- Fitbit’s co-founders are launching the new Luffu fitness tracker, moving from Fitbit’s individual health tracking to tracking for the whole family.
- It uses AI ‘in the background’ to collect health information from connected devices and platforms, as well as providing updates on health changes and answers to your questions.
- While it could save the lives of caregivers of children and older adults, there are concerns about the potential additional stress it could cause.
Two years after parting ways with Google, Fitbit co-founders James Park and Eric Friedman have entered a new era of fitness tracking with their new startup Luffu, which shifts the focus from individual to family health tracking.
Billed as a “smart family care system,” Luffu aims to help families proactively monitor their health and fitness levels from one place, while silently using AI “in the background” to collect their family’s medical information from connected devices and services like Apple Health and Fitbit. It can also be used to manually enter information using voice, text and photo prompts, and allows users to ask questions about family members’ specific needs.
Luffu, which will expand its software business to hardware in the future, aims to not only help users manage the health of their children, but also that of their elderly parents, if they are their primary caregivers. Even pets are included. That said, it will offer more than just a place to see the health status of each connected family member.
After taking a little break from Fitbit and Google, I’m starting something new and very personal. As a co-founder of Fitbit, I thought I understood health technology. Taking care of my parents from afar changed that perception. Trying to help manage his care was frustrating. Your data…February 3, 2026
Although that is the main goal of Luffu, the overall experience will be presented in different ways. In addition to recording your health by accepting voice prompts, photos, and more, its AI model acts as a “gatekeeper” and will keep an eye out for any health changes, alerting you once it has become familiar with each member’s health patterns.
Additionally, its co-founders say it will serve as a simple question-and-answer model that will allow you to use plain language to ask questions about individual health status, which can be shared directly with family members.
At the moment Luffu is in a private testing stage, but you can join the waiting list on the Luffu website. However, in light of Park and Friedman’s ambitious new venture, we have our reservations.
“I can also see Luffu increasing that stress”
If there’s anyone who could lead the way in fitness tracking across the entire family, it’s the co-founders of Fitbit, and on paper Luffu could alleviate a lot of pressure for those with childcare responsibilities and elderly relatives, but there are some gaps in the system.
As a veteran with extensive experience with the best fitness trackers, our senior fitness and wellness editor, Matt Evans, has doubts about Luffu. Here’s what he thinks about the new fitness tracking service:
“After Fitbit’s founders left Google a couple of years ago, their new venture is surprising: a health platform focused on family caregivers rather than individual fitness fanatics.
“I can certainly see this working for some, especially those juggling young children and older relatives. In the press release, Luffu uses the term ‘family CEO,’ and the app aims to lighten some of that invisible cognitive load, reducing the stress and burnout that accompanies it. Interacting with wearable features like fall detection, medication reminders, etc., could certainly lead to more effective home management.
“However, I can also see Luffu increasing that stress in some cases, as constant streams of information about loved ones can lead to obsessive checking and encourage that kind of ‘helicopter’ parenting and family management, a bit like constantly updating social media. Careful implementation of these tools is needed, otherwise the stress of ‘cyberchondria’ will only increase the mental load on the caregiver.”
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