The smartwatch is not going away. But it has competition. There is a sizeable crowd looking for a powerful health-tracking device minus the screen. Smartwatches, of course, offer notifications, payment cards, maps, voice assistants and app stores, and ask to be put on a charger every night in return. The Fitbit Air takes a different route. It has no screen, no notifications, no contactless payments and no apps. What it offers is health tracking. And there is no mandatory subscription. Google’s screenless tracker could well be the anti-smartwatch device of the year. It is built for people who want to know how they sleep, recover and train. Having said all of this, remember, this is way more than a simple health tracker.
The Air also takes aim at Whoop, the screenless band that has become a fixture among professional and serious amateur athletes. Whoop comes with a hefty membership. The Fitbit Air works out of the box, and its optional premium tier costs ₹4,999 yearly (or ₹499 monthly).
The design is among the Air’s strongest points. The tracker is a small, narrow oval puck, with the optical heart-rate sensor on the underside. For a device designed to be worn 24 hours a day, that matters.
There is a caveat though on the fabric. We don’t know how the knitted band will fare over time. From past experience with other brands, there could be discolouration with heavy sweating but, after 15 days with the Fitbit Air, we haven’t faced any issues.
All the metrics collected by Google Fitbit Air can be accessed on the Google Health app
Living without a screen
Anyone coming from a smartwatch can expect withdrawal symptoms. You will glance at your wrist for the time, and it won’t be there. You can’t check a message. The Air does not buzz for calls or remind you to move. Its haptic motor handles only silent alarms and a low-battery alert at about 20 per cent.
Give it a week, though, and the absence of a screen starts to feel like a feature. With no live metrics on the wrist, it’s easier to get into the zone on runs and bike rides, but if you are training to a specific pace target, you will miss that real-time data. If you simply want to go for a run, it is a refreshing change.
Battery life also helps. Because the Air lasts close to a week between charges, it stays on overnight. That is exactly when many smartwatches end up on a charger, and exactly when much of the useful health data is collected: sleep stages, resting heart rate, blood-oxygen readings and breathing patterns. A tracker that never misses a night can be a better long-term health companion than a more capable watch.
Android users can also pair a Pixel Watch and a Fitbit Air at the same time in the Google Health app.
Google rates the Air for up to seven days. We found that it lasted anywhere from about five days with heavy use to just under eight. A full charge takes about 90 minutes, and five minutes on the charger gives roughly a day’s use, which is enough to keep it going while you shower or get dressed. The charger is a short USB-C cable with a magnetic, pin-based connector.
If one area shows what the Air is for, it is sleep. It can tell the difference between lying in bed scrolling on a phone and actually falling asleep. It also picks up daytime naps and records overnight wake-ups reliably. The Fitbit Air’s readiness and recovery scores respond to bad nights and illness.
Step counting has also held up in testing, with results within a fraction of a per cent of manual counts. One of the Air’s headline figures is cardio load, which measures how far your heart rate rises above its normal level and for how long. Once the system knows you, it sets a weekly target. The Air can also estimate VO2 Max, though it needs up to three outdoor runs of at least 10 minutes before a reading appears. Calibration overall takes about seven days.
What’s your choice — smartwatch, smart ring or a simple health tracking puck that comes with a wrist band?
Women’s health tracking is more limited. Periods can be logged, but the Air does not use its skin-temperature readings for cycle predictions. That means fertile-window and ovulation estimates may be less accurate than on some rival trackers.
Privacy matters
The Air is not a training-grade instrument. In sprints and stop-start sports such as tennis, where the heart rate swings sharply, it may under-read peak efforts.
It has no built-in GPS. Automatic detection covers runs and walks, and its thresholds can be adjusted, but a route map requires the workout to be started from the phone app. Athletes who want the most detailed data will still be better served by, say, a Garmin.
The Air runs on the Google Health app, the renamed Fitbit app, and works with both Android phones and iPhones. The app’s centrepiece is the AI Health Coach. It is based on Gemini and is part of the paid tier.
You tell it your goals, and it builds a plan. Its daily guidance then adjusts to your sleep, your recent activity and the weather, down to the UV index. After a rough night, for example, it might suggest an easy session and advise against going out during the hottest hours. But to get the coach going, moolah needs to be paid.
This is where the Air makes its strongest case. Without paying, you get heart rate, sleep tracking, steps, calories, workouts and cardio load. That covers what most people buy a fitness tracker for. This is still a Google product. Google has said it will not use health and wellness data from Google Health to serve ads. The app sets out clearly what it collects and lets you delete individual data points or your entire history.
The Fitbit Air is among the most accurate trackers on the market. It is comfortable enough to wear all day and night, quick to charge and free of compulsory fees. It also tracks sleep and everyday activity well enough for most people.
In a market where wearables keep asking for more of our attention and our money, the Air asks for almost none of either. That makes it a strong candidate for the anti-smartwatch device of the year.
At a glance
Device: Google Fitbit Air
Price: ₹13,999
High notes
- Light and comfortable
- No mandatory subscription
- Fast charging
- Battery lasts close to a week
- Strong sleep tracking
- Accurate step counting
- Quick-release, interchangeable bands
- Works with Android and iPhone
- No screen to distract you
- Clear privacy and data-deletion controls
Muffled notes
- AI coach requires a subscription
- Knitted band’s long-term durability unknown