daunting, especially for first-timers. If you own a smartphone, however, there are a ton of great apps out there that can really help you get on top of your fitness goals for 2025. Many of them are free, while some of them require a subscription. Either way, starting out with one of the best fitness apps can be one of the best ways to help your fitness goals.

They can be downloaded to a smartphone you probably already own, and there's usually no immediate upfront cost like there is for a new fitness tracker, smartwatch, or gym membership. So whether you want to run your first marathon, take control of your calories, or just get out and walk, here are some of the best apps to help you achieve your 2025 fitness goals.

1. Fitbod: Workout & Gym Planner

Fitbot is our number-one pick of the best fitness apps on both iPhone and Android. It’s a pocket personal trainer with a massive range of exercises that caters to both beginners and experienced users. It also has an impressive UI and can be used even without any equipment.

The full version will cost you $12.99/£10/AU$20 a month or $79.99/£63/AU$122 a year, but there’s a very limited free trial if you’d like to test it out.

• Download Fitbod for iPhone
• Download Fitbod for Android

2. Runna

Runna is one of our very favorite running apps thanks to its personalized running programs, very solid design, and the broad range of features you get for free.

I’ve personally used this app for a really solid Couch to 5K plan, and the workouts feature really helpful guidance that talks to you as you run. If you want to do any sort of running in 2025, be it your first-ever 5K, an ultra or anything in between, this definitely should be top of your list.

• Download Runna for iPhone
• Download Runna for Android

3. Push

I’ve used Push for well over a year as my go-to daily workout companion. It’s an AI-powered strength training app with a stunning interface, and workout plans designed to give you maximum results in the gym when it comes to strength training. You won’t find anything except weightlifting for the purposes of building muscle, but if you want to get massive in 2025, this is the one I’d recommend.

• Download Push for iPhone
• Download Push for Android

4. MyFitnessPal

There’s an old adage that you can’t out-train a bad diet, and it’s sadly true. All that hard work in the gym isn’t going to matter if you aren’t doing the heavy lifting in the kitchen.

Whether you want to shed those pounds, build muscle, or ensure you’re fuelled for long distances, getting your food right is crucial MyFitnessPal is a mainstay calorie tracking app that lets you input your targets and goals and divide up your macronutrients (protein, carbs and fat) to help you hit your target.

The app’s peak feature is undoubtedly the barcode scanner, which gives you crowdsourced nutritional information about the food you buy so you don’t have to put it in manually.

• Download MyFitnessPal for iPhone
• Download MyFitnessPal for Android

5. Strava

If you want to get into the outdoors and feel like you’re part of a fitness community, Strava’s 135 million members are waiting for you.

Ever-popular amongst cyclists and runners, Strava lets you record your exercise and share it with the world, so if you’re ultra-competitive and want to take your fitness to the next level, or you want to join like-minded exercises on your first steps, it’s hard to go wrong with Strava. It also offers analysis and feedback, importing data from your wearable, and kit tracking.

• Download Strava for iPhone
• Download Strava for Android

6. Noom

Noom is a sleeper weight loss and diet app that uses personalized programs and psychology to not only track your food and log calories, but also change your behavior and thinking around food.

It’s a dedicated weight-loss app with a serious price tag (at least $209 a year) but could be a winner for those who really want to get inside the psychology of food.

• Download Noom for iPhone
• Download Noom for Android

7. Tasty

Tasty is a much more conventional meal planning and recipe app that can help you come up with great, tasty food to keep your diet going.

There are plenty of indulgent and decadent recipes for cheat days, but there are also easy dinners, five-ingredient meals, and of course healthy options for low-carb, low-calorie, high-protein, or low-fat meals.

• Download Tasty for iPhone
• Download Tasty for Android

8. Headspace

After a life-changing brush with health anxiety a couple of years ago, Headspace is one of the most important apps on my iPhone these days. There’s no point doing all that legwork in the gym and on the dinner table, if you’re not taking care of your mental wellbeing too.

