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What people say in reviews of fitness, nutrition and wearable apps

People rarely complain that an app has too few numbers or workouts. We read thousands of reviews from 2024–2026. People ask for three things. They want to know what a number means and what to do today. They want a plan that listens when they are tired, sore or sick. And they want honest pricing. They leave over subscriptions, updates that break a habit, and AI that makes things up or cannot be switched off.

By the NomaSports team · published 2 November 2026 · reviews collected on 3–4 October 2026

Disclosure. NomaSports is building a voice assistant for the body, so we have a commercial interest in this topic, and some apps named here are in the same market. NomaSports is not in the App Store yet. The limits of this analysis are listed at the end. To correct a mistake or ask us to remove a quote, write to hello@nomasports.com.

The short answer

• Money and broken updates make people angriest. In our reading, taking away something that used to be free hurts more than charging for something new. Charging people to see their own data is the worst version.
• A common unmet need is what does this mean, and what do I do today? Wearables and trackers show scores without reasons, and people notice when a score contradicts how they feel.
• Trust in AI coaches is low. 61% of the AI-coach reviews we read on wearable apps were 1–2 stars. People object to invented numbers, to a coach that cannot be switched off, and to one that forgets them.
• Beginners, experienced lifters and athletes want different things. Beginners want to be shown and eased in. Experienced people want the reason behind each decision. Athletes want the right to say no.
• Women write about who the product is for. Their reviews focus on cycle, postpartum, perimenopause, privacy and language.

What we read and how

Text in a quotation block or in quotation marks is word for word from a review, a forum post or an article. Words in italics are our own labels for a topic, not quotes. Ellipses mark cuts, and the authors’ spelling mistakes are kept. Each link leads to the app’s store page, or a forum thread where the text appears. Stores can edit or remove reviews, so a quote may not be there later. Topic counts come from keyword matching: they show which topic is bigger, not an exact number.

Money: the reason people leave

The same two topics sit at the top in every category: money and updates that break things. In the gym sample (848 reviews from 2024–2026), bugs and the update broke everything matched 161 reviews, subscriptions and paywalls 114, and Apple Watch problems 101. Among 11,552 wearable reviews, 681 mention a subscription and 66% of those are 1–2 stars. Among the 886 recent Clue reviews we read on Google Play, 218 mention a paywall, and their average is 2.86 stars. In our Wild.AI sample the average is 1.89.

There is a pattern: taking away what was free costs more than charging for something new. MyFitnessPal moved its barcode scanner behind a paid plan on 1 October 2022 (Droid Life). JEFIT put workout logging from a watch behind a subscription:

“What a joke, just another money grab app.”

App Store US, JEFIT

The angriest version is charging for a person’s own data:

“3 years of my health information gone. I now have to pay to see my own data that I logged.”

Google Play, Wild AI

Cancelling can cost money too. A user in the UAE who cancelled WHOOP during the trial found “a 488 aed cancellation fee” (App Store AE, WHOOP). A paywall on the first screen loses beginners at once:

“I'm a beginner… the first thing I saw was to subscribe with expensive prices I uninstalled it within the first 20 minutes”

Google Play, MySwimPro

A year after Garmin launched the paid Connect+ tier, 80% of 1,325 Garmin users polled had not subscribed, and only 5% used it and were happy (TechRadar). People do not want to pay twice for a device they already bought.

Numbers without meaning

Wearable reviews return to one complaint: the app gives a score and no reason. Direct I don’t understand this, tell me what to do reviews are only 1–2% of the 11,552. But they appear in almost every app and in both languages. And 67% of them are 1–2 stars.

“It consistently tells me my HRV 'needs attention', but does not tell me how. It aged me by 5 years, but doesn't explain why.”

Google Play, Ultrahuman

It gets worse when a score disagrees with how the person feels. Then they have to decide whom to believe:

“I slept for 7 hours and 16 minutes with a sleep score of 86 (Good), and I feel fully energetic today. Despite that, the app is showing my Readiness as only 15… Please explain how this score is calculated”

Google Play, Google Health

Tone matters too. Reviews praise permission to rest and punish nagging:

“Not every day is a push day and whoop's recovery features help me know when my body needs rest, so I don't feel as if I'm just being lazy.”

