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Google\u2019s reputation would have you thinking it\u2019s incapable of launching a quality first-gen product, but the Fitbit Air proves otherwise. Effectively billed as a Whoop competitor for the masses, the Air is a display-less fitness band that is capable of providing you with baseline health data for just $100. If you\u2019re one of the many, many people feeling overwhelmed by the amount of screens in your life, disconnecting with a band as simple as the Air might be just what the doctor ordered.<\/p>\n
But, of course, this being a 2026 product means there\u2019s undoubtedly some kind of AI hook. The Fitbit Air doubles as the launchpad for Google\u2019s new Health Coach, a $10 per month feature that comes as part of its new Fitbit Premium replacement. Health Coach wants to be the personalized trainer you didn\u2019t know you wanted, examining your overall fitness levels to give you better ways to eat, sleep, rest, and workout. It\u2019s a cool concept built into an otherwise well-redesigned Google Health app, but unlike the band itself, it\u2019s one that can\u2019t escape its AI tether.<\/p>\n
Hardware, bands, and battery life<\/p>\n
Despite its relatively simple design, there are plenty of ways to screw up a display-less fitness tracker. Making the wearable puck too heavy or uncomfortable to wear for long, nearly uninterrupted sessions, making the act of swapping bands convoluted or difficult, eliminating too many features in order to keep both the price and its weight light \u2014 especially on a first attempt, there\u2019s no shortage of ways you can imagine any company getting something on the hardware front wrong.<\/p>\n
So I\u2019m thrilled to say Google mostly got the Fitbit Air right.<\/p>\n
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Just looking at the basic pebble \u2014 the actual guts of the tracker \u2014 I\u2019m not sure what I\u2019d do to improve on its design. It\u2019s small and lightweight, features rounded edges without a sharp corner in sight, and pops in and out of its various bands with just a single push. Compared to my experience with Whoop\u2019s annoying (and fragile) metal arm mechanism a few years ago, being able to pop this in and out of whichever one of Google\u2019s bands I\u2019m looking to wear is night and day. Plus, I don\u2019t need to worry about these bands getting damaged in my travel bag.<\/p>\n
Really, my only complaint about the Air\u2019s tracker module is its lack of a physical barrier to prevent inserting the band in the wrong orientation. The only thing that tells the user that the tracker is improperly installed in a band is the missing battery indicator light, which only shines through a cutout on one specific side of the tracker mount. That\u2019s fine, but I think I would\u2019ve preferred an actual physical barrier of some kind. My mind keeps jumping to the little tab on 3DS cards designed to prevent insertion into a standard DS, but I\u2019m open to ideas.<\/p>\n
That battery light is the only status indicator you\u2019ll find on the Fitbit Air, and its sole responsibility is delivering a very basic battery readout when you double-tap on the device.<\/a> In my experience, that double-tap gesture proved to be a little unreliable, occasionally failing to detect taps on first attempt. Thanks to the fantastic battery life on display here, though, this was really only a problem while switching bands over the first few days. Eventually, you\u2019ll learn to feel out just how long the band lasts on a single charge (not to mention the general direction the puck shoul be inserted), and you\u2019ll likely be in the app often enough to see its pinned percentage in the corner.<\/p>\n By default, the Fitbit Air comes with a generic polyester band in one of four colors (or, if you\u2019re into a slightly sportier vibe, the Steph Curry-inspired \u201cRye\u201d shade). In addition to this \u201cPerformance\u201d band, Google sent me its \u201cActive\u201d and \u201cElevated\u201d bands to try out, each designed to fit into a different element of your life. Unfortunately for Google \u2014 and fortunately for your wallet \u2014 I think most people can stick with that default Performance band. Here are some quick thoughts on all three:<\/p>\n Performance: By far the best of the three bands. Extremely lightweight, relatively comfortable, especially when sleeping. It\u2019s also simple to clean and quick to dry, meaning it\u2019s still totally acceptable for all workouts. I don\u2019t know how the velcro will hold up, and I will say, it occasionally felt a little like wearing a hospital band on my wrist in this Fog colorway, but it\u2019s easily the winner among the bunch.