Google’s Fitbit Air is a $99 screenless tracker, and the first Fitbit in four years that’s actually new

Google has done a lot to the Fitbit brand since the acquisition; what it has not done, until this week, is ship a meaningfully new tracker. The Fitbit Air, announced today at $99, is the first new Fitbit hardware in four years. It’s screenless. It pairs with a brand-new Google Health app. And it looks, very much intentionally, like Whoop.

The hardware is the right kind of unambitious. A small modular sensor pod that slides into a fabric band, swap the band, you change the look, and an entirely screenless front face. The Fitbit Air does 24/7 heart rate, heart rate variability, SpO2, A-fib alerts, sleep tracking, and the new “Fitbit Sense” set of stress-signal metrics. The battery lasts a week. It charges in five minutes.

The pitch is the price. Whoop is $20 a month plus you pay for the hardware. Oura is $349 plus $69/year for the membership. Fitbit Premium is bundled but optional. At $99 with three months of Google Health Premium and free use of the core tracking, the Air doesn’t have to beat Whoop on accuracy, it just has to be close, and a third of the cost.

The interesting strategic question is the Google Health app, which Google introduced alongside the Air. The app is a rebranded, deeply rebuilt Fitbit app, it now feeds into the same Gemini-powered “Health Coach” that the Pixel Watch and Pixel phones already have. That makes the Air the cheapest way into the Google Health ecosystem, and Google’s first plausible answer to Apple Watch’s grip on iOS users who would happily buy an Android health device if it cost less than a Watch.

Pre-orders open today, ships May 26. Google’s announcement is on the Google Blog.