- Fitbit co-founders launch new fitness tracker Luffu, which expands from Fitbit’s individual health tracking to tracking the whole family
- It uses AI “in the background” to collect health information from connected devices and platforms, as well as to provide updates on health changes and answers to your questions.
- While this could save the lives of people caring for children and aging adults, there are concerns about the 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 health monitoring to family monitoring.
Billed as an “intelligent 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 your family’s medical information from connected devices and services such as Apple Health and Fitbit. It can also be used to enter information manually using voice messages, text and photos, and allows users to ask questions about the specific needs of family members.
Luffu, which will move from software startup to hardware stage in the future, aims to not only help users manage their children’s health, but also that of their aging parents if they are the primary caretakers. Even pets are included. That said, it will give you much more than just a place to check 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 the co-founder of Fitbit, I thought I understood health technology. Caring for my parents from a distance changed that perception. Trying to help them manage their care was frustrating. Their data…February 3, 2026
While this is the main focus of Luffu, the overall experience will come in different forms. In addition to recording your health by accepting voice prompts, photos, etc., its AI model acts as a “guardian” and will monitor any changes in health, alerting you once it becomes familiar with each member’s health patterns.
Additionally, its co-founders say it will serve as a simple Q&A template that lets you use simple language to ask questions about individual health status – all of which can be shared directly with family members.
At the moment, Luffu is in private testing, but you can join the waiting list on the Luffu website. However, in light of Park and Friedman’s ambitious new project, we have our reservations.
“I can also see Luffu adding to this stress”
If there’s anyone who could lead family-wide fitness tracking, it’s the co-founders of Fitbit, and on paper, Luffu could take a lot of pressure off those with responsibilities for caring for children and elderly family members – 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 two opinions about Luffu. Here’s what he thinks of the new fitness tracking service:
“After Fitbit’s founders left Google a few years ago, their new venture is surprising: a health platform focused on family caregivers rather than individual fitness enthusiasts.
“I can definitely see it working for some, especially those juggling young children and aging parents. In the press release, Luffu uses the term ‘family CEO,’ and the app aims to alleviate some of that invisible cognitive load, thereby reducing the stress and burnout that comes with it. Interacting with wearable features like fall detection, medication reminders, etc. could certainly lead to more efficient household management.
“However, I can also see Luffu adding to this stress in some cases, as constant streams of information about your loved ones can lead to obsessive checking and encourage this kind of helicopter parenting and family management, much like constant refreshing of social media feeds. Careful implementation of these tools is necessary, otherwise the stress of ‘cyberchondria’ will only add to the mental burden on the caregiver.”
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