Google introduces the $100 screenless Fitbit Air, featuring the Gemini AI health coach for a subscription of $10 per month, aiming to compete with Whoop's $10 billion wearable industry.

      **TL;DR** Google has introduced the Fitbit Air, a $100 fitness band without a screen that competes with Whoop's design but offers its subscription service for less than half the price, featuring a Gemini-powered AI health coach for $10 a month. This launch coincides with the mandatory transfer of Fitbit data to Google accounts by May 19 and rebranding Fitbit's software as Google Health, sparking concerns about privacy regarding sensitive health information.

      In 2021, Google spent $2.1 billion acquiring Fitbit, spending three years dismantling the brand, and on Thursday, they unveiled a $100 device lacking a screen, buttons, or standalone functions. The Fitbit Air is made of soft fabric and contains a five-gram sensor capable of tracking heart rate, steps, sleep, blood oxygen levels, and heart rate variability.

      The Google Health App, resource: Google

      The device cannot show notifications, make calls, or tell the time. Instead, it transmits data to a new Google Health app, which utilizes a Gemini-based AI health coach to analyze metrics, create workout plans, evaluate food photos for macronutrient content, and offer personalized coaching for $10 a month. Sales commence on May 26, with preorders starting Thursday. Essentially, Google is marketing a subscription rather than a fitness tracker.

      **The device**

      The Fitbit Air weighs 12 grams with the strap and five grams without, making it lighter than most smart rings. It boasts a seven-day battery life, with a five-minute fast charge providing an additional day of use. Available in four colors—obsidian, fog, lavender, and berry—the band can be paired with additional straps for $35. The device uses haptic feedback for alarms and features a small LED for battery status. It allows voice input for activity and meal logging but does not respond audibly.

      It can identify atrial fibrillation, a feature now standard in modern wearables after extensive regulatory approvals. The sensor pack can be detached and clips into the fabric band, resembling the design of Whoop's hardware.

      The similarity to Whoop is intentional. Whoop, which raised $575 million in March at a $10.1 billion valuation, operates on the premise that a screenless device concentrating on recovery, strain, and sleep data can generate significant subscription revenue without the interference of notifications, apps, and displays. Whoop does not charge for hardware but mandates an annual subscription starting at $200. Google’s Fitbit has been enhancing its health monitoring capabilities, including FDA-cleared algorithms for detecting atrial fibrillation, bringing it closer to the clinical-grade data utilized by Whoop and Oura users for training decisions.

      At $100, along with an optional $10 monthly subscription, the Fitbit Air undercuts Whoop’s annual fee by more than half and Oura’s $349 ring by over two-thirds while offering similar sensor technology. The key question remains whether the AI coach can provide valuable insights that justify the subscription cost or if users will mostly rely on the free tier, regarding the device as a basic tracker.

      **The software**

      More importantly, Fitbit's software ecosystem has been rebranded as Google Health. The new app, accessible on both iOS and Android, is organized into four sections: Today, Fitness, Sleep, and Health, providing typical metrics such as steps, calories, sleep stages, and vital signs. Users can manually log meals and menstrual cycles and share their data with contacts or other health platforms. All tracking features are included in the free tier.

      The $10 monthly subscription adds the Google Health Coach, an AI assistant powered by Gemini that interprets sensor data according to user-set goals and offers coaching advice. Users can upload food photos for calorie and macronutrient analysis, utilizing the multimodal abilities of Gemini’s vision models.

      Rishi Chandra, head of Google’s wearables and health division, described the Health Coach as the start of a platform strategy. “We want every hardware product we’re developing, from the Pixel Watch to the entire Fitbit range, to optimize around this Health Coach,” he stated. Google has invested tens of billions in AI capabilities, including its own Gemini models and a reported $40 billion in Anthropic; the Health Coach represents one of the first consumer applications aimed at transforming that AI investment into recurring subscription revenue via a mass-market hardware product.

      Chandra likened the Health Coach's goal to providing everyday users the advantages of a professional athlete’s nutritionist, sleep coach, and fitness trainer, framing its value proposition. The degree of functionality will depend on whether Gemini can generate consistently useful health insights rather than general encouragement, a critical factor determining if users remain subscribed after the device’s three-month free trial.

      **The market**

      The wristband market that the Fitbit Air enters is predominantly controlled by Chinese brands, with Xiaomi holding around half of the global market, followed by Huawei at roughly a quarter and Samsung at 10%. Fitbit retains about six percent market share