Headspace features a massive range of mindfulness exercises from brief meditations and breathing exercises to 30-day courses. There are even guided meditations for exercises like yoga and cardio, as well as specific courses for mindful eating.

• Download Headspace for iPhone
• Download Headspace for Android

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If you’ve opened up an Apple Watch for the first time this Christmas, then you might be wondering where to start. While you can do a range of things on all of the best Apple Watch models, from tracking workouts and making payments to turn-by-turn navigation and voice calling, having even a few great apps can make your Apple Watch a do-it-all wearable companion you’ll wonder how you ever lived without.

Like the iPhone, the Apple Watch relies on an ecosystem of third-party apps to expand its user experience, and downloading some out the gate can really make a difference.

I’ve been using and writing about the Apple Watch for nearly 10 years, really since it first debuted. With that in mind, I’ve pulled five of my top picks for apps you should download right away on your Apple Watch.

1. SmartGym

The Apple Watch boasts a wealth of fitness tracking and health features built-in. But what if you could track and follow personalized workouts directly from your wrist, even if you don’t have your iPhone nearby? SmartGym is a standalone watch app that uses AI to create personalized workouts for you, even suggesting changes as you go. It supports gym workouts, home workouts, and even High Intensity Interval Training. There's a reason it’s featured in Apple’s own Watch adverts. This app is free to download and has a small monthly subscription for more workouts.

• Download SmartGym for Apple Watch

2. Runna

I used Runna to kickstart my return to running in 2024 and was really impressed. Runna is an easy-to-use running coach with a great standalone watch app. Without your iPhone, you can get tailor-made running workouts on your wrist, including spoken instructions that give you pace, intervals, and time updates through your headphones. A quick glance at the wrist will show live pace updates, timings, and more. If you want to use your Apple Watch to get running in 2025, definitely give Runna a bash.

• Download Runna for Apple Watch

3. Citymapper

While you can use Apple Maps and even turn-by-turn navigation on your Apple Watch, Citymapper takes navigation on your wrist to the next level. This app can help you find the best way to traverse over 400 cities by bus, train, walking, tram, subway, or any combination of transport modes. It offers step-by-step directions and instructions, with features to save destinations like Home or Work. It’ll even give you the frequency of buses and trains, and alert you when your stop is coming up.

• Download Citymapper for Apple Watch

4. CARROT Weather

Award-winning app, CARROT Weather brings personality to weather forecasting. It has five personalities including a “profanity-laden” overkill setting, delivering a weather robot that will literally swear at you while telling you the weather. It gathers weather data from various sources including Apple Weather, AccuWeather, and Tommorow.io, and includes alerts for rain, lighting, and more. You can customize the interface and there’s even an Apple Watch complication. It’s a big step up from the basic Apple Weather app.

• Download CARROT Weather on Apple Watch

5. Cheatsheet

Cheatsheet is a cheat code when it comes to the Apple Watch and might be one of my all-time favorite life hacks. Cheatsheet is a tiny widget app that lets you store important information on your Apple Watch for easy access. Maybe you need the Wi-Fi password handy for visitors, or the combination to a locked door, or the coordinates to your safe hou… Okay, maybe not, but you get the idea. Cheatsheet is an easy way to store important information you’d otherwise forget, viewable as a list or in a complication on your Apple Watch face, replete with more than 200 custom icons for visual cues.

• Download Cheatsheet for Apple Watch

Kickstart your Apple Watch

So there you have it, five top apps to give your Apple Watch a much-needed boost right out of the gate. Even if just one of these apps ends up a mainstay on your wrist, you’ll definitely appreciate the benefits they offer. Be sure to visit Apple’s App Store to continue discovering handy apps for Apple Watch. You might even find that apps you’re already using have dedicated Apple Watch versions you didn’t even know existed!

