I have a Fitbit One, and I use their Fitbit Connect software on my Mac so the device can sync silently using a USB dongle. When I got my 5K iMac the other day, the dongle wasn’t recognized, so I re-installed the software.
I’ve noticed since then that, at times, my Mac lags a bit when I’m typing. I spotted a process using from 50-100% of one core’s CPU time. This process, galileod, is part of the Fitbit Connect software.
It seems that the only solution is to uninstall the software, using the uninstaller on the Fitbit Connect’s disk image. I’ve contacted Fitbit support to see if they can resolve this, but if you have a Fitbit, and you’re Mac’s running slow, have a look in Activity Monitor (this is in your /Applications/Utilities folder) and see if that process is slowing you down.
Note that the Fitbit software uninstaller does not uninstall all the software. You will need to manually remove /usr/local/bin/Fitbitd and /Library/Launch Daemons/com.Fitbit.Fitbitd.plist.
Update: After contacting Fitbit Support, I received an email saying the following:
Please be aware that Galileod is a patch that Apple has launched to fix a bug on the previous OS X. The Fitbit software doesn’t use Galileod to run on your computer.
We would like you to try uninstalling your Fitbit connect using the steps on the following link: https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-5471
If after following the above steps to uninstall you are not able to do it, or you still see an issue with Galileod we recommend to contact your Apple manufacturer for further assistance.
This is surprising, because galileod is part of the Fitbit software installer:
Well, it won’t be the first time that a support rep told me something, um, untrue…