The two people who helped put step counters on millions of wrists are trying again — this time without a screen.
According to TechCrunch, Fitbit co-founders James Park and Eric Friedman have launched Luffu Link through their new startup, Luffu. Techmeme, summarizing reporting by Aisha Malik at TechCrunch, describes it as a $250, screenless, jewelry-inspired LTE health and safety band that was unveiled Tuesday and is set to ship in early 2027.
The pitch is consolidation. TechCrunch reports that Luffu Link bundles all-day health sensing, voice logging, location awareness, and the ability to summon help from trusted contacts into a single device — and, crucially, does all of it without a phone nearby.
That last detail is the whole idea. Most wearables are companions: they gather data, then lean on a paired phone to do anything useful with it. Building in LTE cuts the tether, which matters most in exactly the moments a phone tends to be absent — a run, a fall, a walk home at night. The "safety" half of the framing is doing real work here, positioning this as something closer to a personal check-in device than a fitness tracker.
The screenless, jewelry-inspired design points the same direction: something worn continuously rather than consulted constantly.
It matters because two of the people who defined the modern fitness tracker are betting the category's next act isn't more data on your wrist, but a device that can act on your behalf when your phone can't.