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If you’re training for your first marathon or ultramarathon, going for your first long run can be daunting. It’s not just the distance: it’s also finding a route you’re comfortable with, and don’t have to add where you’re going to your list of worries.

Relying on Google Maps or Apple Maps could send you onto a busy impassable road or a route too steep to run down, so neither are great choices for road or trail running.

Thankfully there are now a range of mapping apps that help you to find existing routes, plan new ones and track your movements in real time. Some of them are even on our best fitness app list, like Strava and AllTrails. As long as you have a signal there should be no more getting lost on the side of a mountain or in the middle of a new city. Many of them will also sync to your best running watch, so you’ll get turn-by-turn directions as you go.

But which apps are best for planning a route and does it depend on your location and where you want to run? We’ve tested a range of mapping apps at home and abroad to bring you our top picks.

1. Outdooractive

Uniting people around the world this app is great for using overseas whether you are looking to plan a trail run or a remote alpine adventure. The free version includes summer and winter maps plus notices, closures and even avalanche reports. This potentially life-saving information (provided you have phone signal) makes this app one of the best for planning and navigating routes in unfamiliar locations.

By upgrading to the Pro subscription $34.19 / £19.99 / around AU$50 (you can unlock topographic maps detailing the terrain whilst the Pro+ subscription ($68.39 / £40.49 / around AU$99) gives access to a range of specialist maps including Harvey Maps, Kompass and Official Alpine Club maps. And if your route is weather-dependent then the animated weather maps on Pro+ detailing rain, snow cover, temperature and cloud cover are a godsend.

It’s super easy to plot a route with the tap of the finger, before downloading the GPX file to a smartwatch. You can also find routes other users have mapped. However, compared to OS Maps, there are a limited number of routes in the UK. For example, near my home in Leicestershire I found just two running / hiking routes on Outdooractive compared to dozens on OS Maps, featured below.

It also acts like a social media platform allowing you to connect to other users, save routes, share photos and complete challenges.

2. Strava Heatmap

The smart visualization map on Strava allows users to see at a glance which routes are popular with runners, walkers and cyclists. The Global Heatmap shows ‘heat’ made by activities and can be set to Everyone or Followers over the past year. It is not a live map, but is updated monthly.

There is also the Personal Heatmap option which logged-in Strava users can access to view their own runs. Both heatmaps are available to the public but only registered Strava users can zoom into street-level detail.

It is great for seeing where Strava users are running globally with hotspots including Europe, USA, Brazil and South East Asia. Naturally the routes cluster around the centre of cities but they give a useful indication of whether a road is runnable as roads heavy with traffic will have little or no heat signature.

This is invaluable information if you are in a new city, as it may not be clear from a generic map app whether a road is quiet enough to run along.

As a subscriber to Strava Premium ($11.99 / £8.99 / around AU$17) you can plot a route using the heatmap layer as a guide, setting it to your type of activity be it running, hiking, mountain biking or even riding.

3. AllTrails

With more than 400,000 curated routes All Trails is a great option for those who like to go off road. Search for routes in your location which are ranked by other users who can leave helpful advice like “extremely boggy at bottom of all hills. Wild deer and sheep in field – keep dogs on lead.” The app is more useful for following existing curated routes but you can create your own map using the app on a computer and export the file.

The routes tend to be on the shorter side, often averaging at 10km and are more geared towards hikers. The app operates more like a guidebook with suggested routes and includes maps of national parks in the UK, but it definitely leans more towards American routes. That said, there are routes all over the world.

The premium version AllTrails+ includes offline maps, 3D views and wrong-turn alerts for $34.99 / £35.99 / AU$35.99 per annum. With both the free and paid service there are also community functions so you can follow fellow users and comment on their routes.

