Fitbit: Heart-Rate Alibis, Burning Ionic Watches and the Google Health Fade

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In 2018 a 91-year-old man told San Jose detectives that his stepdaughter Karen Navarra was fine when he left her home, but her Fitbit recorded a heart rate spike and then a stop at 3:28 p.m., when his car was on camera in her driveway. Fitbit began in March 2007 when James Park and Eric Friedman registered Healthy Metrics Research, Inc. in Delaware, renaming it Fitbit that October. Its first tracker shipped in 2009, and by 2012 mobile apps, Bluetooth syncing, badges and leaderboards turned walking into a game; users with friends on the app took about 700 more steps a day. In 2011, public-by-default profiles let Google index users' manually logged sexual activity.

Fitbit raised $732 million in its 2015 IPO, and in October 2016 Park declared it a digital healthcare company. Hardware trouble followed: the Fitbit Force was recalled in 2014 after about 9,900 skin irritation reports, and 1.7 million Ionic watches were recalled in March 2022 over burns, leading to a $12.25 million penalty in January 2025. In June 2020 it built Fitbit Flow, a low-cost emergency resuscitator authorized by the FDA. Google closed its $2.1 billion purchase in January 2021, the founders left in early 2024, and in May 2026 the app was renamed Google Health.

• A 2015 assault claim unraveled when the accuser's Fitbit showed her awake and walking all night.
• In the 2017 Connie Dabate case, her tracker placed her at a gym when her husband said a masked intruder attacked them at home.
• Data from Tess Richey's account, shared with her mother, helped Toronto police trace her final movements in 2017.
• Over 100 users reported burns from overheating Ionic smartwatches, some second and third degree.
• Branding moved from Fitbit by Google in 2022 to Google Fitbit in 2024, and Fitbit smartwatches were discontinued in August 2024.