Fitbit’s first new health tracker since 2023’s Cost 6 is not an improve—it is a rethink. The $99 Fitbit Air ditches the show, relying as a substitute on delicate haptics and passive monitoring to ship a quieter, much less intrusive expertise.
The transfer places Fitbit nearer to Whoop’s philosophy of always-on, screenless wearables constructed for holistic well being monitoring, just like the Whoop 5.0. Just like its rival, the Air is designed to fade into the background, pairing every week of battery life with Fitbit’s suite of well being sensors. At this worth, it is one of the vital accessible entries but within the screenless tracker class.
Alongside the Air launch, the Fitbit app is being rebranded as Google Well being, with a redesigned interface that also retains core exercise, sleep, and well being metrics free throughout Android and iOS. Tied to that replace is the broader rollout of Google’s Gemini-powered Well being Coach. Obtainable by way of a $9.99 month-to-month or $99.99 annual Premium subscription, the AI assistant affords personalised exercise plans, adaptive wellness recommendation, and extra superior sleep insights—marking a deeper transfer into software-driven health steering.
Let’s delve into all the main points of the Air and the top of the Fitbit app.
Fitbit Air: The Screenless Gamble That May Pay Off
Let’s begin with the fundamentals. The Fitbit Air is about to hit shops on Could 26 and contains three months of Google Well being Premium. Will probably be out there in Berry (pink), Fog (silver), Lavender (purple), or Obsidian (black). Every band coloration is on the market in several supplies.
The default Efficiency Loop band is a light-weight material designed for consolation. Different band types like Lively and Elevated Trendy use a rugged plastic. Google may even promote a particular version Stephen Curry Efficiency Loop, that includes a brown-and-orange design and the basketball star’s title and Lock In motto.
The Fitbit Air’s Lively Band is manufactured from sturdy plastic (Credit score: Google)
Google says the Air is designed so you may simply change bands to alter your search for sure events. The corporate additionally guarantees a seamless knowledge monitoring expertise when you change between a Pixel Watch and a Fitbit Air, as an example, to make use of the latter for sleep monitoring.
The Air tracks your exercise, train, sleep, stress, and different key well being metrics. Beneath the floor, it options an optical coronary heart fee monitor, a three-axis accelerometer and gyroscope to trace motion, a temperature sensor, and pink and infrared sensors for blood oxygen saturation measurements. The Air would not have an built-in GPS for outside exercises just like the Cost 6. It will possibly monitor for Atrial Fibrillation (AFib, an irregular heartbeat) and has a built-in vibration motor for haptic suggestions and alerts.
It’s meant to be light-weight, comfy, and sturdy in order that it’s nice to put on across the clock for holistic well being monitoring. The Fitbit Air is water resistant to 164 toes.
The battery guarantees as much as seven days of energy on a cost. It will possibly recharge from 0 to 100% in 90 minutes, and 5 minutes of charging is sufficient to energy the system for a day. Every week of battery life would put the Fitbit Air effectively forward of most smartwatches and former Fitbit gadgets. The Fitbit Cost 6 lasted solely three days with the always-on show enabled throughout our testing. The Whoop 5.0, however, lasted for greater than two weeks in testing and comes with a chargeable battery pack so that you by no means must take the tracker off.
The Fitbit Air will probably be far more inexpensive than the Whoop 5.0, which requires a $239 annual subscription. The Whoop affords correct and dependable train and sleep monitoring, although its exercise knowledge lacks element. As with the Whoop, you may manually begin monitoring a exercise on the Fitbit Air within the app, or let the system mechanically detect your exercise. The Fitbit Air could possibly be higher than Whoop at train monitoring if it is as detailed and dependable as earlier Fitbit gadgets.
Google’s AI Coach Takes Heart Stage
The Fitbit Air’s {hardware} could also be minimal, however it leans closely on Google’s much more bold Well being Coach software program. From my early testing final 12 months, it stood out as probably the most succesful automated health coach I’ve used, largely as a result of it builds exercise plans naturally by way of dialog and adapts when your schedule shifts. That stated, it wasn’t flawless—exercise syncing could possibly be clunky, and its sleep steering lagged behind its in any other case sturdy train insights. With Well being Coach now transferring out of preview, it’s going to be fascinating to see how a lot of that has been refined.
Google says enhancements are approaching each fronts. Sleep monitoring is getting extra granular, with nap detection and higher nighttime evaluation, whereas the assistant itself is designed to really feel extra responsive, delivering shorter, extra helpful replies in chat. The core expertise stays the identical: You may begin with a fast onboarding dialog about your targets, and the coach will construct a plan to match. This time round, although, it is much less inflexible—centered extra on weekly targets than prescriptive day by day exercises, whereas nonetheless providing detailed strategies on demand.
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Google’s AI-powered conversational coach (Credit score: Google)
In apply, that flexibility was already one among its largest strengths. Throughout my testing, the coach simply labored round my two weekly private coaching periods, mechanically logging them through the Pixel Watch 4 and suggesting extra exercises to fill out the week. The up to date model goes additional, letting you log periods nonetheless you need—by way of a tool just like the Fitbit Air, by importing knowledge from providers like Peloton, and even by snapping a photograph of a gymnasium whiteboard and letting the AI parse the main points.
That form of adaptability is compelling, particularly for anybody with a much less structured routine. I’m nonetheless a bit skeptical concerning the sleep facet of the equation. Higher detection is a step ahead, however to really compete with extra mature choices from Samsung and Whoop, the coach might want to ship deeper, extra actionable steering—not simply cleaner knowledge.
Fitbit’s New Path Will not Please Everybody
The brand new Google Well being app will probably be organized into tabs for Health, Sleep, and Well being, together with a foremost At present part summarizing your information. It should allow you to import knowledge from third-party providers, export medical information to share along with your physician, and compete with mates on expanded leaderboards for the very best step depend and cardio load. Whereas I preferred the structure of the brand new app when testing it for Google Well being Coach, I’m certain the shift in title and elegance will probably be jarring to longtime Fitbit followers.
Fitbit’s app is getting a brand new look and a brand new title (Credit score: Google)
Others is likely to be disenchanted that the Fitbit Air isn’t a direct replace to fashionable traces just like the Cost or Encourage. Google will proceed to maintain each the Encourage 3 and Cost 6 as a part of its present lineup alongside the Air and the Pixel Watch 4.
Collectively, the Fitbit Air and the revamped app level to a transparent new route for Fitbit underneath Google’s management. I will be placing each the system and the absolutely developed Google Well being Coach by way of their paces quickly to judge how they maintain up. Nonetheless, the concept of a extra inexpensive different to Whoop, paired with steering from Google’s AI, is unquestionably intriguing. Keep tuned for my full evaluation.
About Our Skilled
Andrew Gebhart
Senior Author, Sensible Residence and Wearables
Expertise
I’m PCMag’s senior author masking good house and wearable gadgets. I’ve been reporting on tech professionally for practically a decade and have been obsessing about it for for much longer than that. Previous to becoming a member of PCMag, I made instructional movies for an electronics retailer known as Abt Electronics in Illinois, and earlier than that, I spent eight years masking the good house marketplace for CNET.
I foster many flavors of nerdom in my private life. I’m an avid board gamer and video gamer. I really like fantasy soccer, which I view as a mixture of role-playing video games and sports activities. Plus, I can discuss to you about craft beer for hours and am on a private quest to have a flight of beer at every microbrewery in my house metropolis of Chicago.
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