Google Fitbit Air assessment: Not the Fitbit you keep in mind

The Google Fitbit Air, to provide the primary new Fitbit since 2023 its full title, shouldn’t be the Fitbit you keep in mind. The model’s early trackers circa 2014 have been enjoyable, no frills devices that tracked steps and motion and pitted you towards your folks to see who may stroll the furthest.

Pioneering gadgets just like the Fitbit Flex and Fitbit Cost inspired individuals to take up train extra usually and possibly get a bit fitter and happier. Typically there was a display screen, nevertheless it wasn’t that distracting. In the event you wished to run a marathon, there was at all times Garmin. Then in 2021, Google acquired Fitbit.

I’ve been sporting the Fitbit Air for 13 days, and regardless of its screenless design recalling these early Fitbits, this can be a Fitbit in title solely. For all intents and functions, the Fitbit Air is a Google health tracker, a really stripped down various to the Pixel Watch 4.

It’s a tiny pebble-like tracker with a coronary heart fee sensor that clips into a comfortable materials band, gathering your steps, coronary heart and motion knowledge all through the day. It prices £84.99, the very same as 2022’s Fitbit Encourage 3, which has a show. The Air is the Fitbit to get if you wish to monitor fundamental stats with out the distraction a display screen brings to most smartwatches.

The design of the Air indicators Google is capturing for Whoop, a rival subscription mannequin health tracker widespread with severe athletes and backed by stars resembling Cristiano Ronaldo and Rory McIlroy. Additionally screenless, it passively collects your health knowledge, with all insights present in its data-heavy app.

In a change timed to coincide with the discharge of the Fitbit Air, the Fitbit app is not any extra. As a substitute is the Google Well being app, which is the Fitbit app rebranded. You’ll be able to solely log in to this app with a Google account.

Gone are the leaderboards and challenges Fitbit followers will fondly keep in mind, and Google is even deleting all of the Fitbit badges as soon as ceremoniously awarded to current Fitbit customers who’ve needed to switch their knowledge to a Google account.

It’s additionally axing the enjoyable sleep animal characteristic that matched up your slumber patterns to an animal’s, together with a full app interface redesign.

We now have a data-first dashboard with Google Gemini AI entrance and centre. It’s much less intimidating than Whoop’s app, and is designed to provide you actionable suggestions in your health and sleep, with the power to log meals with images, join rival health apps and even join your medical data. The latter choice, which is principally arrange to date with US healthcare suppliers, is a doubtlessly slippery slope. When healthcare suppliers can see your Fitbit (sorry, Google) well being knowledge, it leaves the door open for future nefarious incentives to supply clients reductions on medical health insurance and different providers if they’ve the most recent gadget.

Within the right here and now, should you pay the £7.99 per thirty days subscription payment, you can even ‘Ask Coach’, which brings up a ChatGPT-like dialog with Gemini. That is the place you’ll be able to let the AI know your again hurts otherwise you need to do three runs per week, or, in my case, that I’ve a new child, which is why my sleep patterns are so wrecked.

In the event you’ve learn this far and are questioning when I’m going to speak in regards to the Fitbit Air and never the Google Well being app, sadly that is reflective of the expertise of utilizing the Fitbit Air.

As a screenless health strap, the Air depends completely on the app expertise, similar to Whoop does and like these early Fitbits as soon as did. And now, that app is absolutely Google’s, and it wants you to let it know what’s occurring in your life for it to provide the finest suggestions.

That leaves the Fitbit Air in an odd place, concurrently attempting to be just like the early, fundamental Fitbits, however linked to an app embracing the AI age. I can’t assist however really feel the Google Well being app might be extra helpful to Pixel Watch homeowners, who can extra precisely monitor extra sports activities and actions from their wrists. The app feels overblown when you have a Fitbit Air simply to rely steps and sleep.

Together with the app’s title change, Fitbit Premium is now Google Well being Premium. It nonetheless prices £7.99, and gives personalised well being plans utilizing the Google Well being Coach AI, offers extra detailed insights into sleep, offers entry to a library of exercises and mindfulness periods.