<\/p>\n Active: In theory, my favorite band of the bunch. In practice, this is a complete miss. This is a basic silicone band, bypassing the fluoroelastomer used in sport-focused smartwatches (including the Pixel Watch) for something significantly less breathable or comfortable. Combined with the lack of punch holes, I found this band uncomfortably warm at all times, especially when sweating.<\/p>\n Elevated: I assume this band is designed for weddings and other occasions that call for a classier selection of gadgets. In my opinion, skip this one and leave your tracker at home for the evening, and wear either a standard watch or, if you must, a traditional smartwatch like Google\u2019s. I don\u2019t think it looks any dressier than either of the other two bands, despite the significant decrease in comfort. The hook mechanism is finicky and frustrating; I never found a tightness I was happy with, despite a dozen or more tries. If the Performance band appeared like a hospital band in my peripheral vision, the look and feel of this one gave \u201cunbelievably annoying concert wristband.\u201d Skip.<\/p>\n As you can probably guess, my experience with the Air was dominated by the Performance band, save for any runs (Active), as well as an afternoon of forcing myself to wear the Elevated band while running errands.<\/p>\n I might be pretty cold on the Active and Elevated bands, but truly, the Fitbit Air \u2014 when specifically paired with the Performance band \u2014 is the first wearable I\u2019ve worn to bed that didn\u2019t frustrate me throughout the night. I\u2019m not a sleep tracking person, but the Air is the closest I\u2019ve come to becoming a convert. Plus, since it\u2019s not a watch, swapping wrists to give one or the other a break doesn\u2019t require any adjustments in settings.<\/p>\n Also helping out with my shift towards sleep tracking is the Fitbit Air\u2019s exceptional battery life. Google promises \u201cup to\u201d a week of battery life on a single charge, but I actually think these estimates might be overly conservative. After a full week of wearing my tracker, I\u2019d fallen to 16% remaining before bed \u2014 enough to likely get me through the night, if I\u2019m being honest. Still, I threw it on the charge while taking a shower; less than half an hour later, I was back up to nearly 80% charged.<\/p>\n That battery life should minimize any potential annoyances over its proprietary charger, specifically when it comes to charging. But hey, if you are headed on a two-week vacation somewhere, at the very least, it\u2019ll plug into any USB-C brick you have with you.<\/p>\n Once it\u2019s charged up and wrapped around your wrist in the band of your choice, the only thing really left to examine is the device\u2019s array of various sensors. I\u2019ll admit to not being completely won over by the display-less tracker fad \u2014 as with Whoop\u2019s band, a basic LED-based digital clock built into the device here would go a long way, even if it means changing the core design to allow for it. But if all you\u2019re interested in is a fitness-first experience, for $100, this device gets you basically everything you\u2019ll need.<\/p>\n Sensors and fitness tracking<\/p>\n The sensors here include an optical heart rate monitor, an accelerometer and gyroscope, red and infrared sensors for SpO2 monitoring, a temperature sensor for measuring your skin\u2019s temperature, and a vibration motor that mostly exists to function as a silent alarm. Compared to the $160 Fitbit Charge 6, the only tracking sensors you lose out on are those built for ECG and EDA scans. The Charge 6 also supports built-in GPS, NFC, and an ambient light sensor for the display that is, of course, not found on the Air.<\/p>\n I do wish Google had found a way to make either GPS or NFC work here \u2014 ideally both, in a perfect world. But without a display, music playback, or any of the other quality-of-life improvements that fully-fledged wearables provide, I sort of get the budget-focused approach here. The only way I\u2019d ever walk around with just this band on my wrist is if you added a cell connection, a display, and all sorts of other bells and whistles. At that point, it\u2019s just another Pixel Watch.