Google Launches $99 Fitbit Air, Its First Hardware in Four Years
Google launched fitbit air, a $99 tracker with no screen, and its first Fitbit hardware product in nearly four years. The device is meant for people who want something simpler to wear, not another mini-phone on the wrist.
Rishi Chandra, Google’s vice president of Health and Home, said, “The reality is right now, wearables have made huge advancements, but for a lot of people, they’re still either too complicated, too bulky, or too expensive,” and added, “That’s where the Fitbit Air came in.”
Fitbit Air and Google Health
The Fitbit Air can be popped out of one band and stuck into one of three other bands. Google said the tracker is 25 percent smaller than the Fitbit Luxe and 50 percent smaller than the Fitbit Inspire, which makes size the main selling point rather than display features.
It weighs 12g with the band and 5.2g without it. It also carries an optical heart rate sensor, gyroscope, accelerometer, blood oxygen sensor, and skin temperature sensor, so the lack of a screen does not mean the hardware is stripped down to a basic step counter.
Rishi Chandra on simpler wearables
Chandra said, “We wanted something you could give to your kids and parents that they could just put on their arms. They don’t have to learn anything new.” That puts the product in a narrow lane: casual tracking for people who want less setup and less device bulk.
The Fitbit Air is water resistant up to 50 meters. Its battery lasts seven days on a single charge, and a five-minute charge can provide one day of battery life, which reduces the penalty for forgetting to top it up.
May 19 Google Health shift
Starting May 19, the Fitbit app and Android’s Health Connect app will be consolidated into the single Google Health app. Fitbit Premium will be rebranded as Google Health Premium with no price change, and Google’s AI-powered Health Coach is leaving beta and rolling out to the public.
The cleaner software stack points to a broader integration of Fitbit into Google’s health products, but the launch also leaves one practical question for buyers: how the $99 Fitbit Air will be sold alongside the Google Health app change and the Google Health Premium rebrand when May 19 arrives.