4. Komoot

German-based Komoot has similar functions to AllTrails, but with more of a European focus. Again, it is largely based on ready-made routes for exploring the great outdoors on foot or by bike. You can plan routes on the mobile app, but it doesn’t have the same level of detail as the OS Map app below, and many UK footpaths are missing. It can be great for finding recommended routes in Europe but I have found that sometimes runs uploaded by other users go through private land (as happened to me in Mallorca).

On the plus side, it has a lot of longer running routes and it allows you to record a route and upload it for your own records, and to share with others on the app. The level of detail of each route is also impressive with elevation, types of paths, weather conditions (on the premium version which is £4.99 a month), difficulty and experience needed, all presented in detail. The premium subscription also includes live tracking and sport-specific maps, like skiing or cycling.

5. OS Maps

The app version of the UK Ordnance Survey map is well worth the annual subscription of £34.99 (around $46.50 / AU$67.50). It gives access to 607 OS Explorer and OS Landranger maps covering all of Great Britain, plus topographic maps for Northern Ireland, USA, Australia and New Zealand.

The main selling point is the mapping of UK public rights of way which cannot be found on other apps. For running offroad this is an absolute must-have and no other app comes close to this level of detail. Until I had this app I was constantly getting lost, or accidentally running onto private land. Now I can see exactly where I am with live tracking (very useful when halfway up a mountain on the Isle of Arran), select from hundreds of routes in my local area and easily and quickly plan and export my own trail route. I can also cross-check the route with satellite images to make sure the paths exist.

The only downside is not being able to have access to the same level of detail when in other European countries. However, you can still follow routes abroad and export GPX files to your watch.

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While Apple Intelligence and Siri’s glow-up – visually and functionally – largely stole the show at Apple’s opening WWDC 2024 keynote, mentions of enhancements to Apple Services were sprinkled throughout the unveilings of iOS 18, iPadOS 18, watchOS 11, macOS Sequoia, and tvOS 18.

Things like the addition of hiking and walking routes in Maps or the fact that you’ll be able to tap your iPhones together to send cash quickly and digitally were also teased during the tvOS 18 debut. A redesign for Fitness Plus was also revealed, and we finally have a bit more info on it.

New ways to find classes

Arriving on tvOS, as well as iOS and iPadOS, later in 2024 is a redesigned Fitness Plus layout that aims to help you find the perfect workout among a library filled with thousands of options. 

The list of workout types – meditation, Strength, HIIT, Yoga, Core, Pilates, Dance, Kickboxing, Cycling, Treadmill, Rowing, and Mindful Cooldown – will be replaced by new categories aimed at helping you find the right type of class, essentially curating the experience a bit more. 

For You, Explore, Library, and Search – displayed as a simple magnifying glass icon – will be the new top bar for Fitness Plus. The first section, For You, will present a few classes front and center, acting as a starting point based on previous workouts you’ve completed, but below that, you’ll see additional choices broken out by class type and length. For instance, if you frequently take cycling, yoga, and rowing, you’ll likely see those in the mix.

Explore will showcase any specially-themed content based on the time of year or potentially a new Artist Spotlight Series that has dropped. You’ll also be able to find new workout types and new classes. The last new tab, Library, is pretty self-explanatory but will be a way to see all of the classes available and can be organized by workouts, your favorite, and custom plans you created. If you want to search for a class by instructor, workout type, or even music genre, you’ll hit the search icon. 

Of course, this new layout will be front and center on tvOS or iPadOS, where Fitness Plus has its own application, but on the iPhone, you’ll get this new experience within the “Fitness” app. Regardless of how you get this, this update is all about letting you find more classes and giving you easier access to instructors and class types you like.

Alongside the Fitness Plus enhancements on the Apple TV, tvOS is also ushering in new screen savers that look a bit like an iPhone when it is in StandBy mode, a new enhanced dialogue feature that will lower background sound and improve the clarity of voices, as well as a new InSight mode that’s pretty similar to Amazon Prime Video’s X-Ray functionality.

A Venmo replacement?

