Yes, You Can Wear Your Watch and Fitbit Air on the Same Band (but You Might Not Need To).
One of the benefits of a discreet fitness tracker like the Fitbit Air is that it can be worn alongside other watches without the appearance of wearing two watches. Some Fitbit Air owners have gone even further, combining a Fitbit and a mechanical watch on a single strap. Here’s how to do it—but keep in mind that the results may not be what you’re looking for.
How to connect a Fitbit Air and a watch to the same band
Combinations of the Fitbit Air and mechanical watches can be found on forums like Reddit. Here are a few examples so you can see what this looks like on different watches. For this, you’ll need the following:
The Fitbit Air fitness tracker comes with a standard nylon strap (the one included—no need to buy another one). The Fitbit Air requires a special strap, so it won’t fit with the standard leather strap. I recommend the nylon strap because the Active strap is too thick and won’t fit, and the Elevated Modern strap is too stiff and impractical. (I tested all three.)
A watch with a minimum 18mm lug spacing . This is because the Fitbit Air band is 18mm wide. Most watch bands are at least 18mm wide, but some are much wider—it would look awkward on a watch with a 24mm lug. Note that you need standard lugs with a spring-loaded pin. Unfortunately, these won’t fit special connectors like those on the Apple Watch.
Spring pins for attaching to the watch . Since you likely already have a watch band, you could theoretically just remove the pins. However, this is easier with some bands than others. If you don’t want to mess with your existing bands, you can buy spring pins or remove them from a spare band. Note that these should match the size of your watch , not the 18mm Fitbit band.
I don’t have a mechanical watch, but I do have a lot of smartwatches, so I ran an experiment using my Garmin Forerunner. Here are the steps:
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Remove the strap from the watch.
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Place the Fitbit Air band on the back of your watch so that the outside of the band faces the back of the watch.
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Insert the spring pins into the holes in the watch case lugs, making sure the Fitbit Air band is sandwiched between the pin and the watch.
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If necessary, move the Fitbit band so that the Fitbit Air is on the bottom of your wrist and the watch is on the top.
Why Pairing the Fitbit Air with Your Watch May Not Be Right for You
After trying it on a few watches, I’m honestly not impressed. The design seems to work (a strap is a strap, after all), but there are some issues.
First, size: if you have a small wrist, you may not have enough room for the watch, Fitbit, and strap clasp. Without the watch, the strap on my Fitbit Air touches both sides of the Velcro clasp by a few centimeters. When the watch is on the strap, it takes up some of this space, leaving part of the strap hanging loose.
A third-party adapter might be better, like one that attaches the Fitbit Air to a regular watch band. This option looks bulky, and I can’t say it’s perfect, but it might be worth a try.
Another issue is the comfort and accuracy of the Fitbit when worn on the lower wrist. I haven’t tested the Fitbit’s accuracy in this position, but the lower wrist is typically a less reliable location for optical heart rate sensors. And despite its thinness and narrowness, the Fitbit Air is quite long . I don’t find it particularly comfortable to wear it on a strap this way.
You’ll also have to give up any sensors on the back of your watch. This strap style covers the back, so you can’t wear a Fitbit and a Garmin at the same time if you want the Garmin to measure your heart rate, heart rate variability, or blood oxygen levels.
That’s quite a few caveats for such a simple modification. I wouldn’t wear my Fitbit Air this way. But if your wrist size fits the band perfectly, it’s comfortable, you don’t mind the gap if the distance between the straps is greater than 18 millimeters, and you don’t care about the maximum accuracy of your Fitbit’s heart rate sensor, then this could be a convenient way to avoid wearing a second band.