Google Fitbit Air review: The screenless band is exactly the device I needed

After a long time, Google has released a product that captivated me not only as an editor but also as an ordinary user. Fitbit Air satisfied my desire for a device that measures my health and sports activity without being too conspicuous or expensive. The light and discreet screenless band costs approximately 2,400 CZK, but unfortunately, it is not officially available on the Czech market. However, we ordered several units from the German Google Store for the editorial office, and I’ve been wearing one of them for over a month. After just a few days of testing, I shared my first impressions with you, and now I’m ready to cover even more in a full review.

Discreet design and excellent craftsmanship

Fitbit Air caught my attention right from its introduction. Google itself presented it as a discreet band, which at first glance you might not even realize is equipped with a battery, sensors, and can connect to a phone. My enthusiasm was then amplified by foreign articles published directly at launch, in which editors of well-known tech websites spoke of its pleasant craftsmanship and comfortable wear.

I agree with them even after a month of wearing the band practically non-stop except for charging and showering (even though it’s water-resistant up to 50 meters). The black device itself, along with the fabric strap included by the manufacturer, weighs only 12 g, so you barely feel it on your wrist and get used to its presence incredibly quickly. I also like the Velcro fastening on the strap, which allows me to set the ideal size for my wrist circumference, something I often struggle with on smartwatches with perforated straps. Moreover, it’s very easy to do with just one hand.

I bought the Fitbit Air primarily so I could wear an analog watch and a band for sports and health tracking simultaneously. Because it lacks a display, it looks elegant and is suitable even for more formal attire (at least in the Obsidian grey variant I chose; with other, much more vibrant color versions, that might be debatable). 

Battery life, charging, and vibrations

One of the main advantages of a screenless band is long battery life with low battery capacity. A smaller battery allows the device to be lighter, while not compromising battery life, as it doesn’t need to power a screen. 

Google states up to a week of battery life on a single charge for the Fitbit Air, and in practice, it really lasted me around 6 to 7 days. The real-world battery life doesn’t deviate much from the marketing figures mainly because there’s de facto no such thing as demanding and undemanding use. Since the Fitbit Air has no display for users to tap frequently, and no built-in GPS module that everyone might activate differently, the results don’t vary much (which is typically not the case with smartwatches, where many more factors play a role). 

The band is powered by a proprietary charger, which you’ll find in the package. It has two pins, and you connect it to the charger with a USB-C end. When the Fitbit Air needs charging, it vibrates. Haptic feedback can also be used as an alarm clock, but it won’t notify you of incoming calls.

Health and sports tracking

Fitbit Air handles its main task excellently. It excels at tracking health metrics – it can continuously monitor heart rate and various other related statistics (e.g., HRV, resting HR, sleep HR), respiratory rate, skin temperature deviation, or SpO2. While the accuracy doesn’t reach the level you’d find with specialized chest monitors, for a casual user, it’s certainly not an issue.

I find sleep monitoring particularly beneficial. Fitbit Air displays bedtime and wake-up times and cleverly distinguishes individual phases, including wakefulness or restless sleep. It simply assesses sleep quality using a score on a scale from 0 to 100 points and offers excellent comparisons of data from the last night with the average of similar users or your own 30-day average. You can view your sleep in detail over a week, month, three months, or a year. 

However, it’s necessary to clarify that detailed sleep statistics require a Google Health Premium subscription. According to Google, the basic package only includes Sleep Score display, sleep schedule, sleep duration, and sleep phases. We will discuss the Premium tier in more detail in the chapter on the AI coach.

All data measured by the Fitbit Air band is sent to the redesigned Google Health app, which replaced the former Fitbit app and unifies it with the Google Fit app, which will be discontinued. We will also cover the new app in more detail in the next part of the review.

Fitbit Air is also excellent for sports tracking. Naturally, the disadvantage is the absence of its own GPS module, which means you need to have your smartphone with you to record your location. For runners who want to go truly “lightweight,” this can be an issue. However, if you go on a bike trip, you usually have your phone with you anyway, so it’s very easy to overlook.

Fitbit Air can recognize some types of activities itself (such as running, walking, or cycling), sometimes it just detects movement and you have to specify what particular activity you were doing. You can also manually start an activity in the mobile app before it begins. 

During sports, the band typically tracks duration, distance, heart rate and its average value, time spent in individual zones, calories burned in kcal, or average pace. 

New Google Health app and subscription

Fitbit Air arrived on the market in the name of change. Google, which acquired the Fitbit brand years ago, is now apparently moving its service offerings under its own identity, and the Fitbit name will likely only be used for hardware releases. This is indicated by the creation of the new Google Health app, which replaces the original Fitbit app. Instead of the former Fitbit Premium, the Google Health Premium tier is also arriving. 

The Google Health app has been redesigned from the ground up. It boasts modern processing in Google’s design language, which will be very familiar to anyone who uses, for example, Pixel family devices. The app’s environment is divided into four main sections:

• Today – basic overview of statistics measured on a given day and a feed of personalized recommendations from the AI coach
• Fitness – Recommended workouts, overview of daily statistics related to movement and sports, and an exercise library
• Sleep – Detailed recommendations and statistics related to sleep
• Health – overview of health metrics and the option to enter information about your health status (allergies, health problems, medications, vaccinations, pregnancy, etc.)