<\/p>\n This display-less category might be \u201cnew\u201d for Fitbit under Google, but the overall tracking experience feels as great as ever. Comparing my auto-tracked, GPS-less runs to the data gathered by a cellular Apple Watch, I\u2019m genuinely surprised by just how accurate some of its base stats were. Time and distance were frequently within what I\u2019d consider the margin for error, with the Fitbit even usually detecting when my run had ended and when my cooldown walk began. It\u2019s difficult for me to tell if its burned calorie count is more or less accurate than competing platforms \u2014 this is a very hard stat to get right \u2014 but its average heart rate detection was typically spot on, and even with a couple of occasional slip-ups on my average pace, I\u2019m surprised just how good it was overall, especially without interacting with my phone. Compared to the Apple Watch strapped to my other arm, auto-workout detection specifically was night and day.<\/p>\n As with any fitness tracker, it\u2019s significantly better at detecting metrics from cardio-based workouts than strength-based ones, but it\u2019s perfectly capable of detecting your time, heart rate, and overall effort, with the Google Health app taking that data and ensuring it contributes to your total cardio load for the week. I guess what I\u2019m trying to say is, it didn\u2019t detect strength workouts any worse than any competing tracker on the market, and that undoubtedly makes for a win.<\/p>\n If there\u2019s one metric the Air tracks that I think is bunk, it\u2019s \u201creadiness.\u201d This isn\u2019t new to either Fitbit or the app itself, but the readiness meter \u2014 which combines your heart rate variability with sleep scores \u2014 never felt quite accurate to me. I had days with \u201chigh\u201d readiness ratings that left me feeling sluggish, and I had days with \u201clow\u201d readiness ratings that delivered some of my best workouts in recent memory. I wish Google would take some of the user\u2019s own responses into account before delivering this score. A simple morning check-in could make this tool go a long way.<\/p>\n Nitpicks aside, for Google\u2019s first display-less tracker, I think it knocked it out of the park here. The Fitbit Air has everything you need for a modern fitness band and nothing you don\u2019t, though that won\u2019t stop me from imagining this as the iPod Shuffle for the streaming era I know it could be. You hear that, Google? Throw in offline music playback in the next Air, and I might just make the swap to YouTube Music.<\/p>\n Google Health and Health Coach<\/p>\n Alongside the launch of the Fitbit Air, Google is rolling out a complete overhaul of its partner app, now relabeled Google Health. If you\u2019re not a Premium subscriber, you\u2019re still primarily going to interact with the tracker through various customizable tiles that may or may not frustrate you, depending on where you land amongst new adopters. If you are a Premium subscriber, most of the menus within the app will be focused predominantly on Health Coach. More on that in a moment.<\/p>\n I found the app itself to be perfectly fine, though I won\u2019t pretend to hold the previous Fitbit design in any high regard. Like most modern Google apps, it\u2019s bold and colorful, though I won\u2019t try to pretend it\u2019s not a complete information overload. While the (again, Premium) home screen is dedicated primarily to a handful of widget pages and your Health Coach, the Fitness tab is designed to operate as a dedicated hub for your workout logs, library, key metrics, and more. Some of these metrics carry over into the Health tab (and some don\u2019t), while your sleep logs get their very own dedicated section. It\u2019s\u2026 a lot, to put it bluntly, but it doesn\u2019t seem like a problem time and experience can\u2019t fix.<\/p>\n Still, it\u2019s worth noting that long-time Fitbit fans seem frustrated over this relaunch, and if you find yourself in that category, it could take some serious readjustments before you feel more comfortable with the app.<\/p>\n Okay, let\u2019s talk about Health Coach. My initial impressions of Google\u2019s AI-powered fitness-focused chatbot weren\u2019t so positive, largely because of an imaginary six-mile run it invented and built my daily advice around. In the two weeks since I started using the Fitbit Air, I\u2019ve ran into a handful of additional issues that, at the very least, make me hesitant in suggesting anyone fork over $10 per month \u2014 or $100 per year \u2014 to pay for this, including:<\/p>\n Forgetting workouts, like one of the back-to-back weightlifting exercises that it had previously commented on. The chatbot only remembered these workouts when I shared a screenshot of said data with it.<\/p>\n Being unsure of how Fitbit\u2019s weekly tracking is structured. Fitbit\u2019s data runs from Sunday to Saturday, but at one point, it began counting workouts from the previous week while informing me that Fitbit utilizes a \u201crolling\u201d 7-day count. This is not true.