5 Fitness Trackers That Don't Lock Core Features Behind a Monthly Subscription

Fitness tracker pricing can be, well, a bit misleading. For example, say the $399 Oura Ring 5 seems to be within your budget at first glance. But to make it remotely useful, you'll need to pay an extra $6 per month or $70 per year. Your total cost jumps up to around $550 after only two years. (And if you hang onto it for five years, you're looking at at least $750.)

Oura isn't even the most egregious subscription-based offender in this space. Whoop, the popular screenless fitness tracking band , requires a membership starting at $199 per year. Granted, that includes the device itself, unlike others. But you don't need to be a math whiz to realize how quickly its cost can add up over the long term, too.

That's why Google's recently released Fitbit Air is so interesting. It's basically a Whoop, with a one-time cost of $100. You can use most of its features without an additional subscription. What a concept! Let's take a closer look at the landscape following the Fitbit Air's entry, to see where you can cut through the paywall noise.

The Fitbit Air , starting at only $100, is the company's direct rival to Whoop. Crucially, Google's screenless band gives you all of its core features without a monthly fee. Only the Gemini-powered Al Coach and other perks (like workout videos) require a Google Health Premium subscription . If you do opt for that, you'll pay $10 per month or $100 per year. But again, it's more of an add-on than a necessity.

The device's battery life is about seven days, half the Whoop's 14-day uptime. But the Fitbit Air does charge quickly, so it shouldn't be a huge deal. For example, our review unit went from 36 percent to 58 percent in just five minutes.

The Fitbit Air works with both Android and iOS phones. However, it requires the Google Health app and won't sync natively with Apple Health.

Unlike the Fitbit Air and Whoop, the vívosmart 5 has a narrow, monochrome OLED display. That, combined with its slim profile, makes it a solid way to split the difference between a full-on fitness watch and a screenless tracking band.

The device logs your heart rhythm, sleep, steps and workouts. And Garmin's Body Battery score estimates how long to wait before your next intense workout. Like the Fitbit Air and Whoop, the vívosmart 5 lacks built-in GPS and instead uses connected GPS via your paired phone.