Why Your Fitbit Says Look Alive and How to Stop It
Your Fitbit says Look Alive because you have walked fewer than 250 steps this hour. It is a reminder to move, one of several rotating messages Fitbit uses to nudge you off the couch.
The buzz shows up at 10 minutes before the hour, like 2:50, when you have not hit the 250 step mark. Nothing is broken, and no, your Fitbit does not think you are dead.
You can turn these reminders off in about 30 seconds. Steps below were checked against Google’s official support pages in July 2026.
Why Does Fitbit Say Look Alive?
Fitbit devices come with an hourly activity goal of at least 250 steps per hour. That equals just a few minutes of walking.
By default the goal runs from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., seven days a week.
If you sit still for most of an hour, the watch vibrates at 10 minutes before the hour with a short message.
“Look alive!” is one of those rotating messages. The wording varies, but they all mean the same thing: get up and walk.
The idea comes from research linking long sitting stretches to health problems. A few minutes of walking every hour helps offset it.
How to Turn Off Look Alive Reminders
Quick heads up first: the Fitbit app became the Google Health app in May 2026. If your phone updated, the app icon and menus changed.
Here is what happened to the Fitbit app.
To turn reminders to move off for good:
- Open the Google Health app on your phone.
- Tap the Connections icon in the top left corner, then tap your watch or tracker.
- Tap Google Health reminders and alerts.
- Tap Reminders to move.
- Tap Get reminders to switch it off.
Sync your device by pulling down on the screen in the app. The reminders stop after the next sync.
How to Change When Reminders Show Up Instead
Maybe you like the nudges but not during meetings or church. You do not have to kill them completely.
You can change which hours and which days the hourly activity goal runs.
Set it for weekday work hours, for example, and evenings and weekends go quiet.
In the Google Health app, open your goal settings for hourly activity and adjust the start time, end time, and days. The reminders only fire inside that window.
Good news for sleepers: reminders are automatically off while your Fitbit detects you are asleep.
Is Look Alive the Same as Smart Wake? No.
Some older articles, including an earlier version of this one, mixed these up. They are two different features.
Smart Wake is an alarm feature that tries to wake you during light sleep near your alarm time.
“Look alive” messages come from reminders to move. If the buzz hits at 10 minutes before the hour during the day, it is a reminder to move, not an alarm.
What If the Reminders Will Not Stop?
If you turned reminders off and your watch still buzzes, work through these steps.
- Open the Google Health app and pull down to force a sync.
- Check that you changed the setting for the right device. The toggle lives under each device, so a household with two trackers has two switches.
- Restart your Fitbit. If it acts up beyond reminders, see our fixes for a Fitbit that keeps turning off.
- Update the Google Health app in your phone’s app store, then sync again.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does my Fitbit think I died?
No. The message is a canned motivational line tied to your step count for the current hour. It has nothing to do with your heart rate.
Do reminders to move drain the battery?
The vibrations use a tiny amount of power, not enough to notice. If your battery is dying fast, something else is going on.
Here is why your Fitbit battery drains so fast.
Can I make the goal easier instead of turning it off?
The 250 step target per hour is fixed, but you can shrink the number of hours it tracks. Fewer tracked hours means fewer chances to get buzzed.
Which Fitbits show these messages?
Nearly all trackers and watches with a screen, from Inspire models up through Versa and Sense.
Not sure what you own? Here is how to tell which Fitbit you have.