A simpler tracker puts text replies back on the phone

Lila Chen, a product designer, set down her groceries to answer a friend’s text. Her fitness tracker showed the message, but unlike her old smartwatch, it could not send a reply. She had to take out her phone.

Engadget’s Fitbit Edge review describes a screen-equipped tracker for people who do not want AI on their wrist. Google Store search listings mention a display, health tracking, notifications and up to seven days of battery life, but also Gemini-powered coaching; those listings do not establish that the tracker is AI-free. The more immediate choice is what belongs on a wrist and what can wait for a phone. In Bonzai’s interviews, one person who made that trade and another considering it both favored fewer interruptions, despite the conveniences they would lose.

Chen said her basic tracker tells the time and tracks walks without the frequent buzzing she got from her smartwatch. Elena Voss, a product manager at Corvid Cloud, still wears a smartwatch but has considered switching: Most days, she wants a step count without notifications. Voss also hopes a simpler tracker would need less charging.

What each would give up is different. Chen’s tracker displays texts but cannot reply to them. “My tracker showed me the question, then just sat there like a tiny billboard,” she said of the exchange on her walk home. Voss relies on wrist directions while walking. Last winter, she said, turn alerts got her to an appointment in an unfamiliar part of Brooklyn without her having to stop in the rain to check her phone. She called that “a fairly narrow victory for a whole computer on my arm.”

Chen said she would choose the simpler tracker again: She takes out her phone to reply less often than her old watch buzzed. Voss would probably make the switch next time, too, though she said she might feel differently the first time she gets lost. Unlike Chen, she is describing a feature she expects to miss, not one she has already lost.

For both people weighing a simpler tracker, fewer interruptions make giving up a smartwatch convenience seem worthwhile, though only one has made the switch. For Chen, that is a choice she has already made; for Voss, it remains a possibility.

Chen put her choice plainly: “I’d rather pull out my phone once in a while than wear a tiny needy phone all day.”