Fitbit launches Fitbit Premium
This post was originally published on the Fitbit press site. It has been adapted from its original format.
Fitbit today announced the launch of Fitbit Premium, a paid subscription service in the Fitbit app that uses your unique data to deliver Fitbit’s most personalized experience yet, with actionable guidance and coaching to help you achieve your health and fitness goals. Premium leverages insights from 10+ years of Fitbit data as well as academic and medical expertise to help you move more, sleep better and eat well with customized programs, advanced sleep features, personal insights, thousands of workouts on the Coach app, new challenges, health reports and more – all in one place and made just for you. Premium will be available to any Fitbit user and to Fitbit Health Solutions customers through Fitbit Care.
According to the Fitbit U.S. Market Attitudes and Usage Study, the digital health and wellness market is crowded, with an estimated 14 million U.S. adults currently subscribed to a service and paying an average of $174 annually for different apps. Based on this data, there remains a void in the market for a single app that can provide quality health and fitness tools, personalized guidance and coaching all in one place. Premium does just that and provides a holistic view of your health that current offerings lack, at an affordable price. Designed for those looking for extra motivation and support who may not know where to start, Premium offers the tailored support you need to help you make lasting behavior changes that lead to better health.
“At Fitbit, we’re focused on making health accessible and more achievable. With Fitbit Premium, we’re excited to deliver our most personalized experience yet. It will evolve with you and get smarter over time, delivering the support and guidance you need to help you achieve your health goals,” said James Park, co-founder and CEO of Fitbit. “The launch of Premium also marks an important milestone as we expand our business beyond devices and deliver new and innovative ways to engage our more than 27 million active users as of December 31, 2018, while also attracting new users to the Fitbit platform.”
Together with our innovative devices, engaging software features and global social community, Premium delivers even greater value to the Fitbit platform – offering a truly immersive experience that is designed to motivate and support you on a path to better health.
Our most personalized experience yet
In addition to leveraging insights from 10+ years of activity, exercise and sleep data, behavior change techniques and insights, Fitbit also collaborated with academic and medical experts from Fitbit’s Advisory Panel, which include clinical and exercise psychologists, nutritionists, sleep scientists and more to give you access to a range of tools tailored to you, based on your fitness level, goals, historical data, preferences and schedule.
At launch, Premium includes nine guided health and fitness programs that help you get more sleep, wake up energized, increase your activity, manage nutrition and create lasting healthy habits, including: Intro to Healthy Habits, Get More Zzz’s, Habits for Restful Sleep, Get Active, Beginner Running, Run Training, Understand Calories, Kick Your Sugar Habit, Kick Your Salt Habit and Intro to Healthy Habits offered as part of free trial. Programs include actionable coaching, daily tips and tricks, structured workout plans, relaxation tools, recipe suggestions and educational content. Fitbit will launch additional activity, sleep and nutrition programs by the end of the year, so regardless of your health journey or fitness level, you will have options to help you reach your goals.
For even more support to help you manage a condition, such as diabetes or weight loss, Fitbit will launch a personal, one-to-one coaching service in 2020, with a limited pilot targeted to roll out later this year. Based on the existing coaching platform within Fitbit Care, the service will provide you with a personalized plan and direct support from Fitbit’s team of certified health and wellness coaches for one-on-one help, expert answers, accountability and encouragement in the Fitbit app.
Better sleep for better health
Fitbit continues to invest in innovative sleep features to help you sleep better. In addition to the new guided sleep programs and new free sleep tools announced today, including Sleep Score and smart wake, Premium membership paired with heart rate-enabled devices gives you deeper insights into your sleep along with personalized tools and guidance to help you achieve longer, more consistent and higher quality sleep.
“Many people don’t realize the impact sleep can have on their health. Poor sleep can lead to an increased risk of various chronic diseases, including heart disease and diabetes. That’s why Fitbit has focused on sleep for over 10 years and worked to help millions of users better understand their sleep and how it correlates to things like activity, weight and heart health,” said Dr. Conor Heneghan, lead sleep research scientist at Fitbit. “We’ve amassed one of the largest databases of sleep data with over 10.5 billion nights of sleep collected, and we are using insights from this data to inform new free and Premium sleep features that provide a more personalized and in-depth view of your sleep and how to improve it.”