‘Tap to Cash’ on the iPhone might make folks ditch Venmo or Zelle for quick cash payments with a promise of being able to pay someone back or easily split a meal by tapping two iPhones together. It looked pretty neat when demonstrated during the keynote. You can select a cash amount, and, like NameDrop for contact exchange, you can send an Apple Cash payment to a friend. 

Another enhancement is viewing rewards from a credit or debit card, as well as finding out about installment plans within the Apple Play window when you’re checking out. This should make it easier to complete a payment in an online checkout. It also positions Apple Pay as a more convenient competitor to other point-of-sale systems. 

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AllTrails: Two minute review

AllTrails is a hiking app that allows you to search for local hikes and trails, plan your routes ahead of time, and follow your progress along the route to ensure you don’t get lost. You can also rate the trail for other users, upload photos, follow other hikers and keep a virtual diary of your trail experiences. 

It was named Apple’s “iPhone app of the year” in 2023 – and for good reason: it’s a great community app, and one of the best fitness apps around, especially for hikers and nature lovers. It’s essentially Strava for hikers, rather than runners and cyclists, and the two share many similar features. These include showing your followers GPS maps of the trails you’ve walked; the ability to upload and share media; estimated stats such as calorie counts; and more accurate GPS-generated information such as distance, elevation and moving time. 

It’s missing some of Strava’s reliance on competition with aspects such as segments, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Hiking isn’t trail-running or particularly competitive, and an AllTrails representative told me this was a deliberate choice. Features such as segments and leaderboards are unlikely to arrive on this particular community-based app. Competition can breed elitism, and AllTrails is designed to democratize hiking. 

In this, the app certainly succeeds. The average person who’s never hiked before can filter by length, difficulty or style of walk (such as “nearby”, “circular” or “pub walk”), pick a trail, read the reviews, and follow a GPS map all the way round. I’ve used the free version on For AllTrails+ members, where helpful haptic feedback hints alert the user when they stray too far from the trail, reducing the chance of the user even taking a wrong turn. 

Once the user has completed their walk, they can share their media, review by stars and add comments (such as “very muddy in winter, bring walking boots”). AllTrails then takes all this community information and uses it in its calculations to serve others the same trail. It’s a simple concept, and one that’s very well-executed; it’s well worth a free download for even the most occasional hiker. 

Regular walkers and serious multi-day hikers will get more out of AllTrails+, which is competitively priced at $34.99 / £35.99 / AU$35.99. For the extras, you get more sophisticated filtering of local trails, those wrong-turn alerts, the option of 3D maps, the ability to download trails and save them for offline use (indispensable on more remote walks), and a Live Share tool. Live Share works like the LiveTrack feature on the best Garmin watches, broadcasting your location to anyone with the Live Share URL in case something goes wrong on the trail.

There’s very little to dislike about AllTrails: it’s a great community tool; the Plus version is reasonably priced, and every trail is vetted by a human before being shared with the community. Unfortunately, being largely user-driven, I did find some complaints online. These were mainly about the fact that the trails can be outdated or feature incomplete information, such as taking you across land that has been privatized.

I experienced one such issue during testing in the Lake District, with a small part of an AllTrails route attempting to lead me across a short stretch of private land. As previously mentioned, it’s worth checking the reviews and route before you go to see if the community has picked up on anything.

Smartwatch integration is a little underwhelming: maps are only shared to the watchOS or Wear OS via the premium version; otherwise, it’s a simple start/stop button and a few basic metrics. Another hiccup is that when using the free version, navigation is dependent on cell service, so more remote hikes require the premium version to follow the map as you go.

AllTrails: Specifications

AllTrails: Scorecard

AllTrails: Should I buy?

Buy if it...

Don't buy it if...

