{"slug": "im-getting-google-health-premium-for-free-and-its-still-not-worth-it", "title": "I’m getting Google Health Premium for free, and it’s still not worth it", "summary": "Google Health Premium, offered for free with the Google AI Pro plan, makes the Google Health app worse for subscribers by cluttering the Today view with verbose AI-generated summaries from Health Coach, which cannot be customized. The free version provides a cleaner experience focused on essential health data, while the premium subscription's key feature, Health Coach, offers unnecessary reminders and lacks customization options.", "body_md": "Affiliate links on Android Authority may earn us a commission. [Learn more.](https://www.androidauthority.com/external-links/)\n\n# I’m getting Google Health Premium for free, and it’s still not worth it\n\nJul 13, 2026 — 5:00 AM ET\n\nThe [Google Fitbit Air](https://www.androidauthority.com/google-fitbit-air-review-3671325/) already caught my eye with its minimal design and subscription-free tracking. I wanted an alternative to smartwatches for sleep tracking and everyday activity detection — the $99 screenless wearable had everything I needed and nothing I didn’t. When I learned that the optional Google Health Premium subscription [comes with the Google AI Pro plan](https://www.androidauthority.com/ai-pro-health-premium-3671589/) I already pay for, that sealed the deal.\n\nOr so I thought. I’ve been using the Fitbit Air and Health Premium for over a month, and I wish I could give this “free upgrade” back to Google. [The Google Health app clearly needs work](https://www.androidauthority.com/survey-reveals-50-percent-users-dont-like-new-google-health-app-3672201/), but it’s somehow worse for subscribers than it is for free users.\n\nGoogle should take the Gemini-powered Health Coach back to the drawing board, or at least give me a way to customize it.\n\n### Does Health Coach make Google Health better or worse?\n\n## The Google Health app is actually worse for subscribers\n\nWhen Google first unveiled the new Health app, the Today page might’ve been the most controversial change. It crams a few tiles displaying health metrics in the top third of the screen. The rest of the screen displays a scrollable feed of activity and sleep data, manually logged data, and Health Coach entries. I’d see a new Health Coach entry every few hours, leading me to believe the free version would be barren.\n\nGoogle’s Health Coach and its related AI features are the key selling points of the premium subscription, which [costs $9.99 per month or $99.99 per year](https://www.androidauthority.com/google-health-premium-price-inclusions-features-3664507/). All the basics, like activity tracking, sleep tracking, health tracking, and wellness logging, are free for any Google Health user. These essential data points are exactly what I want to see when I open the Google Health app, and they’re exactly what the free users get.\n\nI don't need a daily reminder from Health Coach to sleep or drink water, so the streamlined experience of the free app is preferable to me.\n\nWithout the Health Coach, the bottom portion of the Today view isn’t blank. It’s filled with activities, sleep sessions, and logged data, just without the verbose AI commentary Health Premium users see. [I don’t need a daily reminder from Health Coach](https://www.androidauthority.com/fitbit-new-health-coach-worse-than-my-mom-3668153/) to sleep or drink water, so the streamlined experience of the free app is preferable to me.\n\nI could turn off Health Coach entirely. Open the Google Health app, tap your profile picture, and press Google Health settings. Tap “Coach,” and you’ll see a “Turn off” button. But, as with too many Google AI features, it’s all-or-nothing. I can’t choose to cut Health Coach summaries from my Today view and still enjoy all the other perks. If I decide to disable the Google Health Coach, I’ll lose most of my Health Premium benefits.\n\n## Health Coach is basically a wordy educated guesser\n\nWeeks into switching to Google Health, I can see the app’s potential. I don’t mind the colorful design or health tiles. They’re my favorite part of the new app — but they’re constantly obscured. By default, you can only fit six small tiles or two large tiles on the homepage. If you optionally use the expanded Focus view, you can double those numbers.