The Fitbit Air's Minimal Design Is Hiding a Bigger Strategy

Google is ditching the screen on its latest wearable and betting hard on its AI health coach. The new Fitbit Air is a slim, screenless band with a removable sensor with the sole job of collecting health data in the background, removing the distractions of notifications, apps and stats.

Read more:Fitbit Air, Redesigned App and an AI Coach: Google Is Overhauling Its Health Ecosystem

This back-to-basics move echoes the earliest Fitbit devices, but with a very different end game. Where those first bands only counted steps, the Fitbit Air feeds a much broader stream of biometric data into Google's evolving health ecosystem that seems to be increasingly centered on AI.

At $99, the band is just the ticket to get you in the door. The main event is Google's recently launched Health Coach, part of the Google Health Premium (formerly Fitbit Premium) service. The premium service will...

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