Fitbit founders James Park and Eric Friedman (Photo: Christian Peacock for Forbes) When Fitbit first launched its Ultra step tracker in 2011, a tiny screen on its plastic, egg-like shape had to limit motivational cues to just 8 characters, based on how close you were to your step goal. One was “Woot!” Another was the slightly-passive-aggressive, “Walk?” Now Fitbit users can hear praise for their daily activity from a human voice (and in full sentences), though a new integration with Amazon Echo’s digital assistant Alexa. Fitbit claims it is the first wearable company to make its stats available via Alexa, which already has integrations with Uber, NBC News, Domino’s and financial services firm Capital One. Having launched in late 2014 to dubious reactions from the tech press, the $179 Echo has surprised pundits to become something of a nascent success story for Amazon, with nearly 33,000 mostly-positive reviews on Amazon and a growing number of partnerships. Essentially a bluetooth speaker that takes voice-commands by being “woken up” with the name “Alexa,” it can take down shopping lists, play Spotify songs and quiz you on your spelling. Amazon doesn’t release sales figures for Echo but the device is the company’s third-best seller in Electronics, after the Amazon Fire tablet and Fire TV stick . Amazon's Echo can now keep you posted on the state of your fitness and sleep goals. (AP Photo/Mark... [+] Lennihan) With almost no visual interface, Echo relies entirely on voice commands, and with more developers said to be keen to create services for Echo some say it has the potential to become a thriving new platform. Instead of apps, Echo calls the extra integrations it has with services like Uber or Fitbit “skills,” conjuring the notion that Alexa has the potential to become ever more well-rounded and intelligent. For Fitbit the integration offers a completely new way to engage with its users beyond the tiny screens on some of its wrist-worn trackers and its smartphone app. Improvement here could spur some confidence from its investors; Fitbit's share have dropped by more than 50% in the last three months, to trade at $14.30 on Thursday. (Fitbit was trading as high as $51 a share in August 2015. ) To activate Fitbit stats on Alexa, you might say “Alexa, ask Fitbit how I’m doing today.” She might respond, “You have taken about 4,500 steps and have been active for around 20 minutes today,” before adding, “Just keep going.” Ask Alexa how you slept and she’ll respond with the time you fell asleep (assuming you wore a Fitbit device to bed) and for how long you slept, before nudging you with, “Try fine-tuning your routine to get the best night’s rest.” Fitbit has programmed somewhere between 50 and 60 statements that Alexa can say in response to questions, says Tim Roberts, who oversees design and research for Fitbit products. That might not seem like much, but “it’s a starting point,” Roberts says. “Let’s get feedback and see how people are using it.” This is only the second time Fitbit has integrated with a voice-activated assistant. The first time was with Microsoft’s Cortana digital assistant for smartphones. “But it’s a very different experience,” Roberts says, because while using Cortana requires you to hold and look at a phone, Alexa is totally hands-free and invisible. Down the line Roberts say Alexa could be programmed to speak to Fitbit users with a different tone - depending on if you prefer the more friendly and gentle approach to your fitness, or something a bit edgier. Fitbit won’t go too extreme on any future personalities, though. “If the voice from Fitbit was wildly different, [veering between] a drill sergeant or a super-nice voice, that might sound really schizophrenic,” says Roberts. “You can imagine something between being more pushy and a bit more supportive," he adds. "There’s a range we can play with, but there’s limits to how far we want to push that.”
Fitbit has integrated its health wearables into Amazon Echo's personal AI assistant, Alexa, giving users hands-free access to their data and enabling them to ask health- and fitness-related questions based on their activity data from any day within the previous week. The company also announced that it will be releasing a new version of its app for Android devices in early 2018.