Fitbit app for Windows 10 lets you log activities, meals via voice
No, I'm not confessing my dietary sins to the nice folks at Fitbit. I'm telling Cortana to log this favorite childhood treat as my lunch food in my Fitbit food diary. Why Because I can, thanks to Fitbit's new universal Windows 10 app.
Fitbit's integration with Cortana, Microsoft's Siri-like virtual assistant feature in Windows 10, works well in some cases, but not all of them. With the PB&J, for instance, Cortana understood what I said, but somehow the "peanut" part of the equation was consistently missing when the command got passed on to the Fitbit app. The result: I saw a variety of food database items that matched the phrase "butter and jelly," such as "buttered popcorn" jelly beans from Jelly Belly (which, in case you're wondering, contain 140 calories).
I had better luck with commands that included more conventional foods, such as "Fitbit, I ate lasagna for dinner," and "Fitbit, I ate a ham and cheese sandwich for lunch." Other commands that worked well: "Fitbit, I went for a two-mile walk," and "Fitbit, set an alarm for 4:45 p.m."
I made these voice commands using the Cortana box at the bottom left of the Windows 10 taskbar, as well as in the Fitbit app itself. For the latter, I tapped the microphone icon on the top right of the app and omitted "Fitbit" from my commands.
As of this writing, the ability to log food or activities in your Fitbit diary via voice is a Cortana-only feature, according to Fitbit. The company says its updated Windows app, with Cortana support, will be available for Windows 10 Mobile and Xbox One "later this year."
Aside from Cortana, the Windows 10 Fitbit app offers some other new features, including redesigned live tiles that show more information. You can read more about the other new features in this press release, but Cortana is definitely the coolest new addition.