At launch, comprehensive Premium sleep features include:
- Analysis of your free daily Sleep Score, with a breakdown of your score and graphs to show how it was calculated based on your time asleep, deep and REM sleep stages and restoration on heart-rate enabled devices.
- Time asleep: See how time spent asleep versus awake impacts your score. While it is normal to spend some time awake, too much can lower your score. Your score is also based on if you reach your sleep goal each night.
- Deep and REM sleep stages: Understand how time (and percentages) in each stage of sleep adds to or detracts from your score. These regenerative sleep stages give you a better understanding of your sleep quality.
- Restoration: See how your sleeping heart rate compares to your average resting heart rate – an indicator of a restful night’s sleep – and how much time you spend tossing and turning. Your score will be higher if your heart rate is lower during sleep compared to your resting heart rate. According to an internal Fitbit research study in 2016, users whose heart rate was below their daytime resting heart rate for 60 percent or more during the night report more restorative sleep.
- Two guided programs, Get More Zzz’s and Habits for Restful Sleep, to help increase how long you sleep and improve your sleep quality.
- A selection of 15- to 45-minute audio relaxation tools to help you wind down and fall asleep.
- New correlated insights based on your Fitbit data that reveal connections between your sleep and activity, such as: “When you walk more than your average 8,502 steps, you get 7 more minutes of deep sleep, helping you feel more rested. Keep stepping to improve your chances of better sleep tonight.”
While all Fitbit users using our free app receive educational insights and tips to stay engaged, informed and motivated, Premium membership provides you with new personalized and cross-correlated insights, guidance and feedback based specifically on your data. These insights show you how your activities and behaviors can impact your overall health. Over time, these insights will get even smarter, with advanced guidance, feedback and suggested actions. They will prompt you to try new programs, view recommended content, nudge you to exercise and notify you if you’re getting off track. Examples of Premium insights available at launch include:
- “Consistent bedtime matters! Your bedtime varies 40+ min from day to day. Try to sleep at the same time each night to sneak in more sleep.”
- “This past week, you got 8,376 more steps than your recent weekly average of 56,792, and your resting heart rate went down 2 bpm from your 67 bpm monthly average. Keep up the great work!”
Motivation to move more
In addition to guided programs and advanced insights, Premium membership provides you with access to thousands of dynamic video and audio workouts from certified personal trainers in the Fitbit Coach app that can be done anytime, anywhere. These workouts are personalized to you based on your goals and feedback to help you become stronger and improve your overall fitness. The more feedback you give, the smarter these workouts will become with new and relevant sessions tailored to and recommended for you.
Coming soon, Premium members will have access to new adaptive challenges and games that introduce new metrics, including active minutes and distance, and the ability to customize the length of each challenge. These new collaborative and adaptive challenges allow users with different activity levels to participate and stay engaged by working toward a common shared goal or tailoring your daily targets to your level. In fact, when participating in the “Workweek Hustle” Challenge, 72 percent of Fitbit users take an average of 1,100 more steps per day, which is more than half a mile. Premium members can initiate these new challenges and invite any family or friends they’re connected to on Fitbit to participate.
We are also working with a variety of popular brands to bring additional health and wellness content to Premium, so regardless of where you are on your journey, there will be something for you. For example, later this year, a list of recommended mindfulness exercises from Headspace to help you unwind before sleep, fun and easy-to-follow core and strength workouts from Daily Burn and premium yoga classes for all levels from Yoga Studio by Gaiam will be offered, giving you a single, convenient place for all of your health and fitness guidance and support. Plus, even more activity, exercise and meditation content will be added for members on an ongoing basis.
New tools for proactive health management
Tying all your health and fitness data together, Fitbit is developing additional tools within Premium that will allow you to take control of your health and better identify trends or potential issues with your health and wellness providers. Through Premium, you will soon be able to access a wellness report that will let you easily share your Fitbit data with your general practitioner, nutritionist or personal trainer to help you have more informed conversations with your providers. This report is being developed with input from a range of medical professionals at leading facilities to ensure only relevant Fitbit data is shared by you to help facilitate meaningful discussions with your providers. It will include trend data and graphs, as well as additional analysis of your activity, heart rate, sleep and weight data. In the future, you will be able to share insights and analyses around potential health issues.