That stated, you don’t need to pay a subscription to get fundamental metric monitoring. Not paying leaves you with exercise monitoring, sleep monitoring, well being monitoring of coronary heart, coronary heart fee variability, respiratory fee and blood oxygen ranges, in addition to logging weight, meals, water and your temper.

I discovered the Air a bit too eager to file steps, which it did when doing issues like washing up. It additionally struggled to know I used to be on a stroll when pushing a pram somewhat than swinging my arms. However the coronary heart fee metrics appear correct, and the tracker can detect potential atrial fibrillation, however not carry out an ECG because it lacks the {hardware}.

In testing the paid model of Google Well being, I let Coach find out about my younger son, in addition to my ongoing foot harm from working. After a day or two, I loved the AI’s pure language recommendation and the actual fact it took these elements under consideration in discussing my unhealthy sleep and regular stroll plans every morning.

However I didn’t inform the app anything for a number of days, and a sample begins to emerge: with out telling the AI extra about your life and habits, it might’t offer you bettering suggestions. All its recommendation was about new child sleep debt and foot ache. It was a reminder that for AI instruments to be helpful, it’s a must to put numerous knowledge in in an effort to get any helpful knowledge again.

The Fitbit Air lacks built-in GPS, however it might connect with your iPhone or Android telephone to make use of linked GPS in an effort to plot your run, cycle or mountain climbing routes. For this to work, it’s a must to begin an train from the Google Well being app. It really works nicely, however common runners ought to look elsewhere for a watch with a show – you received’t need to examine your telephone display screen on a regular basis in your stats.

The Air has exercise auto-tracking, which ought to log a stroll or run even should you don’t begin it from the app, however I discovered this temperamental. It didn’t recognise my first two walks in testing. It did recognise my first run, however then began recognising subsequent walks as runs, which I needed to appropriate within the app later.

Google says the Air has as much as seven days of battery life, which I discovered to be correct. Charged to full with the proprietary charging cable, I solely needed to cost as soon as in 13 days, on the eighth day of use. That is good battery life, nevertheless it’s notably lower than the older Encourage 3, which might final for ten days with the always-on show characteristic turned off.

There’s a vibration characteristic, nevertheless it’s just for silent alarms. That’s helpful in your morning get up name, nevertheless it’s a disgrace you’ll be able to’t set it to buzz whenever you’re getting a name in your telephone.

There’s additionally no NFC, so no choice for contactless funds.

Maybe I’m being harsh on the Fitbit Air, however the expertise of sporting and utilizing one in 2026 is way faraway from the enjoyable whimsy that the Fitbit model was as soon as identified for. Maybe somebody with out fond recollections of the previous Fitbit might be much less crucial and benefit from the Air for what it’s: a delicate, snug well being tracker that – even with out a subscription – offers strong every day well being metrics and impressively correct sleep monitoring.

However most individuals wanting on this worth vary might be higher served by the Fitbit Cost 6, which is usually on sale for lower than its £139 RRP. It has a display screen, the identical seven day battery life, contactless funds and built-in GPS. That stated, any Fitbit and Fitbit consumer now has to make use of the Google Well being app, which as described on this assessment, basically modifications how the gadget works by way of your telephone.

The identically priced Fitbit Encourage 3 £84.99 can also be a very good various, with a show however much less mature design. The Xiaomi Sensible Band 10 additionally matches the Encourage’s specs and options for lower than half the worth at £42.99, making it a strong Air various.

The Google Fitbit Air is an effective set-and-forget tracker for these with easy health band wants. Nevertheless it’s very a lot a Google gadget, which requires a Google account and so that you can inform Google’s AI quite a bit about your life to be at its most useful. For anybody who needs to trace greater than the occasional run, you’re going to wish to spend further on a extra superior Garmin, Suunto or Coros smartwatch – or, as Google hopes, a way more costly Google Pixel Watch.