<\/p>\n Some confusion with auto-detection. I\u2019m not surprised when my push mower is confused for a bike, but even after I\u2019d corrected the exercise, the chatbot continued to refer to it as a \u201cride.\u201d<\/p>\n A fully made-up kickboxing session, the only auto-detected activity that seemed to spawn out of nowhere. This was originally unlabeled before either the chatbot or the app itself \u2014 it\u2019s unclear which, and honestly, this might be a distinction without a difference \u2014 decided to factor 15 minutes of kickboxing into my day. This took over 24 hours to remove from my account, as trying to manually delete it initially gave me an error.<\/p>\n Some smaller mistakes, including referring to a variable heart rate during squats as \u201csteady\u201d for the duration and giving me props for a longer workout streak than I deserved.<\/p>\n The aforementioned hallucinated six-mile run.<\/p>\n It hasn\u2019t been all bad news, of course. The ability for Health Coach to attempt to base a fitness plan around my (currently bad!) sleeping schedule is handy, and Google has clearly made it a priority to ensure your overall health goals are never forgotten. I\u2019d love to see those memory capabilities extended to actual workouts, but I suppose it\u2019s a start.<\/p>\n Regardless of its relative successes, I still walk away from Health Coach feeling surprisingly cynical. Even if this feature was completely free, I\u2019m not sure how comfortable I am needing to dive deep into every single AI response from my \u201ccoach\u201d to ensure it\u2019s not relying on false data. When you\u2019re talking about something as personal as your own health and fitness, it can feel weird to have a chatbot simply making things up about your weight, your body, or your activity level, all of which can feed into some dangerous fitness or dietary trends if you\u2019re not careful. I\u2019m sure Google has enough guardrails in place to ensure Health Coach never suggests anything truly dangerous, but even if we take that assumption as fact, that just makes me wonder why any of these mistakes \u2014 or hallucinations, if you want to be generous \u2014 exist.<\/p>\n Factoring in the price point of Health Coach, I certainly don\u2019t feel like there\u2019s enough rock-solid data here to justify the extra monthly subscription, especially when your budget might be feeling pretty tight as it is. I\u2019ll be taking a closer look at how it feels to use the Fitbit Air without Health Coach in the coming weeks, but for now, definitely make the most of that three-month trial if you\u2019re interested. At the very least, you can feel out your own experience without having to worry about recurring credit card charges.<\/p>\n Final thoughts<\/p>\n In a market filled with ever-inflating gadget prices, the Fitbit Air is, well, a fresh breath of it. For $100, you\u2019re looking at the perfect entry-level tracker, far more capable than any basic pedometer you\u2019ll find gathering dust on Walmart\u2019s shelves. Automatic exercise tracking is as good as ever, and even the lack of dedicated GPS can\u2019t stop you from hitting the trail and logging your workouts without a phone weighing you down. If you\u2019re dead set against a traditional smartwatch, I can\u2019t think of a better option than the Fitbit Air.<\/p>\n As a showcase for the power of Health Coach, however, the Air \u2014 and, by association, its Google Health Premium subscription \u2014 leaves something to be desired. I have no doubt Google will continue to tweak and adjust how its fitness-focused chatbot analyzes health data, and presumably, any leaps in future LLM models will also enhance the overall experience. But I\u2019m tired of suffering through excuses for AI features that don\u2019t work today purely based on the promise of tomorrow, and right now, Health Coach falls squarely in that category.<\/p>\n By all means, Fitbit Air users should enjoy their three-month trial; after all, there\u2019s a non-zero chance their Health Coach experience ends up being a lot more positive than mine, purely through the luck of limited LLM hallucinations. For me, I think I\u2019d prefer to draw my own conclusions from the raw data and numbers gathered within the new Health app. At the very least, I\u2019ll know any mistakes I make are mine and mine alone.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/google-fitbit-air-hands-on-7.jpg\")
The Fitbit Air\u2019s pebble, next to its Elevated and Active bands.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/google-fitbit-air-hands-on-11.jpg\")
The Fitbit Air with its magnetic charger attached and battery LED hole showing.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/google-fitbit-air-hands-on-13.jpg\")
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