Does the Fitbit Edge have NFC? Here's what Google says

Google announced the Fitbit Edge earlier this month, and the new fitness tracker is packed with health and wellness features. This includes ECG functionality, skin temperature tracking, and the expected smartphone integrations.

Does the Fitbit Edge have NFC, though? Well, it turns out that the tracker doesn’t support this feature. That’s disappointing if you were hoping to pay for things or hop on public transit without taking out your phone. In fact, colleague Brady Snyder says this omission is exactly what stopped him from buying the Fitbit Edge.

Now, Google has issued a statement to Android Authority to explain why the Fitbit Edge lacks NFC:

Fitbit Edge does not offer NFC for payments. It was not widely used by our Charge 6 users — in fact, less than 1% reported using the feature on Charge 6 — so we prioritized other top features such as adding an altimeter and requested improvements.

We can understand why Google ditched this feature if its own data showed that few people used it on previous fitness-focused wearables. There might also be a little more pressure to reduce costs — not that an NFC chip is the most expensive component on a wearable. Then again, I can more easily understand Xiaomi’s decision to skip NFC on its $50 Smart Band 10, while the Fitbit Edge costs $180.