Fitbit is far from its bestselling glory days, but it remains popular with everyday athletes who want long battery life, health insights, and a comfortable design for sleep tracking. And the Charge 6, which has fallen to $99 on Amazon for Black Friday, is Fitbit’s newest device that’s not a Pixel Watch or kids’ watch, making it most likely to sell out first.
Of course, since we’re getting new Fitbit hardware in 2026, you can always try to hold out for a Fitbit Charge 7. But there’s reason to get excited now, as Google is completely revamping the Fitbit app to make it more personalized and intelligent. And the sooner you start giving Fitbit data, the more that the new AI coach will have to work with.
✅Recommended if: You want a comfortably light tracker with nearly a week of battery life that tracks a wide range of health and fitness stats: resting heart rate, blood oxygen, heart rate variability, irregular heart rhythm, skin temperature, breathing rate, sleep stages, and more.
❌Skip this deal if: You want an even lighter, easier-to-forget design (the Inspire 3), a larger display for notifications (Versa 4), or extra health sensors like cEDA for stress (Sense 2); or, you’re not interested in paying for AI insights once the six-month Fitbit Premium demo runs out.
Why it’s easier to recommend the Fitbit Charge 6 today
When it comes to the best fitness bands, the Fitbit Charge 6 has topped our list for a while, but with the caveat that other competing bands from Garmin, Xiaomi, and Amazfit don’t charge a subscription for your data. Just a year of Fitbit Premium — $79 annually or $120 monthly — costs about as much as the Charge 6 itself, which is a deal-breaker for plenty of folks.
That still applies today, but the Fitbit Personal Health Coach ensures you’re not paying for health data alone; you’re paying for analysis and suggestions, too.
With the new version of the app, you “talk” to a Gemini-trained LLM Coach about your goals, which can be as generic as losing weight or as specific as training for a race in 10 weeks or hitting a weightlifting threshold. It will then build you a training plan, based on your favorite workout days and whether you have access to a gym or at-home equipment. I successfully built a marathon training plan while reviewing my Pixel Watch 4, but this Coach AI will be available for all Fitbits.
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Even if you don’t need a workout plan, this new version of Fitbit has more advanced health insights, showing how your nightly data compares to previous days or weeks. In the main Today tab, you’ll see “Insight” pop-ups discussing your health trends and what they might mean, such as why your resting heart rate or blood oxygen is getting better (or worse).
There’s also a Coach tab where you can ask the LLM questions. It’s obviously as prone to mistakes as any AI LLM, but it’s also more targeted than simply asking Gemini because it can pull from your entire Fitbit health history for context, as well as “10,000+ Google Research publications.” The longer you’ve used Fitbits, the more info the AI will have to draw from to provide recommendations.
We have a guide on how to use the Fitbit Personal Health Coach preview, if you do end up buying the Fitbit Charge 6. It’s only available on Android phones for Premium subscribers in the United States to start, but the beta will launch more widely by the end of 2025. And the final, stable version will launch on Android and iOS sometime in 2026.
Some of you may decide to wait for the final, stable version to launch, rather than buy the Fitbit Charge 6 now when it’s still using the older Fitbit app. But if you’re willing to play with beta software, it’s an exciting time to get back into the Fitbit ecosystem.
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