Elain Brown Tech 03.25.2022 22:Mar PM EDT

Fitbit's Wear OS Still Missing After CEO Promised Last Year To Make One

Fitbit's Wear OS looks like it will not come anytime soon.

Fitbit is reported to be working on a new lineup of Fitness watches, however, evidence suggests that users will not get a Fitbit that would run in a Wear OS.

Fitbit with Google's Wear OS

Fitbit was the first company to introduce a fitness tracker to the market, and the company now has a large global user base. Google acquired the well-known fitness tracking company, in November 2019 for $2.1 billion.

Fitbit, the fitness business was rumored to be producing "luxury smartwatches" based on the Wear OS operating system following the acquisition.

The user base of the company has speculated and assumed that Fitbit's upcoming Fitness wristwatch will be the company's first wearable to run on Google's platform.

Moreover, Google has previously acquired the watch brands Fossil and Fitbit. Google is rumored to be working on a Pixel Watch this year, expected to carry Wear OS.

In addition, Google is reportedly rumored to be updating the Wear OS 2 to Wear OS 3, since Wear OS 2 watches have been around for a long time.

As reported by The Verge, Fitbit is not the only brand working with Google this time, Samsung also expressed their plans in partnering with Google. Samsung stated that in the coming months, Google Assistant will be on its Galaxy Watch 4.

Fitbit Watches to be Released

The Fitbit CEO James Park has stated numerous times that a high-end Fitbit smartwatch running Wear OS was in the works.

The company expanded its Fitbit Versa line of fitness smartwatches in 2020 to include a higher-end model, the Fitbit Sense, that was nearly identical to the Fitbit Versa 3 on the outside but contained more health and wellness tracking capabilities on the inside.

As reported by 9to5Mac, this pattern of simultaneous release appears to be continuing this year, with two new Fitbit watches codenamed "Hera" and "Rhea" appearing within the Fitbit app at the same time. Fitbit's Hera and Rhea have the same display resolution (336x336).

There is also an addition of other codenames besides Hera and Rhea in the recent updates to the Fitbit app. There has been an additional third codename, "Nyota" to the list of available options. Nyota is reported to have the same display as the Fitbit Luxe from last year, having a resolution of 124x208 pixels.

All three of the new Fitbit trackers, on the other hand, were discovered in code associated with the software "bridge" that connects the user's phone to the watch and shares data with it via Bluetooth.

Given that Wear OS has its own methods of communicating between the user's Android phone and smartwatch, it is unlikely that a Fitbit powered by Wear OS would require the use of this bridge in the first place

As a result, it appears that Fitbit is planning three new models: the Sense 2, the Versa 4, and the Fitbit Luxe 2. That suggests that existing product lines will be updated rather than a new product line being developed.