Google has launched a Pokémon Sleep special edition of the Fitbit Air, priced at $129.99 with pre-orders open now and shipping from 15 September. It is a screenless sleep-and-activity tracker in a “Sleepy Blue” band carrying a silk-printed sleeping Pikachu, and it ties into the Pokémon Sleep mobile game, which turns how long you actually sleep into in-game progress.
Pricing and availability
- Price: $129.99 for the special edition; the standard Fitbit Air is $99
- Pre-orders: open now, online and in store, at the Google Store and Target
- Shipping: from 15 September
- Markets: Google’s own footnote restricts the special-edition band to the US and Japan
- Age: Google states the product is intended for ages 13 and up
That US-and-Japan restriction is the detail most likely to be missed. This is a Pokémon 30th-anniversary tie-in, and Pokémon Sleep itself is available far more widely than the band is — if you are in India, the UK or most of Europe, the game works with the wearables you already own, and the Pikachu strap is what you are not getting.
How the Pokémon Sleep tie-in actually works
Nothing here is exclusive hardware magic. The Fitbit Air records your sleep stages and duration, Google Health writes that data out through Health Connect on Android or Apple Health on iOS, and the Pokémon Sleep app reads it. Your sleep score multiplies Snorlax’s strength to produce what the game calls “Drowsy Power,” and a higher score surfaces more Pokémon and rarer sleep styles the next day.
Google is explicit that the sync runs automatically every morning once you have paired the two apps, and equally explicit that Pokémon Sleep already works with dozens of wearables from Apple, Google, Garmin and Samsung — and can be played with no wearable at all. So the roughly $30 premium over a standard Fitbit Air buys a band and a collectible, not a capability.
The subscription and the data are the parts to read twice
Two things sit behind the fun packaging. First, the Google Health Coach features Google spends a paragraph promoting are not included: they require a Google Health Premium subscription, sold separately. Every special-edition band comes with a three-month trial, and Google’s own footnote spells out what happens next:
“Automatically renews for $9.99/mo after trial; cancel anytime.” — Google
A trial that converts to $9.99 a month is $120 a year, more than the tracker cost, and it is opt-out rather than opt-in. If you buy this, put a reminder in your calendar for the day before the trial ends and decide deliberately, rather than finding out through a card statement.
Second, the premise of the product is that your nightly sleep record leaves the health app and flows into a game. That is the feature, and it is a reasonable trade if you know you are making it — but it is worth being clear that this is your sleep data crossing into a third-party entertainment app through Health Connect, on a device Google says is meant for ages 13 and up. Health Connect does let you review and revoke that permission at any point, and it is worth checking what you granted rather than accepting the default in a setup flow Google describes as taking only a few moments.
None of that makes this a bad tracker. It makes it a tracker sold on a licensing tie-in, with a recurring subscription and a data hand-off attached to the pleasant part — and both are easier to see now than after the third monthly charge.
Source: Google. Pricing via 9to5Google and The Verge, as Google’s announcement carries no price.
