There’s a bit of a revolution happening in the wearable space right now because many of us realize we don’t want yet another screen vying for our attention. But we still need to know our metrics. That’s why the likes of the Oura Ring 5, Garmin Cirqa, or Whoop 5.0 have surged in popularity, and we get constant questions about which is the right one to buy.
Casting the longest shadow, though, is the Fitbit Air, which was released for $99 / £84 and scored 4 stars when my colleague Jane reviewed it in March.
The Fitbit Air is a simple, discreet tracker with no screen and no subscription, and it allows you to go about your routine and almost forget you’re wearing it. Of course, if you’re training for an Ironman, you need something a little more hardcore, but for the vast majority of us, the Fitbit Air feels like the right device at the right time. But the fact is, we’ve been here before.
Back in 2013, Fitbit was an up-and-coming wearable tech company that had yet to be swallowed up by the Google Empire. It made its name with the Fitbit Flex, a $99 wrist-worn pedometer and sleep tracker that landed alongside the likes of the Jawbone Up and Nike Fuelband as a way for people to track progress toward their 10,000 steps per day.
I had one of those trackers back in the day, and after a recent clear-out at home, I not only found it — but discovered it still held a charge. Earlier this year, my colleague Dan Bracaglia matched a 5-year-old Fitbit vs Apple Watch Series 11 on a 5,500-step walk to find out if your old fitness tracker is still good enough. So I decided to go one better and see how a 13-year-old fitness tracker holds up to Fitbit’s 2026 breakout success.
I wore both trackers on my wrist for a day and a night and took their readings on steps and sleep. Back in 2013, the Flex couldn’t measure anything else. But even after all this time, the results from the two devices on those two metrics were pretty close:
Wednesday, September 9, 2026 |
Fitbit Air (2026) |
Fitbit Flex (2013) |
Steps |
9,093 |
9,285 |
Sleep |
6 hours 22m (83 sleep score) |
6 hours 13m (No sleep score) |
I continued to wear the two devices alongside each other on my wrist for a couple of days. I would have gone longer, but the brittle rubber strap of the Flex embarrassingly broke as I went to shake someone’s hand. Even so, after spending some time with my fitness tracker of yesteryear, I’ve come to some conclusions about just how good the Fitbit Air is.
Fitbit Air vs Fitbit Flex: All the improvements for the same $99 price
It's kind of incredible to think the Fitbit Flex launched with a $99 / £79 price back in the day, and now the Fitbit Air is here for that same $99. In the U.K., where I live, the £79 has ballooned to £84, but you can’t win ‘em all.
13 years later, instead of just getting steps and sleep, you now get heart rate, blood oxygen, skin temperature, a sleep and readiness score, workout tracking and — if you want to pay for it — a full AI coach sitting inside the Google Health app.
For that same price, 13 years later, instead of just getting steps and sleep, you now get heart rate, blood oxygen, skin temperature, a sleep and readiness score as well as workout tracking and — if you want to pay for it — a full AI coach sitting inside the Google Health app.
The improvements don’t just stop at the hardware: Google’s Fitbit Air woven loop is a breathable fabric strap that’s 10 times more comfortable than the bulky rubber strap the Fitbit Flex arrived with. And the Air will go for seven days without charge, while the Flex only manages five. After more than a decade in storage, my model lasted a little over two days before needing to be recharged.
Lastly, the fact that the Air will automatically track when you fall asleep or start a workout is a huge improvement. On the Flex, you had to remember to tap it firmly to put it in sleep mode, and it had no workout option. I remember missing many nights of sleep because I forgot to put my tracker into sleep mode before my head hit the pillow.
One thing I do like about the Flex is the little row of blinking LEDs that gives you some idea of your step progress. The Air is completely screen-free, but in a roundabout way, this might not be the panacea you think it is. If you want to see how you’re tracking against a goal, you need to pull out your phone and look — which ironically makes it all too easy to spiral into a screen-time rabbit hole if you’re not careful.
Fitbit Air vs Fitbit Flex: Step counting vs true health tracking
It was a simpler time back in 2013; all we really wanted to know was if we could hit 10,000 steps a day. Now we know that metrics aren’t as important as we thought they were, and the goal is overall holistic wellness.
That’s why the Air is powered by Gemini and can automatically provide you with a detailed sleep summary every morning or give you a cardio load score — which measures the strain on your system when you’re exercising.
But this is where we run into some of the Air’s downsides. There’s no onboard GPS for location data or altimeter for elevation insights. So if you want to go for a run or a cycle, you’ll need to bring a paired smartphone along with you.
It’s still better than what we had in 2013, though, as the Fitbit Air automatically tracks a small selection of workout types, including walks, bike rides, "sports," and other activities. It does so whether you carry your paired phone or not, but there's a catch. For an activity to be auto-logged, you have to do it for at least 15 consecutive minutes.
Also, as mentioned, to get the most from the tracker, you need to pay for the Google Health Premium subscription to unlock personalized AI-backed health and fitness insights, along with deeper dives into your holistic trends. That will cost you $9.99 a month or $99 a year.
Fitbit Air vs Fitbit Flex: Last band standing
The point of this little experiment — beyond the novelty of finding an old piece of tech that still works — is the amount of value the Fitbit Air brings to the table as a tracker in 2026. If you’re a more established athlete and training toward a goal, I would personally recommend one of the best Garmin smartwatches or the best Apple Watches over the Fitbit Air.
But for those of us who want to keep an eye on our activity without it being intrusive — just like back in the day — the Air is hard to beat. And while the RAM crisis is pushing up prices across the board, I was struck by how much more Google can offer with the Air for the same price as its predecessor was over a decade ago.
There are still some niggles, like having a proprietary charging port so you can’t charge either the Flex or the Air with a generic USB-C cable, but I know that’s due to the waterproofing requirements. Overall, despite initially thinking I was done with Fitbit after 10 years, the simplicity and comfort of the Air have pulled me right back into it.
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