Recovery and strain tracking without a subscription
If you want recovery and strain scores with no monthly fee, the cheapest route is a band without a required subscription plus software that computes the scores. Pulse does this for the Fitbit Air, self-hosted and free for noncommercial use. Other open-source projects cover nearby needs.
Facts about other products checked on .
What it costs to run Pulse
- A Fitbit Air, bought once. Its core features need no subscription.
- A computer that can run Docker: a home server, a NAS, a small cloud VM or a laptop. Pulse uses about 100-150 MB of memory.
- A one-time setup: a Google Cloud OAuth client, the container, and HTTPS if you want it on your phone. The setup guide walks through each step.
- Your time to keep it updated and backed up.
Open-source projects in the same space
| Project | Works with | What it gives you | License |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pulse | Fitbit Air (Google Health API) | Recovery, Strain, sleep scores, Pulse Age, Stress, Energy Bank, journal insights | PolyForm Noncommercial 1.0.0 |
| noop | A subscription brand's recovery straps (see its README) | An offline companion app with recovery, strain and sleep scoring; Pulse's scoring is ported from it | PolyForm Noncommercial 1.0.0 |
| Hælan | Google Health | A self-hosted mirror of your Google Health data, with a dashboard and tools | AGPL-3.0 |
| fitbit-grafana | Fitbit / Google Health | Raw metrics in InfluxDB and Grafana charts | BSD-4-Clause |
Choosing between them
If you own a subscription recovery strap and want to stop paying for the membership, noop is built for that. If you own a Fitbit Air and want computed scores rather than raw charts, Pulse is. If you mostly want your Google Health data mirrored and searchable, look at Hælan or fitbit-grafana. They can run side by side.
Sources
- Google: Fitbit Air and the Google Health app (launch post, 2026-05-07)
- Digital Trends: Fitbit Air's core features don't need a subscription
- noop on GitHub
- Hælan on GitHub
- fitbit-grafana on GitHub
- Google Cloud help: unverified apps and the 100-user cap
Questions
Is Pulse really free?
Yes, for personal and other noncommercial use under the PolyForm Noncommercial 1.0.0 license. Selling it, or putting it inside a commercial product, is not allowed. You pay only for the band and whatever machine you run it on.
Why is there no hosted version?
Google limits an unverified app to 100 users, and a hosted service would hold everyone's health data. Self-hosting keeps each person's data on their own machine.