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Google Fit adds new breathing exercise feature and home screen widgets

Google Fit adds new breathing exercise feature and home screen widgets

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Catching up with the Apple Watch

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Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Like Apple, Google has been slowly building out a suite of mobile and wearable health features to turn our phones and smartwatches into the center of fitness and wellness regimens. Although Google’s Wear OS lags a bit behind Apple’s watchOS and dedicated Health app, it’s beginning to catch up.

This week, Google is adding a couple of new features to make it easier to track activity progress and to engage in a bit of relaxation. The first is home screen widgets for the Google Fit mobile app. Now, you can place activity progress meters like minutes walked and calories burned right on the main screen of your Android phone. The second is a new breathing exercise feature for Wear OS smartwatches, similar to Apple’s default Breathe app for the Apple Watch.

Google says both features will be rolling out to compatible smartwatches and Android phones this week.