App Store, WHOOP

“Now the ‘coach’ is routinely berating me for not doing enough… normal people need leeway not perfection”

Google Play, WHOOP

AI coaches: where trust breaks and where it is earned

Of 161 wearable-app reviews from 2024–2026 that mention an AI coach, 61% were 1–2 stars. For Fitbit and Google Health, 66 of 85 were negative. WHOOP was split almost evenly (20 good, 19 bad), and Oura Advisor leaned slightly positive (8 and 5).

Invented numbers about a person’s own body break trust fastest.

“constant hallucinations, relying on ‘facts’ that have nothing to do with my actual data… you can't turn it off or opt out”

Google Play, WHOOP

A journalist quoted a Reddit user whose WHOOP coach admitted: “I invented ‘more awake last night’ without data. Then I used that” (Gear Patrol).

The second irritation is an AI that cannot be switched off. A WHOOP staff member confirmed on the forum: “At this time, WHOOP Coach cannot be disabled.” A user in the same thread wrote:

“I would already be happy if the AI would just answer, when asked and would otherwise remain silent”

WHOOP Community

The third is no memory: an Oura Advisor review says it “spouts the same things all the time, can’t remember previous conversations” (Google Play, Oura).

Some reviewers praise AI that reads their own data. One WHOOP user wrote this about the coach in its beta; the same thread later complains that the coach became a fixed summary:

“has helped me sleep more, cut alcohol and not overtrain. Pure data would never have the same effect”

WHOOP Community

People also still prefer humans. In the Les Mills 2026 report (over 10,000 people), only 10% chose AI-generated workouts (the5krunner), and the app Future closed its AI coaching in 2026 and returned to human coaches (Athletech News). Some reviewers now compare paid AI features with free chatbots. One Fitbod review ends:

“Do not get you might as well use chatgpt.”

App Store US, Fitbod

Beginners, experienced lifters and athletes

Beginners: fear of the gym and a first session that is too hard

Beginners praise three things: the app shows how to do the exercise, remembers last time, and answers what do I do today?

“I didn’t really know where to start… free weights and cable machines seemed so intimidating… it shows you exactly how to do the workout. It gave me confidence to step into the weight area.”

App Store US, Hevy

“Like a digital personal trainer without the awkwardness.”

App Store GB, Hevy

The app maker Muscle Booster ran a survey (a vendor survey, not independent). It found that 51% of US gym-goers felt intimidated or judged. Women were twice as likely as men to feel uncomfortable, 18% against 9% (Muscle Booster).

Beginners often quit after a first session they cannot make easier:

“the “warm up” was INCREDIBLY IMPOSSIBLE for a beginner like myself and I never found a way to change”

App Store US, Freeletics

Another reason is that the app does not ask about injuries:

“It doesn’t ask if you have any medical issues such as rotator cuff bad back or any following type of injuries”

App Store US, Fitbod

What beginners value shows best in running:

“Runna… helped me understand that it’s okay to slow down”

App Store, Runna

One surprise: we found no beginner review complaining about sports terms in exercise names, such as RPE or supersets. Confusion is about interface redesigns, and about health scores in wearables.

Experienced lifters: they accept AI if it explains its decisions

“it should at least tell you the reason why am I loading or deloading because I have a Max lift coming up or because I struggled with something last time”

App Store US, Fitbod

Experienced users hold on to their training history and leave apps that cannot import it. Redesigns hit loyal users hardest: “now ai have to manually tap on the tiny screen with a sweaty hand” (App Store GB, Strong).

Athletes: control, accurate data and the right to say no

“You can no longer choose not to accept adaptations in plan. Have an off day mentally? The AI assumes it's physical and drops your ftp.”

Google Play, TrainerRoad

“What's the point of having a plan if that plan is for a 5k 4 minutes off of my actual goal?”

App Store, Garmin Connect

The same assistant can work for all three levels if it asks before changing anything, gives the reason in one sentence, and lets the person answer no, keep it as it was.

Women: who the product is for

Pictures, age and tone

The sharpest reviews from women say a product was not made for them.

