Your Fitness Tracker Now Knows When You're Lifting Weights: What Google's Fitbit Update Changes

From 10 activities to roughly 100

At the center of the update is a new activity-detection model. In its October 12 announcement, Google said it expanded the number of activities its Fitbit trackers and Pixel Watches can detect from 10 to more than 100, naming strength training, swimming, and racket and team sports among the newcomers. The mechanics are straightforward. A workout that reaches your minimum duration threshold, which is 15 minutes by default, and that comes with a sustained elevated heart rate gets logged automatically, and a summary typically arrives in the app within about 30 minutes. Google also says the model draws on your usual workout routines, your history, your manual edits and, if you grant permission, your location, so it is meant to get better at recognizing your particular habits over time.

The rollout itself is staggered, which is worth knowing if you open the app today and see nothing new. The Google Health 5.11 release notes reported by 9to5Google describe the improved automatic tracking as available now for Fitbit Air and Pixel Watch 3, 4 and 5, with the Fitbit Edge getting it at launch. At the time of that report, the update was live on iPhone and still making its way to Android phones, so some Android users may need a few more days before it appears.

Confirming and editing is part of the design

One detail in the release notes is easy to skim past but matters for anyone who lifts. Google says that when you confirm or edit a detected activity, you are helping the feature learn your patterns. In other words, the system is built with your corrections in mind rather than as a set-and-forget log. If it labels a circuit of kettlebell swings as something else, fixing that label is not just tidying up your history; according to Google, it is how the model is supposed to improve for you.

An access table for the update

The table below pulls together what Google and launch coverage have confirmed about each device that is part of this update. Prices are US list prices on the Google Store as of October 26, 2026.

A few notes help make sense of those rows. The Fitbit Edge is the new arrival, and the Google Store lists it from $179.99 with three months of Google Health Premium included. It has an OLED display, a battery rated for up to seven days, built-in GPS and more than 50 workout modes, and launch coverage describes it as effectively taking the place of the Charge 6. A Stephen Curry Special Edition sells for $219.99. The Fitbit Air is the screenless option at $99.99, also with three months of Premium in the box. Both require the Google Health app on Android 11 or newer or iOS 16.4 or newer, which is worth checking if you use an older iPhone.

What Premium costs, and what it does and does not unlock

Google Health Premium is the subscription that used to be called Fitbit Premium; Google renamed it in May. It costs $9.99 a month or $99.99 a year, according to Android Authority, and the base Google Health app, including everyday activity tracking, remains available without it.

Here is the part most launch coverage skipped. None of the Google announcements, store pages or release notes reviewed for this article list automatic activity detection as a Premium feature. The Premium lists instead cover things like the Gemini-powered Health Coach, adaptive fitness plans, detailed sleep insights, the video workout library and the advanced Health Guardian features. That is a strong signal that the expanded detection is part of the base experience, though Google has not stated it in so many words, which is why the table says "not listed as a Premium feature" rather than "free."

The old list simply did not include it

The claim that trackers used to miss strength work is not a hunch. As of October 26, Google's own help page on which activities Fitbit devices and Pixel Watch track still showed the pre-update list for Fitbit Air and Pixel Watch 3, 4 and 5: walking, running, biking, sports, elliptical, rowing machine and stationary bike. Strength training is not there. If you lifted and wanted it in your record, you had to start the workout yourself or add it afterward. That page had not yet been refreshed for version 5.11 when we checked, so its list reflects the old behavior rather than the new one.

Why that gap matters more after 40

Strength work is not a niche add-on in federal guidance. The Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans say adults need muscle-strengthening activity, like lifting weights or doing push-ups, at least two days each week, alongside aerobic activity.

Yet it is the half of the guidelines fewer people meet. National survey data from the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics found that 31.0% of US adults met the muscle-strengthening guideline in 2020, and the share meeting both the aerobic and muscle-strengthening guidelines drops steadily with age, from 41.3% of men and 28.7% of women aged 18 to 34 down to 21.6% and 17.6% at ages 50 to 64.

Put those two facts together and the practical issue becomes clear. For many people in midlife, lifting is exactly the part of the week that takes the most intention, and it was also the part an activity tracker was least likely to notice. A record that shows every walk and none of your strength days can quietly suggest you are less active than you are. Automatic detection does not change the workout, but it can make your weekly picture more complete and more honest.

If you are newer to the weights side of things, our look at what happens to your body when you lift weights regularly covers the research on the changes people tend to notice over time.

What the tracker notices

It helps to be precise about what automatic detection is designed to do. Based on Google's own descriptions, the tracker notices a stretch of sustained, elevated-heart-rate movement that lasts long enough, recognizes it as a particular type of activity, and logs it with a summary in the app. For a lifting session, that means your history can now show that a strength workout took place, when it started and how long it lasted, along with the heart-rate-based figures the app already calculates for other workouts.

