The king of the screen-free wearable may about to lose its crown. Google has just announced the launch of the Fitbit Air, an £85 fitness tracker that focuses on recovery, sleep and wellness, and unlike the Whoop 5.0, you don’t need to pay a monthly subscription to access your data.
For more than a decade, Whoop has completely dominated the recovery fitness market. Adored by athletes, the company has years and years’ worth of research into strain, sleep tracking and recovery under its belt. Can the Fitbit Air really compete or is it more of a casual users’ device, rather than a wearable for athletes?
While I haven’t tested the Fitbit Air just yet, I’m a devout Whoop user myself, so I know exactly why it’s so compelling. From price to design to features, here’s how the Fitbit Air compares to the Whoop 5.0.
Read more: Is the Whoop 5.0 worth it? We put it to the test
Fitbit Air
The Fitbit Air is Google’s answer to the Whoop. Significantly cheaper than the Whoop 5.0, it’s far lighter on the wrist and doesn’t lock your core health data behind a mandatory subscription. Featuring an AI-powered Google Health Coach, a smart wake alarm and a minimalist design, it feels more like a product for the casual gym-goer and everyday wellness and health tracking, rather than hardcore athletic performance.
Buy now £84.99, Amazon.co.uk
Whoop 5.0
The Whoop 5.0 is a performance wearable aimed at athletes. Its strain, recovery and sleep coaching remain some of the best I’ve ever used and the platform has years of refinement behind it. Features like healthspan, stress monitoring, continuous recovery analysis and the ability to wear it almost anywhere on your body still give it a huge edge for athletes and fitness obsessives. The major downside is its member-based system, which means you have to pay a yearly subscription-fee to use it or it becomes worthless.
Buy now £169, Whoop.com
Fitbit Air vs Whoop: Price
Probably the most compelling thing about the Google Fitbit Air is its price. Costing a fraction of the Whoop 5.0, the Fitbit Air costs just £84.99, and while there is a separate subscription to Google Health Premium available, it’s completely optional.
Google Health Premium costs £7.99 per month and includes personalised AI coaching and wellness insights. Without it, you still get access to metrics such as your heart rate, heart rate variability, SpO2 and skin temperature.
Whoop, meanwhile, has always used a mandatory subscription model, meaning you can’t just buy the device outright. The entry-level Whoop One membership starts from £169 per year and includes the Whoop 5.0 device itself, alongside sleep, strain and recovery tracking.
The Whoop Peak membership costs £229 per year and includes even more health and wellness insights including stress tracking, health monitor alerts and Healthspan insights. The most expensive Whoop Life tier costs £349 per year and includes ECG and blood pressure monitoring.
While Google Health Premium costs £7.99 per month, Google is offering three months free if you pre-order the Fitbit Air. You don’t even need to subscribe to Google Health Premium if you don’t want to, unlike Whoop, where you need an active membership just to use the wearable at all.
Fitbit Air vs Whoop: Design
Design-wise, the Fitbit Air is significantly smaller and lighter than the Whoop 5.0. You can tell that just by eyeballing it, and the dimensions make that even clearer. The Fitbit Air measures 34.9mm x 17mm x 8.3mm, while the Whoop 5.0 is much chunkier at 34.7mm x 24mm x 10.6mm.
The Fitbit Air looks like a tiny, minimalist pebble-shaped tracker that disappears into its band, while the Whoop 5.0 looks more rugged, with a thicker rectangular sensor.
Evidently, the Fitbit Air is a lot slimmer and thinner on the wrist. It also weighs just 12g with the band, while the Whoop 5.0 weighs 26.5g with the standard superknit band. Google’s general manager of health and home previously told me that it was so light that you’d forget you were wearing it on your arm.
The Fitbit Air has three different band styles, including the standard breathable performance loop band, a sweatproof silicone active band for workouts and a more fashion-focused elevated modern band, designed to look more like a bracelet. It also four different band colours – berry, lavender, obsidian and fog.
Whoop has an even larger collection of accessories and bands. As well as the standard superknit band, which is designed for everyday comfort, the company sells a fast-drying hydroknit band for swimming and sweatier workouts, leather luxe bands and a range of sport-focused straps with different clasps and finishes.
One thing I’d also say is that the Whoop 5.0 is more versatile than the Fitbit Air. You can wear it on your wrist, bicep, calf or torso and pop it into specialist gym apparel thanks to Whoop’s Body collection. Wearing it on your bicep, for example, has a clearer heart rate signal, making it good for weightlifting or cycling. The Fitbit Air can only be worn on the wrist.
