I've used the new Google Health app for a week, and I hate it

At a glance:

• The new Google Health app prioritizes AI-generated text over data visualization, making health metrics harder to parse at a glance.
• Key health metrics like resting heart rate, blood oxygen, and heart rate variability cannot be added as customizable home screen tiles.
• The app's design forces excessive scrolling to access raw data in Fitness and Sleep tabs, prioritizing AI coach blurbs over user control.

First Impressions: A Text-Heavy Shift

After using the new Google Health app for a week, my experience has been overwhelmingly negative. The app represents a significant step backward in usability, with Google's singular focus on AI ruining what was previously a much more efficient experience. The interface now opens with stats tiles at the top, followed by a massive block of text from the Google Health Coach. While I occasionally see recent sleep stats or exercise data, 95% of the time I'm presented with lengthy text instead of visual data. This fundamentally changes how I interact with my health information, turning the app into an interpreter of data rather than a presenter of hard numbers. For users who have invested in devices like the Pixel Watch or Fitbit, this approach feels patronizing and ignores their likely health literacy.

The core issue lies in the app's hierarchy of information. I don't want to read 15 lines of text to understand that my resting heart rate increased due to poor sleep—I need to see a graph showing the spike, followed by a brief explanation. The AI Coach's verbose blurbs bury critical data within paragraphs, making it difficult to quickly assess trends. When readiness scores appear as isolated numbers within text blocks (60 today, 70 yesterday), they lack the contextual impact of a visual graph showing a downward trend. This design choice forces users to hunt for data, turning the app into an obstacle course rather than a helpful tool.

The Today Tab's Design Flaws

The Today tab exemplifies the app's problematic design philosophy. It displays a limited set of tiles at the top—either four tiles (one large and three small) or six small tiles—which are insufficient for a health-centric app. Swiping to reveal more tiles creates a disjointed user experience, and the tiles themselves are not movable. To reposition a tile, you must remove it and re-add it, hoping it lands correctly—a process that feels archaic and frustrating. This lack of customization extends to the metrics available as tiles. Many key health indicators cannot be added to the home screen, including:

• Resting heart rate
• Blood oxygen
• Heart rate variability
• Breathing rate
• Skin temperature variation
• Body fat percentage

These metrics exist as square widgets within the Health tab but are inaccessible from the home screen. This forces users to navigate multiple screens to access their most important data, turning the app into an "obfuscation game" rather than a streamlined health platform. The fixed tile layout contradicts the app's potential as a customizable dashboard, leaving experienced users feeling constrained by design decisions that prioritize aesthetics over functionality.

Fitness and Sleep Tabs: More Text, Less Data

The design issues persist in the Fitness and Sleep tabs. The Fitness tab opens with a prominent workout library, pushing recent activities and key active metrics down the screen. This forces users to scroll to see their actual workouts and performance data, burying the information they likely need most. Similarly, the Sleep tab begins with a large wall of text about sleep quality before displaying the sleep score and duration. To access sleep stages, quality metrics, and detailed data, users must scroll again. This layout prioritizes AI-generated interpretations over raw data, making it difficult to quickly assess health status. The author questions who approved such a design, noting that it seems intentionally structured to trap users in the app until they find the data they need.

This approach is particularly frustrating for users who have invested in Google's health ecosystem. If you own a Pixel Watch or Fitbit, you presumably have a baseline understanding of health metrics. The app's current design assumes users need constant hand-holding from the AI Coach, ignoring their ability to interpret data directly. The lack of immediate data access undermines the value proposition of these devices, as users must navigate through layers of text to see their progress. This design flaw extends beyond the Today tab, affecting how users interact with their core health data across the entire app.

Proposed Fixes for a Better Experience

Despite its flaws, the Google Health app has a strong foundation that could be improved with targeted changes. The author suggests several modifications that would make the app far more usable without abandoning its modern design. First, the AI Coach blurbs should display metrics and graphs before explanations, with the text collapsed by default and expandable for those who need more detail. This would allow users to see their data first while preserving the coach's insights for those who want them. Second, tiles should be fully movable, and any metric—including resting heart rate, heart rate variability, and breathing rate—should be addable to the home screen. The tile section should also be resizable, allowing users to display more stats and even show graphs on the home screen for better trend visualization.

For the Fitness and Sleep tabs, the author recommends restructuring the layout to prioritize data. The Fitness tab should compress the workout library to the top and display recent workouts first, while the Sleep tab should show stats before an expandable AI interpretation. These changes would restore the app's focus on raw data while keeping the coach as a supplementary feature. Additionally, the ability to choose between data sources when there's an overlap (e.g., multiple heart rate monitors) would address another pain point. With these modifications, Google could transform the app into the one-stop health platform it has promised, moving away from the fragmented Fitbit-Fit-Health Connect approach and creating a truly useful tool for health-conscious users.