Also consider

How I tested

I used the free version of AllTrails on several hikes around the UK – in Wales, Cornwall and the Chilterns – and tested AllTrails+ on three hikes in the UK’s Lake District National Park. I examined the different kinds of filters on offer for searching out new hikes, tried both 3D and 2D map data on each of the AllTrails+ hikes I went on, and tested the map route and GPS accuracy against data from my Garmin Epix Pro.  

Strava revealed an impressive roadmap of features coming to the platform by the end of 2024, including Dark Mode, artifical intelligence-powered analytics, and safety features aimed at vulnerable cyclists and runners. 

After years of asking, users of one of the best fitness apps will finally be able to use Dark Mode in the app, along with a refresh of the app layout. Strava says it's aiming to launch Dark Mode, along with the revised design, in "summer" 2024, expected around July or August. It will be available to both free tier and premium subscribers.

Strava intends to lean into AI, too. Strava will use machine learning to spot "irregular, improbable, or impossible activities recorded to the platform" to eliminate cheating or incorrect recordings. 

AI-generated routes through difficult terrain were also announced, and a new feature called Athlete Intelligence. Athlete Intelligence will present users with a summary "that contextualizes their accomplishments and fitness goals" and offers personalized guidance. The service is trained by millions of Strava users' recorded activities.

Strava will also add a previously-announced upgraded Clubs experience in the Strava app, in which users can Create Clubs, send messages within the Club, or start a Club Challenge via the app. 

Strava Premium users will also now have the option to save via a new "Family Plan", letting groups of subscribers to Strava Premium share discounted membership with up to three other people. It'll launch in "select countries" later this year, and arrive globally by the end of 2024. Pricing was not disclosed at the time of writing.

Strava Premium users will also now have the option to save via a new "Family Plan", letting groups of subscribers to Strava Premium share discounted membership with up to three other people. It'll launch in "select countries" later this year, and arrive globally by the end of 2024. Pricing was not disclosed at the time of writing.Strava Premium users will also now have the option to save via a new "Family Plan", letting groups of subscribers to Strava Premium share discounted membership with up to three other people. It'll launch in "select countries" later this year, and arrive globally by the end of 2024. Pricing was not disclosed at the time of writing.

A new focus on safety

Strava also highlighted a commitment to helping women get active and, crucially, keep them safe during activities, with the company noting that studies show "women of all ages participate in sports at a far lower rate than men" despite wanting to be active.

New Night Heatmaps will show activities that are taking place between sundown and sunrise in well-trafficked areas, and a Quick Edit feature will let you hide data like start times, maps, and stats from public view.

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Strava has rolled out the Best Efforts feature, previously only available to runners, to its cycling workout profiles.

The Ride version of Best Efforts is available today for Strava Premium subscribers, and will showcase best efforts for distance, elevation gain, climbs, time across intervals, and power. Unfortunately for free users, it's for paid subscribers only, just like Best Efforts for Run. Still, Strava is one of our best fitness apps, and cyclists may find this is another reason to shell out for the premium version.

According to a Strava press release, 77% of active cyclists achieved a Best Effort in 2023, and 33% in February 2024. In the same way as Best Efforts for Run, the Ride version of the feature can be viewed "near the bottom of the athlete’s ‘You’ page on the Strava mobile app". 

The feature "synthesizes the cycling data to help the rider contextualize progress and performance" by listing an athlete’s top three efforts in the five categories above. Best Efforts arrived for runners in 2023, and Strava says the feature has been "widely adopted".

Analysis: How does it work?

The easiest way to think of your Best Efforts is as your own list of "high scores" across your cycling history. That means you can always see, for example, your three best 10km ride times, but also know when you've beaten them.

If you're worried about missing out on your best times and stats as the feature has only just been unveiled, Strava says your activity will be retroactively scanned for your best efforts. 

While the Best Efforts feature won't be new to runners, you will need some additional tech to get the most out of it as a cyclist. Namely, you'll need a power meter, which is used to measure the strength with which you're pushing on the pedals. These work with your phone to add an additional metric for Strava to track, and are different from things like heart rate or speedometers which are reactive to your motions. 