Fitbit Air vs Whoop: Features and health tracking
While the Fitbit Air clearly wins on price and boasts a slimmer, more lightweight design, Whoop may still have the edge when it comes to features and health tracking, so athletes and fitness obsessives may still punt for the pricier tracker.
The Fitbit Air tracks all the core metrics you’d expect from a fitness tracker, including 24/7 heart rate tracking, heart rate variability, SpO2, skin temperature, resting heart rate and sleep stages. It can also detect workouts automatically and send irregular heart rhythm alerts for signs of Afib.
Without Google Health Premium, you still get access to all of these core health metrics, but the subscription adds things such as guided workouts, more detailed long-term health trends and personalised recommendations through Google Health Coach. Google says the AI can analyse your sleep, activity and nutrition to recommend when you should rest or push yourself harder. You can even add your medical records to Google Health in the US, with the feature coming to the UK at a later date.
The former Fitbit app also has a cardio load metric, which measures how much stress exercise and activity place on your body, similar to Whoop’s strain monitor. The app uses this data to generate a daily readiness score, which recommends whether you should push yourself harder or prioritise recovery. With Google Health Premium, the AI-powered Google Health Coach can then turn that data into more personalised recommendations and coaching.
The Fitbit Air also has a haptics-based smart wake alarm that can wake you at the optimal point in your sleep cycle. You can double tap the tracker to snooze or dismiss alarms without needing to reach for your phone. That’s a huge pro over the Whoop 5.0.
As for the Whoop? The platform is really aimed at serious athletes who want to optimise their performance and recovery. Tracking all the same metrics as the Fitbit Air, you also get detailed strain, recovery and sleep coaching, with the app constantly analysing how well your body has recovered overnight and whether you should train harder or take it easier the next day.
The app also tracks stress levels throughout the day. It can monitor trends in metrics such as heart rate variability, respiratory rate and resting heart rate, and can send health monitor alerts if it detects unusual changes in your biometrics. It even told me that I was getting sick, days before I knew I was starting to get ill.
One of Whoop’s best features is its sleep coaching, which tells you exactly how much sleep you need based on your recent strain and recovery levels.
I also really like Whoop’s healthspan feature, which estimates your pace of ageing and compares your fitness age to your real age. It doesn’t seem like the Fitbit Air has a similar feature to this. If you get the Whoop 5.0 MG, you also get ECG readings and blood pressure monitoring – something you don’t get with the Fitbit Air.
I’ll need to test the Fitbit Air and Google Health Premium for myself before I can properly compare how its features stack up against the Whoop 5.0. But if history has taught us anything, it’s that Whoop’s platform is completely obsessed with optimising performance, recovery and sleep, so it’ll be interesting to see whether Google can match that level of depth in the future.
Fitbit Air vs Whoop: Battery life
The Whoop 5.0 betters the Fitbit Air again here. While the Fitbit Air has a respectable battery life of up to seven days, Whoop says the standard Whoop 5.0 can last for more than 14 days on a single charge. The more advanced Whoop MG model, which includes ECG and blood pressure monitoring, also offers up to 14 days of battery life.
Google does claw back some points with charging speed, however. Google says the Fitbit Air can charge from 0 to 100 per cent in 90 minutes. And if you charge it for five minutes, you’ll get one full day of battery life. I also quite like the idea of Fitbit’s magnetic charging system.
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The Whoop 5.0 takes longer to fully recharge, generally around two hours. That said, I do love Whoop’s charging system. With the slide-on wireless battery pack, you can charge the wearable while still wearing it, so you never really need to take it off.
Fitbit Air vs Whoop: Which is better?
It’s hard to say for now. I haven’t yet tested the Fitbit Air, so I can’t say whether its features are as good as the Whoop 5.0, or if you lose out on too much by skipping the Google Health Premium subscription. But for just £84.99, it’s incredibly affordable, and its slimmer, lighter design could make it one of the best recovery devices for casual users.
That said, Whoop has been at the top of its game for years, and it won’t be easy to topple. Offering the best recovery, sleep and strain tracking of any wearable I’ve personally tried, the Whoop 5.0 remains the benchmark for serious athletes and fitness obsessives. As a long-time Whoop user myself, I’m fascinated to see how closely Google can compete.