I’ve struggled with my health journey over the years. It’s been inconsistent at best, weighed down by a lack of motivation and also, to be honest, laziness. From going through the calorie-counting motions to not knowing how to properly work out, it’s been a challenge. I know that working out will help me feel better, but just starting has always felt like a climb.
In the last few weeks, I’ve finally started taking steps to a better version of myself, largely because of the Fitbit Air and Google Health Coach. They’ve taken out a lot of the guesswork and monotony from things that were previously barriers, smoothing them out and making my own health goals more accessible and understandable. From just being able to take a photo of my meal to log it, to better understanding my sleep, to a catalogue of workouts tailored to my needs and equipment, the Fitbit Air and Google Health Coach are fantastic tools to help you know yourself better.
Let’s start with the new Fitbit Air, Google’s first screen-less fitness tracker. It does everything you’d expect it to, including 24/7 health and sleep tracking and heart rate monitoring, all connected to the new Google Health app. It’s Google’s smallest tracker to date, barely noticeable when worn. It comes in three band options: a Performance Loop Band, a sweatproof Active Band, and an Elevated Modern Band for those more aesthetically inclined. There’s also a more expensive Stephen Curry variant.
“The Fitbit Air boasts a 7-day battery life, and I’ve found that to be entirely accurate.”
I’ve been using the Performance Loop Band for the last few weeks, and it feels great. It’s lightweight, and I honestly forget I have it on most of the time. I have relatively sensitive skin, and it’s caused no issues, a comfortable fit. It dries quickly and hasn’t really retained any smells, even after workouts. The Fitbit unit itself pops in and out of the charger really easily. It’s a fantastic little band that both looks stylish and feels nice to wear.
The Fitbit Air boasts a 7-day battery life, and I’ve found that to be entirely accurate. It goes down anywhere from 10-15% a day, and after about a week, I got a notification that it needed charging at about the 15% battery life remaining mark. It was back at full within an hour, the included charging cable quickly bringing it back to max. The only knock I have against the Air itself is the double-tap to check battery life; it’s inconsistent with how much pressure it needs. Using the app does display battery life, but double-tapping ends up turning into relentless tapping, just trying to get it to blink for a sign of life.
The Fitbit Air works hand in hand with the new Google Health Coach app, replacing the Fitbit app entirely. It’s an AI-fueled app that I’ve really fallen in love with. It tracks sleep and heart rate and offers personalized advice and feedback based on your patterns. It has three major components: The Fitness Coach, Sleep Expert, and Health & Wellness Advisor.
“The Fitbit Air and Google Health Coach are fantastic tools to help you know yourself better.”
The Fitness Coach follows your workout journey, offering advice and suggestions tailored to your health goals. As you fire up the app, you have a short 5-7 minute conversation with the Coach, talking about where you are, your goals, and how you can get there. It goes as deep as ideal workout times, suggesting moves whether you’d like to work out first thing in the morning, later on, or in the evening. It has a huge workout library, including Peloton classes, yoga lessons, and various fitness instructors you can follow.
The Fitness Coach will automatically help track cardio efforts, knowing when I was on the treadmill and logging the duration. Strength exercises need to be logged manually, but it’s as simple as telling the Coach what you did. You can even ask the Coach for suggestions based on what you’re looking to do, building a fitness plan to take out the guesswork and uncertainty.
You can even take pictures of your meals to help track your caloric and macro intake. This was always a challenge for me, but it’s so simple here. It does its best to average out what it sees, even identifying separate ingredients. You can also input recipes and save them to easily replicate meals. I’ve really challenged the Coach, taking pictures of multiple types of cereals mixed with different fruits, and it accurately figured out what I was eating. It knew that I mixed Nutella and peanut butter on multigrain bread, identified multiple side dishes across different plates in a single photo, and even figured out the type of fast-food burger based on the wrapping underneath the burger.
“The Fitbit Air boasts a 7-day battery life, and I’ve found that to be entirely accurate.”
It averages out portions based on what it sees, which you can easily fix if it’s off at all. This kind of tracking has always been an uphill battle for me, with getting frustrated by manual input and weighing ingredients and meals. The Coach will obviously work better with exact inputs, but being able to take pictures of my meals has given me a general idea of my intake, which is huge. It’s made a significant difference in how I’ve eaten over the last few weeks, giving me a better understanding of what I put into my body.
This extends to the Sleep Expert, helping me understand what my sleep patterns look like. It tracks REM sleep, light sleep, deep sleep, restlessness, and total time awake, outlining your sleep quality and score across multiple nights. It also helps wake you up within a given window based on the best sleep cycle point. It’s a great way to more accurately track your sleep, and it has genuinely helped me learn that I need to sleep more to feel better most days. Sleep has always been something I’ve struggled with, and the Expert’s more quantifiable data has helped me understand that I need to make changes.
The Health and Wellness Advisor rounds out the package, monitoring your overall health and offering advice. It monitors your heart rate, letting you set alerts if it becomes irregular, too high, or too low. It also monitors your blood oxygen (SpO2), along with weight and calories burned. You can even link your medical records if you live in the US. It can offer advice based on what it sees, or you can ask it questions about specific goals. Want to eat more fibre or lower your blood pressure? The Advisor can give you tips and pointers.
“The Fitbit Air and Google Health Coach genuinely helped me get back on my own health adventure, and if I can do it, anyone can.”
The Health app also gives handy morning and night summaries that reflect your day ahead and the night behind. It recommends ideal workouts based on your sleep and what you ate the day before, tracks your steps, and lets you reply for more in-depth conversations. It all works really well and feels natural, from text conversations to microphone input for those who want to talk to it.
There is a cost to the Premium version of the Coach. The Fitbit Air comes with 3 months of free Premium, then costs $9.99 a month or $99.99 annually. It feels fairly priced, especially compared to the WHOOP, where memberships start at $199 annually and increase based on features. It feels like an affordable way to track your health, especially with all the features you get. The base app includes activity, sleep, and health tracking, as well as health and wellness logging, while the Premium plan includes the Google Health Coach, workout library, insights, and more.
Overall, the Fitbit Air and Google Health Coach are fantastic tools for those on their own health journey. For those just starting out, it takes a lot of the guesswork out and gives you direct advice that can help you get over the initial hurdles. For those already in it, it’s easier than ever before to track your own intake and get you to your goals. The Fitbit Air and Google Health Coach genuinely helped me get back on my own health adventure, and if I can do it, anyone can.
The Fitbit Air is available today at $99.99 USD, with the Accessory bands starting at $34.99 USD. Three months of Premium are included with the purchase, after which it costs $9.99 USD per month or $99.99 USD annually. The Stephen Curry special edition costs $129.99 USD.