They can even measure how long you spend seated or standing while riding, making them a great tool for triathlon athletes to calculate the drop-off from other exercises.

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“Open your eyes, and observe all the objects of your surroundings,” said the voice of Gwyneth Paltrow, live, from LA. “now become aware of the empty space around your objects, and how the space allows everything to exist within it.”

It was odd to do a meditation breathing exercise with another person on Zoom. I was staring out the window at nothing in particular, picking a water spot on the glass as a focal point while the Iron Man franchise star and Goop owner talked me through the exercise. I was used to closing my eyes and sitting on a chair or cushion while I practiced mindfulness, but as my eyes glazed over, I could see how taking your practice anywhere could be very useful. 

I was lucky enough to be part of a video call presentation and discussion from Gwyneth Paltrow about Moments of Space, a new meditation app co-owned by Paltrow, and moderated by the app’s creator, Kim Little.

Meditation apps have been around for a very long time: most of the best fitness apps offer some sort of mindfulness or breathing exercise element, while dedicated apps like Headspace and Calm offer audio experiences for short mindfulness sessions, long meditations, sleeping, naps, and everything in between. 

Moments of Space has its own unique selling point (other than Paltrow’s involvement, that is): a focus on open-eye techniques, encouraging you to experience the world around you while you meditate, not just sitting on the floor with your eyes closed. 

During the call, Paltrow said: “Eyes-open meditation has changed my life because I find that all-day-every-day, I can just steal a few minutes here and there. I can be at my desk, walking down a hall, on a zoom (no offense) and I can meditate! 

“I find it’s really deepened the results of what meditation does.”

The other unique bit is that rather than remain carefully secular, like Headspace and Calm, it’s unashamedly rooted in Dzogchen Buddhist teachings while embracing modern tech advancements, like artificial intelligence. The app’s AI is said to identify your personality traits and put you on structured paths of content (for example, a particular course of meditations designed to soothe anxiety), but it will also identify ‘transient’ states and recommend standalone meditations called ‘Moments’ to match. “The more you use the app,” said founder Kim Little,  “the better it will get to understanding your needs in the moment.

“With the advent of AI, it’s all going to be about hyper-personalization. Everything will become personalized to the user, completely customized and dynamic, and I know in our app we’re trying to solve this problem of giving the user the right content. That’s the potential impact of tech in wellness… everything becoming unique to that user.”

Identifying your personality traits puts you on structured paths of content, but it will also identify transient states and recommend standalone meditations called “Moments” to match. The more you use the app, the better it will understand your needs in the moment.

Gwyneth Paltrow is a bona fide wellness guru, promoting alternative (and occasionally controversial) approaches to the norm. It stands to reason that as the industry moves on, she’s investing in products like Moments of Space that are making use of the vast suite of health metrics your phone and wearables can collect. 

“I think we’re living in the most amazing time where technology is moving at an incredible pace,” said Paltrow. “There will be a lot of opportunity with technology to provide us data and roadmaps to help further our own wellness. For example, I have an Oura Ring which I wear and it uses technology and hardware to help me track certain wellness markers which are important to me. 

“I can set up my Oura Ring before I meditate and it will tell me what my heart rate was before and after my meditation, body temperature, and so on. It’s predictive, so I think technology being able to help us pull data lets us go further. I can make adjustments based on that data in terms of how I drink alcohol or don’t drink alcohol, for example, which impacts my sleep.”

The best smart rings are fantastic for recording these kinds of passive experiences, as they don’t have a screen to interact with. This places the emphasis less on fitness and more on holistic well-being, so it’s no surprise Paltrow prefers rings to the best smartwatches. 

Moments of Space sounds like it’s got enough going for it to distinguish itself from the rest of the meditation app pack, not the least of which is wellness guru’s Paltrow involvement. Even her brief presentation has me second-guessing what I thought I knew about mindfulness. 