“every single weight lifting exercise (dumbbell, bar, machines etc) only shows men. Please could you update? I’m sure lots of the people using your app to log their strength training are women too”

App Store GB, Strong

In the same store that year a man wrote the opposite: “Love how the instructions are all male, really helpful as a man, please never change this, thanks!” (App Store GB, Strong) The gender of the person who demonstrates matters to people of both sexes, so the demonstrator should be a choice.

“It is full of pictures of 20-something beautiful and fit people. It uses words like “shred”. I’m 56, post-menopausal, overweight, have a dodgy knee…”

App Store GB, Ladder

The same reviewer says the app took her from two reluctant gym visits to four she enjoys.

A JEFIT user who came for strength was forced to enter a BMI and a goal weight: “forcing people to focus on weight is perpetuating negative body image ideals” (App Store AU, JEFIT).

Cycle: their own patterns, not rules by phase

Women ask for cycle awareness, but rarely. One clear request:

“the ability to indicate where I am in my cycle and have an option for lighter workouts at times as I am weaker during my luteal phase”

App Store GB, Ladder

Science is more careful than marketing. McMaster University researchers found in 2025 no difference in muscle protein synthesis between cycle phases. Their advice: “It is important to tailor your training to how you feel.” (McMaster News). Reviews say the same: women punish apps that tell them how they should feel and praise apps that find patterns in their own data.

Postpartum and menopause: the most obvious gaps

“I chose the Postpartum option and was returned back to the start screen because there's no PP program… at least 2 years of complaining about this with no solution in sight.”

App Store US, Wild.AI

“With those other trackers I felt as though peri menopause just wasn't valid or important. Now I feel like this stage of my life matters.”

App Store US, Health & Her

None of this replaces medical care. For symptoms in pregnancy, after birth or in menopause, ask a doctor.

Recognition, time and privacy

“they remind me I'm not crazy and that whatever symptom I'm having is likely related to my cycle.”

App Store US, Stardust

Privacy is mentioned in only about 1.6% of reviews, but those authors often say they are deleting the app. In a 2024 CHI survey of 183 US women, people worried about law enforcement and third parties getting their data, yet fewer than 10% had taken steps such as deleting the app or reading its privacy policy (Duke press release on the CHI’24 study). One woman wrote that her phone was connected to a shared screen in a meeting and everyone saw the notification “Time to squeeze! It was mortifying” (Google Play, Balance).

The Gulf: Arabic comes first

In 187 of 400 recent Arabic reviews of Flo on Google Play (47%), people ask for Arabic. A WHOOP user in Saudi Arabia declined to renew because of it: “The main reason is the lack of Arabic language support” (App Store SA, WHOOP). Smaller local details get noticed too: a user in the UAE wrote that the week starts on Sunday for them, and that confuses the app’s calendar.

By sport: different requests, one reproach

Runna is a clear case in our sample of a gap between promise and experience. Got injured following the plan appears in 8 English reviews, 7 of them about Runna:

“There's no way to actually adjust the difficulty of a run. Even if you cant do a run, it wont make the next run any easier… just makes you feel like a failure”

App Store, Runna

Down Dog is the loyalty champion: 452 of 500 recent reviews are five stars, and 126 praise how it adjusts to the person. But in 2026, reviewers say, it replaced a live teacher’s voice with a generated one, and reviews followed:

“the voice actor had clearly been swapped for an AI-generated voice. This was extremely distracting and off-putting. Bring back the natural human voices! Or give us a choice.”

App Store, Down Dog

In swimming, MySwimPro has 232 one-star reviews out of 400 recent ones, and 113 of the negative ones are about price. In cycling, TrainerRoad users ask for a way to tell the app they are ready after illness, and for the app to ask why data is missing.

Food logging: speed matters more than accuracy

In 2025–2026 people complain about food trackers less for wrong numbers than for extra taps after a redesign. Among about 175 food quotes, paywalls were the biggest topic (about 38), and extra taps after a redesign came second (about 28). Fast logging is praised.

Food recognition from a photo splits people. Beginners like the speed. Experienced users do not trust the portion size. Secondhand reports of a 2026 NIH study say photo apps underestimated meals by 250–345 kcal (HealthDay). We could not get the study itself.

Voice logging is already offered by large players. MyFitnessPal has a Voice Log, paid and English only (Tribe AI), and Cronometer added voice and Siri logging in April 2026 (Cronometer). But in the reviews we read, no user asks for it. It is a bet by makers, not a loud request from people.

