Leave a Review Lark Health
Good intentions but needs more work
I really like this app. It was something that I had been considering for a while now.. I enjoy that it connects to my scale and I can use the same account on more than one smart device. It makes it easier to check in that way.
On the improvement side of things. I wish that the sleep and nutrition sections of the app were a bit better. The sleep relies on you inputting in the correct times manually so it hasn’t helped me to track how well I sleep yet.. just how long. The nutrition.. I wish that the app had a barcode or qr scanner so I could scan or take a picture of the barcode or nutritional information. Right now every item that I have entered has the wrong amount of calories or serving size which can be frustrating. For example something as simple as a single serving of Mott’s applesauce. Unsweetened and original has the wrong amount of calories by almost 100 calories and the single serving size of a single portion is also wrong. This makes it rather hard to get the correct gauge on the amount you are eatingShow less.FoxyFoxtrot.
Not gluten accurate
When I signed up, I was able to indicate that I was gluten free. However, when I entered gluten free food( even generic gluten free bread) showed up as zero calories and no nutritional information. As a result, Lark wanted to increase my calories and kept telling me I wasn’t getting enough whole grains. Also, my FitBit wasn’t synching, no matter how many times I disconnected and reconnected. I contacted customer support, they were very responsive and nice. However, they wanted me to give them the nutritional information for the missing gluten free food… that’s not really my job…
As for the FitBit, the response was some type of 5 step procedure involving app developers contacting me to troubleshoot. I honestly thought this was a new app until I read some of the reviews from 4 years ago!
If they can get the app working as responsively as their customer service, it might be worth it. I’m deleting the app and going back to My Fitness Pal.Show lessReenva7
Developer Response
Hi Reenva7. We're sorry that the app is not meeting your expectations. We are continuously looking to improve the experience for our users so thank you for taking the time to share your feedback. If there is anything we can help you with, please reach out to us at support@lark.com. Thank you. The Product Team @ LarkMostly good, but insanely repetitive
Overall, it’s a pretty good app. The virtual “coaching” is okay, maybe even engaging, if you don’t already know basic health and nutrition information. This virtual “coaching” is a bit too cutesy and verbose. The one thing that is super off-putting is that there is a bug in the app where the virtual “coach” says that it will remind you once a week to weigh yourself, and it prompts you to select a day and time of the week for the reminder. However, even if you set a day and time, instead of prompting you once per week at the day/time you entered, the app tells you every single day that it will remind you “once a week” to weigh yourself, and every single day it asks you to once again select a day and time to weigh yourself. It’s so unnecessarily repetitive and annoying, I now find myself skipping the coaching prompts and the daily motivational checkin simple because of the annoying and completely unnecessary repetition. I can see myself stopping using the app soon if the developers don’t fix this. I definitely don’t want to have a bad AI chatbot rehash the same canned prompts over and over and over. There are too many other good health and nutrition tracking apps. I hope the developers fix this bug soon. Until they do, be prepared to be annoyed rather than motivated daily.Show lessBummer Toons
Decent, but there’s much to be desired
First off, when I first downloaded the app I thought that the coach would be an actual person, and was a little disappointed that it’s an automated bot. However, I do like that it’s more personalized than other basic apps and actually takes into account my habits and averages so it doesn’t feel like I’m following a super basic pattern or plan. I don’t like how basic some of the features are, especially the food tracking. The input is very basic, which means there’s a LOT of room for error as far as ingredients and calories go. I know the point of the app is to not focus specifically on calorie counting, but when you’re actually trying to lose weight it’s vital that you track them to an extent, and it’s just not possible to do that with the current interface. I find myself doing the bare minimum food tracking with Lark, then going to another free fitness app to actually track my food and calories. Lastly, I think the “mindful check-ins” could be improved GREATLY by just including more options for answers rather than just good, ok, or not good. The options are way too vague to actually log and track my mood and to try to make improvements.
If you’re looking to make changes by developing habits without tracking a ton of details or stats, this app is perfect. But if you’re trying to seriously follow a goal or lose a good amount of weight, you’re better off with a different app.Show lessAdventurouspotato
Should have read the reviews — NOT a quality app
I signed up because I’m on a fitness journey and my insurance covers the whole cost and I thought it would be nice to upgrade to a smart scale. I was shocked when the insurance claim processed as $93. I thought, “wow, that’s a lot for a year” based on what I’d seen so far. So I just entered my second month and saw another $93 come through on my insurance statement. They’re charging $93 a MONTH. Even though it’s not my own money, I’m canceling because it’s a complete scam at that price point. It’s not personalized or customized. It’s not AI. It’s scripted and unless you’ve never learned anything about nutrition and exercise, this is all basic knowledge. On top of that, the tone is frequently judgmental in its effort to provide “support” and the food tracking is useless. The calories are all off. There’s no crowd-sourced database or barcode scanning. Looking back at the reviews, these have been the same complaints users have had for at least four years. They’re clearly not interested in making the necessary improvements when they can continue to collect from insurance companies. My guess is that a lot of people just give up on the app without formally canceling and they continue to get paid; I’m not interested in being a part of that.Show lesscsimms68
Developer Response
Hi csimms68, I'm sorry that the app is not meeting your expectations. In regards to the cost, the app comes at no cost to you. Lark’s Diabetes Prevention Program, a CDC-certified program, bills claims to your health insurer four times over the course of one calendar year based on your engagement and time in the program. We appreciate your feedback and please don't hesitate to reach out to support@lark.com if you have any questions or need help. Thank you. The Product Team @ LarkLacking in basic features
I was so excited when I got the letter from my health insurance company that I could sign up for Lark. I had seen the ads on social media for a couple of years and it looked so helpful. The reality is, I’ve acquired better (and more accurate) tools over the past few years so I don’t feel like this program is as helpful as I thought it would be.