What it does not say it captures

What Google has not said is just as important. None of the Google sources or launch coverage reviewed for this article describe auto-detected strength sessions as recording which exercises you did, how many sets and reps you completed, or how much weight you moved. That is not a criticism of the feature; it is simply a different job. Recognizing that you lifted is one thing. Knowing that you did three sets of eight goblet squats at 35 pounds is another, and if that level of detail matters to you, a training log, a notes app or a dedicated lifting app is still where it lives.

There is also a practical quirk worth keeping in mind. Google's trigger relies on a sustained elevated heart rate over at least 15 minutes by default. A run keeps your heart rate up continuously. A lifting session often does not, because strength training is built around short efforts and longer rest periods. Google has not published how it handles that pattern, so this is an informed observation rather than a confirmed limitation, but it is reasonable to expect that a fast-paced circuit may be easier for the tracker to catch than a slow session with long breaks between heavy sets. The fact that Google invites you to confirm and correct detections suggests it expects some sessions to need a nudge.

Where the screen helps

This is also where the choice between devices becomes a little more than a price question. The Fitbit Edge has a display and workout modes you can start yourself, so on days when you would rather not leave it to detection, you can begin a strength workout from your wrist. The screenless Fitbit Air relies more heavily on detection and on the phone app for anything you want to adjust. Neither approach is better for everyone; they simply suit different habits.

The same caution applies to every number a wearable hands back. Our look at why a smartwatch sleep score can work against good sleep explores how to keep tracker data in perspective.

The accuracy claim is Google's own

Google says the new model delivers nearly twice the detection accuracy of the old one and cuts missed workouts by more than half. Those figures are worth reading with their footnote attached. Google says they are based on offline evaluations comparing the updated model to its own previous model, not on independent testing, and no outside evaluation had been published as of this writing. That does not make the claim wrong. It means it is a company's measurement of its own improvement, and real-world results, especially for lifting, will become clearer as owners use it.

"More than 100" or "up to 100"

There is a small inconsistency in Google's own wording. The October 12 announcement says detection expanded to more than 100 activities, while the release notes for version 5.11 say up to 100. Neither document publishes the full list. For everyday purposes, "about 100" is the fair summary, and the more useful question for most readers is simply whether the activities they actually do, like strength training, are on it. Google has confirmed that strength training is.

What about Samsung's cheaper band?

Some coverage has positioned an upcoming Samsung Galaxy Fit 4 as a budget alternative to the Fitbit Air. As of this writing, Samsung has not announced the Fit 4. Leak reporting from earlier this year, summarized by Tech Advisor, says it is likely to come in below the $99.99 Fitbit Air, but no Fit 4 price has been published. The $59.99 figure that sometimes circulates is the launch price of the current Galaxy Fit 3, not a confirmed price for its successor.

For a broader view of how different trackers fit different goals, our guide to the best fitness trackers for beginners based on your fitness goals offers a wider comparison.

Blood pressure and insulin resistance trends, briefly

The same update brings two new Health Guardian reports to Fitbit Air and Fitbit Edge owners who subscribe to Google Health Premium: monthly blood pressure trends and insulin resistance trends, with the first reports arriving at the beginning of November for people who met October's wear requirements. Google's own footnotes describe these as general wellness features that do not provide real-time blood pressure readings for clinical purposes and are not a replacement for a blood pressure monitor; in Google's framing, they are patterns over time rather than readings.

Weighing the subscription on its own terms

Because those trend reports sit behind Premium while the expanded detection does not appear to, the two decisions can be made separately. The three months of Premium included with the Edge and the Air give new owners time to see whether the subscription features are useful to them before any charge begins.

If you are already tallying what your wellness apps cost each month, our wellness subscription audit compares renewal terms and cancellation steps across 25 apps.

A more complete record, not a coach

The simplest way to think about this update is as a better net. Your tracker is now more likely to catch the strength sessions it used to let slip through, which can make your week-by-week activity history a truer reflection of what you actually do. That is a meaningful upgrade for anyone who has felt invisible to their own tracker on lifting days.

What it is not is a coach or a training log. It does not, by Google's own description, know your exercises, your sets or your weights, and its detection depends on heart-rate patterns that lifting does not always produce. If you own a Fitbit Air or a Pixel Watch 3, 4 or 5, the update costs nothing to try once it reaches your phone, and the first few weeks of confirmations and corrections will show you how well it fits your routine. If you have been weighing the Fitbit Edge, the expanded detection is one more feature on the list, alongside the screen, the battery life and the included Premium months.

For readers thinking about where their lifting happens in the first place, our breakdown of home gym versus membership costs over five years puts numbers on each option.