Fitness tracking bands never fully disappeared, but they definitely stopped being interesting for a while. At some point, everything became either a mini smartwatch trying too hard to replace my phone or a wellness gadget for people who refer to bedtime as “recovery” instead of “the best part of the day.”
Then Google set its sights on passive tracking and launched a wildly affordable WHOOP 5.0 alternative. My first impression of the Air after 48 hours was that Google might actually be onto something with passive tracking again, and after a few weeks of wearing it, that early take mostly held up. The first-gen screenless tracker is not perfect, but it gets a good amount right at a hard-to-beat price.
