[Update: Official] Google Fit for Android adds guided ‘Paced Walking’ activity

Abner Li | Jun 9 2021 - 9:10 am PT

Back in March, Google Fit rolled out camera-powered heart and respiratory rate tracking. Google is now adding a “Paced Walking” activity for Fit that offers somewhat of a guided experience.

Update 6/9: Google officially announced Paced Walking in Fit today. You can earn one Heart Point every minute you walk at a pace of over 100 steps/minute.

There’s a difference between wandering through the garden and dashing to catch the bus. That difference is intensity, and scientists have found increased health benefits associated with walking faster. Everyone has a preferred walking speed — a pace that feels natural — and picking up that pace has health benefits similar to riding a bicycle. Plus, if you start walking faster, your natural pace will get faster over time.

Original 6/3: Paced — or brisk — walking “should leave you a little out of breath.” It involves taking “around 100 steps per minute” for most people.

Brisk walking is an easy way to fit exercise into your day, and counts towards your activity goals.

A new card in the Home feed prompts you to “set a pace for your walks.” Tapping “Try paced walking” launches a brief tutorial before taking users to an activity screen that lets them set a different step goal.

When you start, a beat to keep you on track plays in the background. You’ll hear it over “podcasts, playlists, or other audio as you go” with integrated volume controls available in the top-right corner.

Below that is a pulsating graphic, while stats for the current walk are listed at the bottom. Meanwhile, you can swap out the top portion of the screen with a live map.

Paced Walking is rolled out with version 2.57 of Google Fit. Meanwhile, this release makes a small tweak that sees sleep no longer listed alongside calories, miles, and minutes in the top row. Rather, “Last sleep” is now its own card complete with a small illustration of Sleep Sensing on the 2nd-generation Nest Hub.