Custom foods are back in Google Health, but Fitbit users still want more

Google Health 5.04 is now rolling out, and the main change is one many Fitbit users have been waiting for. Custom foods are back, along with quicker calorie logging and a handful of smaller fixes for sleep, exercise and cycle tracking.

Custom foods finally return

This is not entirely new territory for Fitbit users. The old Fitbit app already supported custom foods, but the option disappeared during the transition to Google Health.

Now it is back. Users can search for foods they have created previously and log them again, making the feature useful for homemade meals, supplements and products missing from the standard database. 

Version 5.01 restored access to previously saved entries, while Google promised that full creation tools would follow. Version 5.04 now completes that part of the job.

The company has also added a quicker way to record calories and estimated macronutrients. Users can enter calories, protein, carbohydrates and fat directly without searching for a named food first.

These are fairly basic nutrition tools, but they will be useful to people who use Fitbit as a daily food diary. Custom foods were also one of the main missing features highlighted in Google’s roadmap for improving the new Health app.

Naps now count towards daily sleep

The sleep change is smaller but sensible. Naps now contribute to the total sleep duration shown on the Today tab, giving users a more complete view of how much sleep they accumulated across the day.

Google has been improving nap handling over several releases. Version 5.02 made naps easier to find, while the more recent Google Health 5.03 update expanded those changes and brought more of them to iOS. The latest release carries nap data onto the main dashboard rather than keeping it separate from the headline sleep total.

Version 5.04 also fixes truncated heart-rate charts and exercise maps that did not always represent the full duration of a workout. Cycle history can now be grouped chronologically by year, while an iOS issue that prevented some users from initiating friend requests has also been addressed

The update is available on Android and iOS. Google says the phased rollout began on July 16 and will continue over the following week, depending on the device and carrier.

Google Health is still rebuilding Fitbit

The response from Fitbit users has been mixed, although custom foods and the nap change have generally landed well. The wider discussion quickly returned to features that remain missing, including a complete historical daily dashboard, old badges, Daily Cardio Load targets, easier switching between Fitbit devices and Apple Health integration.

That reaction is understandable. Google Health has improved quickly since the wider rollout, but many of its most welcome additions are familiar Fitbit tools returning piece by piece.

There was also a brief wave of complaints from users who found that normal food searches returned no results. Reports appeared around the 5.04 rollout, although at least one user said installing the latest app update resolved the problem. It is worth watching, but there is not enough evidence yet to treat it as a widespread 5.04 fault.

This is still a useful update. Custom foods remove one of the more irritating gaps in the new app, while the nap and exercise fixes make everyday tracking a little more coherent.

The broader picture has not changed, though. Google Health is getting better, but it is still working its way back towards functionality Fitbit users already had.