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 “If it isn’t on Strava, it didn’t happen” goes the popular saying, and what better way to make sure that your activities are logged accurately on Strava than by connecting your smartwatch?

The best smartwatches encompass a huge variety of options, but they all serve a similar purpose when it comes to fitness; to record activities in detail, and show health and recovery insights to get you on your next workout sensibly and safely.

Strava is one of the best fitness apps out there, especially for runners and cyclists. You can record GPS-based activities with the Strava app on iOS and Android smartphones, but with Strava on your smartwatch, you'll be able to start and stop activities from your wrist and get heaps more health data than just using your smartphone alone.

Strava supports pretty much all of the best fitness trackers and running watches. Many devices, including those from Garmin, sync activities to Strava through their own software. However, if you have an Apple Watch, Samsung Watch, or Android Wear device like the Google Pixel Watch 2, you can download the Strava app to your watch and use it to smash fitness goals on the go.

I’ve worn pretty much every smartwatch brand out there — either through review testing or indecision — so I know how easy it can be to add the Strava app and track workouts. Here’s how to connect your smartwatch to Strava for the best experience.

How to use Strava on your Apple Watch

While using Strava on your Apple Watch is convenient, it does come with limitations. The app doesn't support Strava Live Segments (so no real time updates as you go) and you can't see maps or Strava Routes on the display.

How to use Strava with your Samsung Watch

There's a standalone Strava app for Samsung Gear and Galaxy smartwatches, but the installation method depends on how new your device is. Devices after and including the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 and Watch 4 Classic use Wear OS, which I've covered below. 

If you've got an older Samsung smartwatch (pre-2021), you can still install the Strava app on your Samsung Gear device from the Galaxy Store. You'll need to visit this Strava page from a desktop to connect your Strava account and receive a four-digit code to link up your device.

Just like with Strava for Apple Watch, the interface is simplified. Once you've opened up the Strava app on your Samsung device, select an activity and you'll see the time, pace, or speed, plus distance and heart rate. A swiping motion lets you change settings, Pause, Finish, or cancel the activity.

How to use Strava with Wear OS Watch

Strava supports the best Wear OS Watch from Wear OS 3.0 and above, and that includes the likes of the Google Pixel Watch and Pixel Watch 2, plus our current favorite Wear OS device, the Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 Pro review.

How to use Strava with Garmin

Most people buy a Garmin Watch for serious fitness tracking. Garmin devices are definitely more fitness trackers than smartwatches, and there aren't any products in the Garmin range with a dedicated Strava app. 

But, by syncing your Garmin watch with Strava via the Garmin Connect Mobile app and Bluetooth on your smartphone, any new activities – be they runs, cycles, or swims – will sync to Strava automatically. Head to the settings section of the Connect app, Go to Connected Apps, select Strava, and set up your connection and preferences.

How to use Strava with Fitbit

As with Garmin wearables, not everyone counts Fitbit devices as smartwatches. And while there's not a dedicated app for Strava on Fitbit devices, you can sync up your activities in just a few taps, so that your Fitbit workouts get sent straight to Strava.

The easiest way to connect your Fitbit device is at this Strava link. If you're on an iPhone, then you'll also find the option nestled with settings. Once synced up, Garmin sends activity data from the last 90 days, while Fitbit only sends new ones after you've synced up your devices (unless you export and add them manually).

Using a smartwatch with Strava can give a real boost to your fitness journey, integrating powerful tracking technology with your active lifestyle and letting you go hands-free without your smartphone. I've loved the freedom of going running without my iPhone, while still being able to track my miles and listen to music.

Whether you're using an Apple Watch or the latest Wear OS device, the smartwatch-Strava combination gives you instant insights into your performance, so that you can push boundaries and smash your PBs. Try using Strava with your own smartwatch and get more motivation on every stride or pedal.

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