Fitbit Edge ships October 27 with a screen, GPS and a seven-day battery. Sleep tracking is free. Google's Gemini health coach needs a $9.99 subscription after three free months.
Google announced the Fitbit Edge on October 12. It costs $179.99, preorders are open on the Google Store, and it reaches stores on October 27. A Stephen Curry special edition costs $219.99. Bloomberg reported that the Edge replaces the Fitbit Charge 6.
It sits between Google’s other two wearables. The Fitbit Air, which launched in May at $99 according to 9to5Google, has no screen. The Pixel Watch is a full smartwatch. The Edge keeps a slim band and adds a display for notifications, maps, weather and music controls.
What Google confirmed
- Battery: up to seven days per charge, based on Google’s pre-production testing. Google says five minutes on the magnetic charger adds about a day, with a 30W USB-C adapter that is sold separately.
- Repairs: Google calls it the first repairable Fitbit tracker. The internals are modular and the battery can be replaced. Google has not said what a replacement costs or who does it.
- Screen: a hybrid OLED panel with 46% more viewing area than earlier Fitbit trackers.
- GPS: built in, with an altimeter. Google claims 40% better accuracy than the previous generation.
- Sleep: sleep stages, heart rate variability, nightly skin temperature and a morning recovery score. Google says sleep-stage detection is 15% more accurate than on its earlier trackers.
- The rest: an 11.5 mm case, water resistance to 50 meters, an ECG app in select countries, and support for Android 11 and iOS 16.4 or later.
Google has not published a country list for the Edge.
What the subscription pays for
Sleep tracking is part of the free tier of the Google Health app, according to Droid Life’s comparison of free and paid features. Google Health Premium adds the Gemini-powered Health Coach, which builds weekly workout plans and explains changes in your data. It costs $9.99 a month or $99 a year, as TechCrunch reported when it launched in May. Edge buyers get the first three months free.
Health Guardian also sits behind Premium. It sends a monthly summary of blood pressure and insulin resistance trends, and Engadget reports it reaches the Edge later this month. Google says these readings are for general wellness and do not diagnose anything.
Over two years on monthly billing, the tracker plus 21 paid months comes to $389.78: $179.99 + (21 × $9.99 = $209.79).
What it means if you track sleep to plan your workday
If what you want is sleep data and a battery that lasts the week, the free tier covers it. The $9.99 buys coaching, and you get three months to decide whether the coaching changes anything you do.
A tracker is also a cheaper experiment than a smartwatch. The Colmi R09 review on this site found that a $20 ring with no subscription matched the sleep data of an Apple Watch Ultra on the nights it fit. The Edge adds a screen, GPS and vibration alerts, none of which the Colmi has. Whether those are worth $160 more depends on whether you want your wrist to buzz during a meeting.
If you are thinking about trackers for a team, price the subscription per person. Ten people on annual Premium costs $990 a year once the free months end, on top of the hardware. The replaceable battery is the detail to watch. It only helps a multi-year budget once Google says what a swap costs.