Google has officially announced the Fitbit Edge, which it calls its “smartest fitness tracker ever.”

The Edge is pitched as a middle ground watch between the screen-free Fitbit Air and the Pixel Watch 5 , a full-blooded smartwatch.

Within the wider fitness tracker market, though, the Fitbit Edge’s style is familiar. This is a health and fitness first wearable, but unlike some bands of this scale it has GPS, letting the Edge accurately track pace and distance without requiring a wireless connection to a nearby phone.

The Fitbit Edge design is not barebones either. It has an aluminum casing, not a plastic one, and Google has already shown off a whole series of strap options including a refined metal link design.

It also supports ECG readings, which are typically not found in wearables that look like the Fitbit Edge.

Alongside a bright OLED touchscreen, blood oxygenation readings and up to 7-day battery life, the Fitbit Edge looks promising. There are a few issues to note, though.

Fitbit Edge’s Missing Features

The Fitbit Edge will at some point have support for turn-by-turn navigation through Google Maps, but this is not available at launch. It’s coming later this year, and will rely on a connected phone for the route as the wearable does not have its own internet connection.

You can’t stream music played directly on the Fitbit Edge either. It only has 64MB of memory, which is there to store activity data in between phone sync sessions. It would not be enough for music.

There’s no NFC either, which rules out using the Edge for wireless payments. NFC did feature in the Fitbit Charge 6 .

Despite having plenty of fairly advanced metrics, like “readiness,” skin temperature and cardio load, there’s no mention of stress tracking in the Fitbit Edge either. This is typically derived through heart rate behavior, so is not based on some hardware limitation here.

Google hasn’t really cheaped out on the Edge, though. It has an altimeter, for example, for tracking of elevation and an ambient light sensor to allow for automatic display brightness shifting.

Consistent with other wearables at this level, the Fitbit Edge’s water resistance is rated at 5ATM/IP68 — fine for showers and surface-level pool swimming, just not anything more ambitious.

One of the most interesting parts of the Fitbit Edge, though, will be in seeing how the software differs from that of superficially similar Fitbit Charge 6, released in 2023.

The Fitbit Edge costs $179.99 and, like the Fitbit Air, does not have a mandatory subscription. It’s available to pre-order now, with shipping beginning on October 27. You can pick from Obsidian, Fog, Olive, and Canyon colours, matching the Pixel 11 Pro , while there’s also a Stephen Curry Special Edition on the way.