The AI *wants* to be helpful, but it still comes off as judgey. There is no way to scan bar codes of foods, no way to fix the horribly off calorie counts and macro nutrient info. I have no idea why it thinks diet soda has over 100 calories in a serving 🤦🏻♀️
I already have a blood pressure monitor; the one they sent me is ok but the setup instructions for it and the digital scale were inaccurate and confusing. I finally figured it out and it’s all working fine. The scale they sent is super basic- for some reason I thought it might be one that tracks body fat percentage but it doesn’t- just my weight. I also have to keep family from trying to use the devices because it could mess up the data that syncs- I don’t see a way to fix accidental measurements which is frustrating.
In short- if you already use a good food tracking app like My Fitness Pal or Lose It, have an Apple Watch to track your activity, and a decent digital scale that also reads body fat percentage and connects to Apple Health- you can probably skip this whole program and just journal your progress.Show lessAleshaLee
Calorie Counts Off
This is an ok app. I like the coach aspect but I don’t always like the choices they give to answer with but it’s fine. The thing I hate is that none of the food calories are correct. NONE of them. I tried to put in cherry sparkling water and it said over 100 calories - it was obviously confused by the word “cherry” another example is that I put in triscuit thin crackers and ot said a serving was 250 calories. The box said 130. That’s a huge difference when your counting calories. No where does it tell you what a “serving” is and how they arrived at that number. I guess I was spoiled by My Fitness Pal. Since they got this aspect so very wrong - I’m not sure if people are really losing weight - then again they might be starving themselves if they go by the calorie counts in this app. I’ll try it for a bit longer but having to figure out all the calories for every piece of food I eat is super irritating, but maybe the coach aspect of the app will grow on me and I’ll see some results. I’m happy to give it a chance but might be more work than it’s worth. Oh - and I got my scale surprisingly fast - within only about 3-4 days of signing up. Sounds like I was lucky considering some other reviews. I may come up and update…if it’s worth my time to (and it gets significantly better in the coming months.Show lessValMac7
Lark
Been using this app for about two weeks now it is very easy to use and helps make changes to your lifestyle a little bit easier. I had no problem filling out the questionnaire and I got my scale within about four days. I wish I could interact just a little bit more. I happen to be very sick with laryngitis and bronchitis and wasn’t up to filling in the app, I wish there was an area on the app to be more interactive instead of just pushing yes no yup woo hoo on the app I also I’m having trouble tying my Garmin to the app so that it tracks my steps but overall I like the app so far took me a little while to get used to recording my food but I’m getting the hang of it every day I get a little better and I’m working hard to improve my health.Show lessdcreaselose
Insert Cliche about Weight Loss Programs
I have to say this because it’s true: this isn’t a diet. It’s not a lose weight fast program. In 6 weeks I’ve lost 6 lbs, more some weeks and less other weeks.
Most important to me is the way the app tracks food. I enter whatever it is, and the app analyzes it and, after saying “that sounds like a good meal,” gives warm and, if warranted, tells me only 2 things to improve. I never felt that I was doing anything wrong, or felt shamed that I went over points, or felt like I failed because I only went down half a pound.
For activity, Lark would only tell me benefits of increasing my activity. When I was low activity, it would say “sometimes we have days like this.” Meanwhile I felt gently encourage to increase my activities. The fact that the program gave me a fitbit helped as well.
In addition, Lark checked in on how my mood was. Being aware of my mood helped me look out for myself, take care of myself.
Overall, Lark is the app I was looking for after “failing” with WW, noom, golo, and beach body on demand/shakeology. Lark is sustainable whether I’m living my everyday life, on vacation, or just having a tough week. I feel as though I can’t fail with Lark.Show lessNoelleEnigma
Easy setup, abysmal food diary
It does everything that matters the least well. Weight, sleep and activity tracking are fine. It just pulls from my health app or its scale. I had a withings scale before so nothing gained there. But that’s where it ends - you talk to a chat bot through guided conversations, the goals are fine, but this app performa minimal effort to achieve success.
Now the food tracking is the worst I’ve seen. You can’t ensure the food you enter is correct because it only shows you servings and calories. Today I ate “protein powder” and any time I tried to make that more specific, it just screwed everything up worse. I have used myfitnesspal, lose it, Macrostax and myplate - all of them do the food tracking much much better. This doesn’t even pass as food tracking.
To think this thing is making recommendations based on gross inaccuracies and charging my insurance is ludicrous.Show lessFergmg
