James Park and Eric Friedman, who built Fitbit into a household name before selling it to Google, opened preorders Monday for their first piece of hardware since leaving the tech giant: a $249.99 screenless wristband with cellular connectivity designed to help families coordinate care for aging parents. The device, called Luffu Link, is expected to ship in early 2027.
Link represents a bet that the exploding market for wearables can stretch beyond fitness tracking into something more emotionally fraught—the anxious arithmetic of caring for elderly relatives while managing your own household. The band extends the duo's AI-powered family health platform beyond smartphones with always-on sensors, GPS location sharing, and a button to record voice memos about medications, symptoms, or meals directly into the Luffu app. Press twice to send an "I'm okay" check-in. Hold it down to dispatch a help request with location and current health data over LTE to trusted contacts, no phone required.
The device monitors activity, steps, sleep, heart rate, heart rate variability, and breathing rate continuously. Luffu's AI learns daily patterns and flags meaningful changes over time, the company said. Battery lasts up to five days and fast-charges to 80 percent in roughly 20 minutes, according to product specifications on the company's website.
Inside the band: a built-in speaker, 4G LTE-M cellular service, onboard GPS, and Bluetooth. Water-resistant to 50 meters. Three colors available. The box includes two band sizes and a fast charger.
Link requires a Luffu Family Plan subscription launching later this year, priced at $19.99 per month for up to four members or $29.99 for up to eight. LTE service comes bundled in the hardware with the subscription; buyers won't need a separate carrier plan. The device works with Android 14 and above or iOS 18 and above, U.S. only at launch. Retail price is listed at $299.99, though the preorder discount brings it down to $249.99 for now.
Park and Friedman left Google in early 2024 after its acquisition of Fitbit and announced Luffu earlier this year as a limited beta app. Axios reported at the time the startup was self-funded, though the company has not disclosed subsequent financing.
"At Fitbit, we focused on personal health—but after Fitbit, health for me became bigger than just thinking about myself," Park said when the company launched.
The Link hardware itself was announced in late August. "We want to be in the background," Park told TechCrunch on August 25. "Link is designed to be on your wrist as a quiet guardian throughout your day."
The timing places Luffu in a suddenly crowded field of display-free wearables. Google launched Fitbit Air, its own screenless tracker, in May. Garmin announced Cirqa in July, according to coverage reviewed by TechRadar. Whoop has sold subscription-based bands without screens for years, though those target athletes and fitness enthusiasts.
Luffu's pitch is different. Families, not personal performance. The band targets what demographers call the "sandwich generation"—caregivers juggling their own households with support for older relatives, Axios reported.
"The purpose of it is to keep people healthy, safe, independent, but also connected to the people who care about them," Park told Axios Monday.
One notable omission: the help button does not dial 911, according to Luffu's FAQ page. Pressing and holding sends a voice message, GPS location, and recent health context to a user's designated contacts over LTE. Families control what data the AI processes and what relatives see, the company said in its initial announcement, which described "privacy by design."
Voice logging works by pressing the button once and speaking. The AI transcribes and logs notes, and can set reminders based on the content, such as "Take my blood pressure medication at 8 a.m.," according to TechCrunch's launch coverage.
Luffu has also opened a waitlist for a home product called Frame, billed as bringing "family intelligence" to the living room, according to a placeholder page on the company's site. No specs or timing disclosed yet. Park told Fast Company recently the Luffu system is "pretty much the command center of your family."
The company notes all tracked health data is for wellness purposes, not medical use, and that LTE features depend on U.S. cellular coverage. Product design, pricing, and ship dates remain subject to change, according to disclaimers on the preorder page.
Whether families will pay a monthly subscription for peace of mind—and whether aging parents will actually wear the thing—remains an open question. But Park and Friedman are betting there's a market somewhere between the fitness junkies and the medically monitored, a space where anxiety meets practicality and where a quiet beep on your wrist might mean everything is fine.