You will likely spend most of your time on the default Today page. In its upper part, you’ll find tiles with statistics, whose order you can arrange as you wish. I prefer the default layout, where I can quickly see my weekly goal progress, sleep duration and its rating, step count, and Readiness score. 

The last mentioned indicator, Readiness, is particularly interesting. Its calibration takes approximately a week, and then it tries to indicate how ready your body is for training. It takes into account several measured metrics, such as sleep quality, overall physical activity, or heart rate variability (HRV). Essentially, it’s an alternative to Garmin’s popular Body Battery feature or similar ones.

Readiness reflected my state very well, for example, when I was at a festival where I slept little and had increased activity in the late night (or early morning) hours. On normal days, even when I felt ready, I didn’t get above a score of 68 (with 100 being the maximum) until the last firmware update. After the update, however, I feel that Readiness works better and can reflect my real state even on normal days.

Overall, however, Google Health offers rich possibilities for various types of users. It will make you happy if data from the band is enough for you. But it will also please you if you want to track your weight, how much you eat and drink in a day, or if you like to do breathing exercises – you’ll find their offerings in the app too.

AI coach and my mixed impressions of it

One of the most highlighted points during the Fitbit Air’s introduction was its connection with a smart coach, built on Gemini AI. It’s integrated directly into the app and can connect individual data measured by the band to formulate tailored recommendations. And although the band is not sold in our country, it works fully in Czech as well.

The catch, however, is that the coach requires an active Google Health Premium subscription. In the Czech Republic, it costs 299 CZK per month on its own, but users who already have an active Google AI Pro or Google AI Ultra plan get it for free as part of those packages. Among other things, Google offers the plan for free for 3 months with the band itself, intending to continue this trend until May 27, 2027.

First and foremost, I must emphasize that I can imagine using the band even without an active subscription, meaning without access to the AI coach. However, for those who want to get more from their measurements than just raw numbers, which are often difficult to understand, it is a brilliant tool. Except for a few flaws.

Google Health Coach, as the AI-powered coach is called, is responsible for the morning reports and evening summaries you find on the Today page. It also takes care of evaluating your sports activity or sleep. You also always have the option to ask it something yourself, using the button continuously located in the bottom right corner of the screen. 

You can have conversations with the AI coach in completely natural language. During the initial app setup, you clarify your own goals with it, which you can then change or adjust in any way by simply telling it. The advantage is that you don’t have to go through app settings to find what you need. And if you don’t like typing, you can use voice input. 

The downside, however, is exactly what I initially feared – occasional hallucinations. For example, recently, the coach wrote in one of the summaries that I had covered a distance of 21 km in a day. Although I was quite active, it was clear to me that I couldn’t have walked/run that much. When I asked him how he arrived at this figure, it turned out he had mistaken 21,000 steps for a distance of 21 km. And there was the error. 

You’ll likely encounter similar shortcomings. Occasionally, the coach will tell you it can’t help with a given issue, even though if you start the conversation again, it manages to. Other times, it will have trouble overwriting the duration of an activity – when I forgot to stop a workout after leaving the gym, I reported it to the coach, and he told me he would take care of it. However, the shortened activity time was only displayed in its chat preview; upon clicking, the outdated figure still appeared. And so on.

The coach simply makes mistakes. Is it completely unusable because of this? Definitely not. I consider the way Google Health Coach presents information to be brilliant. Morning reports and evening summaries are beneficial, and when I ask it something, in most cases, I get an answer that helps me. But because it’s artificial intelligence, it sometimes simply makes mistakes, which can spoil the overall impression.

Price and availability

The Fitbit Air is not officially sold in the Czech Republic. The editorial team of Svět Androida ordered it from the German Google Store, where it costs 99 euros (approximately 2,400 CZK in conversion). You can buy it from some smaller retailers here as well, but it’s simply not official distribution. We don’t know if the band will ever make it to the domestic Google Store.

The Google Health Premium subscription costs 299 CZK. The company offers it for 3 months free with the band. The plan is also part of the Google AI Pro and Google AI Ultra packages.

Verdict

Fitbit Air perfectly fulfills its mission. It’s a discreet, screenless smart band that is comfortable to wear and can measure basic and advanced health metrics and track sports activity. It doesn’t have its own GPS module, which theoretically extends battery life, but you need to have your smartphone with you to record location. 

The band is accompanied by a redesigned Google Health app, which impressed me with its design and rich array of features. The only controversial element from my perspective remains the AI coach, which, while very beneficial in itself, makes mistakes and can sometimes be quite confusing or frustrating. 

I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Fitbit Air to anyone looking for an “invisible” device for tracking their health and physical activity. Compared to the most popular smart rings, it’s significantly cheaper, and unlike the more well-known Whoop, it has a less aggressive subscription model (with Whoop, the band itself doesn’t even work without an active plan).

Editor’s rating: 82 / 100

What caught your attention about the Fitbit Air band?