\n\nStill, at least half of your Today view will be taken up by AI-generated summaries if you’re a Health Premium subscriber. The Fitness page is worse. I can’t see a single workout or activity on this page without scrolling past Health Coach prompts and the guided workout library. The Sleep page has the same problem, with a Health Coach sleep recap taking priority over the actual data. The final page, Health app, is data-dense with zero distractions, and it’s easily the best one.\n\nIf the Health Coach's analysis isn't medical advice and might not be accurate, it's simply coloring objective data with educated guesses.\n\nIf the Health Coach summaries were genuinely useful, this would be easier to forgive. Instead, they’re long-winded and conversational for seemingly no reason. In the photo above, Health Coach used a header, five sentences, and a closing question to relay only two metrics: step count and calories burned. I can think of many visual ways these metrics could’ve been better conveyed than with AI-generated text, such as an engaging hourly graph or chart.\n\nHealth Coach isn’t as dynamic as I would like, either. The Fitbit Air’s automatic activity detection has been poor so far, identifying almost anything as a walk or run. You can manually adjust the activity type in the app after the fact, so that’s what I did. Only the Health Coach entry didn’t update, leaving me with a confident recap of a run that was actually a pickup basketball game.\n\nIt also bugs me that Health Coach summaries come with a disclaimer: “AI responses may contain mistakes, not for medical advice.” To be clear, this is [a necessary disclaimer given the nature of AI](https://www.androidauthority.com/google-health-coach-hallucinations-3667257/). However, this makes me wonder why my Google Health app feed is cluttered with information and advice Google acknowledges I can’t fully trust.\n\nIf the Health Coach’s analysis isn’t medical advice and might not be accurate, it’s simply coloring objective data with educated guesses.\n\n## Google can fix Health Premium by making it optional\n\nAs it currently stands, my Google Health Premium subscription is a net negative to the Health app. I see the Health Coach’s summaries, questions, or prompts almost everywhere. It blocks the health and activity data I want to see. Subscribers get the worse version of the app, because free users see a concise timeline of their activity, sleep, and logged data without the superfluous AI text.\n\nGoogle could solve this issue by making Health Coach an intentional, optional feature you choose to engage with. The groundwork is already there. There’s a floating Ask Coach button for Health Premium subscribers that hovers over every Health app page. Let me tap this button to engage with Health Coach, rather than see a handful of daily summaries that shroud the hard data points I want to review.\n\nI don’t think the Health Coach makes the Health Premium subscription worth it. Right now, [it’s the opposite](https://www.androidauthority.com/i-used-new-google-health-app-for-week-and-hate-it-3670318/). The bright spot here is that Fitbit and Pixel Watch users won’t miss out if they don’t subscribe to a Health Premium plan.\n\nI’d rather use the Fitbit Air with the standard Google Health app than with the Health Premium version — and that’s a problem.\n\n[Google Fitbit Air]\n\n[Google Fitbit Air](https://clearbuy.com/redirect/4c9d31f27b461d30796274c93b3a0398b24e8905?pId=7129&tag[]=androautho-20)\n\nThank you for being part of our community. Read our [Comment Policy](https://www.androidauthority.com/android-authority-comment-policy/) before posting.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/im-getting-google-health-premium-for-free-and-its-still-not-worth-it", "canonical_source": "https://www.androidauthority.com/google-health-premium-not-worth-it-3685642/", "published_at": "2026-07-13 09:00:24+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-07-13 09:09:33.303822+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence", "ai-products", "ai-tools", "ai-ethics", "generative-ai"], "entities": ["Google", "Fitbit Air", "Google Health Premium", "Google AI Pro", "Health Coach", "Android Authority"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/im-getting-google-health-premium-for-free-and-its-still-not-worth-it", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/im-getting-google-health-premium-for-free-and-its-still-not-worth-it.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/im-getting-google-health-premium-for-free-and-its-still-not-worth-it.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/im-getting-google-health-premium-for-free-and-its-still-not-worth-it.jsonld"}}