Counting calories can harm some people with eating disorders. Among 105 people with a diagnosed eating disorder, 74.3% had used MyFitnessPal, and 73.1% of them said the app contributed to the disorder in some way (Levinson et al.). In reviews, people more often drop one app than give up counting. If counting food or weight is hard for you or someone close, talk to a doctor or a local eating-disorder helpline.

Supplement stores: trust is earned after payment

Reviews of shops say little about the product itself. They talk about what happened after payment: delivery, support, cancelling a subscription. Two outside checks hurt trust in quality. In October 2025 Consumer Reports tested 23 protein powders. More than two-thirds had more lead per serving than the safe daily limit. Plant proteins had on average 9 times more lead than dairy ones (OPB/NPR). In Russia, Roskachestvo checked 1,637 whey protein listings on three marketplaces: only 32% had a valid state registration certificate, and only 10% had fully correct sports-nutrition documents (New Retail).

For an app that also sells things there is a direct warning. A review of Centr says it is:

“in a slow decline to become a platform to sell overpriced gym equipment… They are no longer adding coached workouts that most beginners and intermediate people enjoy.”

Google Play, Centr

In a Thorne survey, only 41% of Americans say AI can be trusted to choose supplements (Fitt Insider).

Voice: live and adjustable

On voice, the reviews agree. Of 17 complaints about a robotic AI voice, 12 are about Runna:

“I can't stand the ai voice! It's 2026… you can do better Runna”

App Store, Runna

At the other end is Coach Bennett of Nike Run Club. A live voice is praised in 19 of 500 reviews of that app:

“10 years running with NRC… Coach Bennett's Guided Runs are simply incredible”

App Store, Nike Run Club

People want control over how much the voice talks:

“the options are guided run, where the coach literally talks the entire run, or non guided and it says nothing at all. It would be nice if there was an intermediate option”

App Store, Nike Run Club

The main technical failure is music: “it turns down the music to use one of five terrible AI voices and then never turns it back up” (App Store, Runna). In the gym, noise and an open microphone are a barrier. And in the large gym sample no review asks to log sets by voice. People ask for hands-free control instead:

“Can we get an integration with AirPods or Apple Watch to skip to the next workout without having to go on my phone and swipe? I hate touching my phone during a workout.”

App Store US, Peloton Strength+

What this means for anyone building a body or fitness assistant

• Explain every number in one sentence: what it is, why, and what to do today.
• Say “no data” when there is none. Never invent a figure about someone’s body.
• Ask before changing a plan, and let the person say no.
• Give an off switch, or an answer only when asked mode.
• Do not charge for what used to be free or for a person’s own data, and warn before a renewal.
• Offer life stages (postpartum, perimenopause, no cycle), a choice of who demonstrates, and the person’s language.

What these reviews cannot tell us

Reddit is mostly closed. We could not read most of Reddit. Part of the material came from the Arctic Shift archive, but this article quotes no Reddit comment. Women’s and beginners’ communities (r/xxfitness, r/loseit, r/beginnerfitness) could not be read, though that is where long discussions usually happen. Beginners and women are quieter here than in life.

The App Store favors most helpful reviews, so the sample leans toward long, positive and older reviews from 2017–2022. Those quotes carry a year.

Gender is almost never stated. Among 7,218 sports reviews, 23 clearly come from women and 18 from men. Comparing women and men here is a qualitative signal, not statistics.

Some of the food material and Trustpilot texts passed through a tool that summarizes pages. We did not use those as quotes here.

Three things the reviews do not prove. First, that women in women-only gyms in the UAE want a voice assistant. Their reviews do not exist: the apps of women’s gyms there have zero ratings. Second, that people ask to log sets by voice. Third, that AI alone can keep someone motivated. The Les Mills report and Future’s decision point the other way. A next step would be interviews in two or three gyms.

Related: What is a voice assistant for the body? · A voice assistant for any sport · Who NomaSports is for

Published 2 November 2026. Written by the NomaSports team. NomaSports is a voice assistant for the body for iPhone, made by R.SPACE TECHNOLOGY LTD in the UAE; it is not in the App Store yet.