Five years after Fitbit released its first wearable device, it is finally adding new features that users have been waiting for: female health tracking, text responses, and other new health apps.
Female Health Tracking
Fitbit originally announced the new female health tracking feature in March before rolling it out in May. The feature is now available for users on the iOS and Windows apps. Users with Android apps will get the feature in a few weeks.
Female health tracking, which is one of the most requested features from users, is designed to help women learn about their menstrual cycle to better understand how it impacts fitness and health.
"According to a recent Fitbit survey, 80 percent of you don't know how many phases are in menstrual cycle and more than 70 percent of you are unable to correctly identify the average length of a cycle," the company wrote on its blog in March.
With the new feature, all Fitbit users age 13 and older will be able to log menstrual cycles, track symptoms, and receive notifications before the period start date. The technology includes smartwatch integration.
Users will also receive access on the device to content from leading women's health doctors.
Text Response
A new text response feature is available immediately to users on the Android app. Previously, users were unable to respond to text messages, or messages from services such as WhatsApp and Facebook. The new feature is only available on the Fitbit Ionic and the Versa.
Fitbit has supplied five prepopulated responses for users: "Yes," "No," "Sounds good," "Can't talk now, will reply later," and "What's up?"
Users could response with emojis as well. Fitbit also enabled users to create their own custom responses, but they have to be under 60 characters.
Currently, there are no plans to expand this feature to iOS. One possible reason for this is the concern of integrating the technology with third party services such as iMessage.
Other New Apps
Fitbit also announced new health and wellness apps that were designed to help all users. Some of the new apps include Dexcom, an app that provides glucose readings, Sickweather, an app that scans social media for indicators of illness, and Go365, an app that tracks a user's wellness and rewards them for making healthy choices.
These new apps are available on all Fitbit platforms. The first Fitbit wearables were released in May 2013.
