Google kicks off a new era with its first Fitbit tracker in four years, an app rebrand, and its AI coach leaving beta.
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It’s a Whoop dupe. That was my first thought when I saw the new $99 Google Fitbit Air. You can hardly blame me. The band is screenless with a metallic fabric clasp. My eyes flickered between the Fitbit Air and my wrist, where I’m wearing a Whoop MG. Was I not seeing double?
But as my press briefing went on, my opinion started changing. The Air is sort of like the OG Fitbits that Whoop then duped once Fitbit went all in on smartwatches. Think back to 2012, when the Fitbit One could clip to your pants, be turned into a pendant, or dangle from a keychain. That device was mostly a pedometer, whereas the Air is more of a modern, modular sensor that can be popped out of one band and stuck into one of three others. But in many ways, this feels like a return to Fitbit’s roots — a simple band for casual tracking.
“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,” Rishi Chandra, Google’s vice president of health and home, tells The Verge. “That’s where the Fitbit Air came in. 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.”
