Fitbit Edge or Fitbit Air: I Cannot Pick One, but the Subscription Is a Warning

I cannot tell you which of these to buy, because I have used neither. What I can tell you is what would push either one down my list: the subscription.

Here is what the two trackers actually are. The Fitbit Air costs $99 and has no screen at all, so everything goes through the Google Health app. It has no ECG. The Fitbit Edge costs $179 and adds a 1.34-inch AMOLED touchscreen, an ECG sensor and a button on the side. Both are rated for about seven days of battery, but the Edge drops to roughly two days if you keep its always-on display running.

Then comes the part that matters to me. Engadget notes that both devices need Google Health Premium if you want to use them to their fullest. The article does not say how much Premium costs, and I will not guess a number for you.

When a device tells me it needs a subscription to work at 100%, it goes onto my low-priority list and I start looking at other options. I do not need to have worn it to hold that rule. A subscription is a recurring cost on top of the price on the box, and it is a warning sign when it gates what the hardware could already do.

So the useful question is not Air or Edge. It is how much of what you want sits behind Premium, and whether you would still want the tracker without it. I cannot answer that from here, and nobody should answer it from a spec sheet.

Before you buy, read what Premium includes and what it costs today. The source is linked below.