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the Fitbit Air might be the anti smartwatch you've been waiting for. This $100 wearable has no screen, no notifications, no payments and no distractions. Just pure health tracking. And after wearing this thing 24 over seven for two weeks straight, I definitely get the appeal. Google absolutely nails the minimalistic design This one feels screen less by choice. The sensor is tiny compared to something like the hoop band, and then swapping it out is way easier to. like the look of the woven band.
It's my favorite, but it takes a long time to dry when it gets wet, so I end up using the active as my day to day. but as a smartwatch user, I have to confess that I had some major withdrawals. For one, I would just check the time and it wasn't there and I genuinely get pissed. I also wanted to ping my phone. Couldn't do that either. And I kept having this feeling that it was just freeloading on my The only feedback you'll get from this device is the battery light indicator. When you tap, white means you're fine. Red means you're running low. But that's implicitly eventually became its superpower. And once I stopped expecting it to be a smartwatch, it just kind of faded into the background and I forgot I was even wearing
It helped that I didn't have to charge it for eight full days, so the Fitbit Air stayed on my wrist consistently, including overnight, which is exactly when most smartwatches, including mine, end up sitting on a charger. Consistency, especially at night, is what makes long term health tracking actually helpful. Sleep trends resting heart rate, blood oxygen levels, breathing patterns. Most of that data collection happens overnight, and even missing one night can throw off your recovery trends completely. So in some ways, this actually ends up being a better health tracking companion
than a lot of smartwatches, even though the sensors aren't as accurate. Oh, and it's compatible with both Android and iOS. So what I'm about to say relates to regardless of what team you're on. The after me has always been one of the highlights for Fitbit, because it tells you all the information you want to know without over explaining it, but it's changed now. It's called Google Health and it still has a lot of that same information. However, it's very clear where Google wants your attention these days, and that is the Google AI Health coach. since it's based on Gemini, it behaves like a normal chat
it also knows all your biometric data so it can surface trends on its own and personalize your training recommendations to exactly what your goals are. some of the insights are genuinely useful, like here. It pointed out that I might not be in peak performance because I'm still dealing with that luteal phase bloating from my menstrual cycle. but sometimes I suspect it's going a little too easy on me just to get me to keep paying for that Fitbit Premium. The Fitbit Air comes with a three month trial of Google Health Premium, which then will cost you $10 a month to keep or $100 a year. But the minimalist design does have a major trade off.
The automatic workout detection struggles to catch those low intensity workouts like Pilates or weightlifting, and without a screen, you won't know it missed it until you check the app later. You can put it in yourself, but I sometimes forget. It also depends on your phone for GPS I lost signal on my six mile hike in Yosemite, so it's split it up into three different workouts. No route map, no elevation gain, and no full credit for all that work even though I had a toddler on my back. but step count was accurate.
Regardless of whether I had my phone with me. I tested it for 2500 steps and it only over counted by seven, which means less than 1% difference. The other area where it struggles is with heart rate. During high intensity sports, I tested with a Polar chest strap, which is our gold standard on our run. And while you'll notice that the average speech per minute is pretty similar, 153 versus 150 for the Fitbit Air, it's in those high intensity or that like final sprint that I had that it fell short here.
It kind of just trails off and plateaus. But here you'll notice that it actually spiked a lot. My max heart rate was at 180 beats per minute, and my max heart rate that the Fitbit Air recorded was only at 163. That's a 17 beats per minute difference, which to me is a big deal because I like to get full credit. So clearly it's not going to replace a smartwatch when it comes to that real time training feedback. However, I do think it could be a really great smartwatch companion, which is probably how I would use it because it picks up where the smartwatch leaves off, which is at fact, Google lets you pair
both a Pixel Watch and a Fitbit Air simultaneously in the Google Health app. And at $100, it's not completely ridiculous to think you might want to splurge on both. Because here's the kicker you don't really need that premium subscription like you would with a hoop band, for example. Yeah, the health coach is nice to have and the deeper sleep insights, but not necessary. Let me know in the comment section. Would you wear both a smartwatch and a Fitbit Air? Just the Fitbit Air or none at all?
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