Fitbit’s founders are betting that the next meaningful wearable will not chase workout records. It will quietly help families care for older relatives without making them feel surveilled.

Luffu, the startup founded by former Fitbit leaders James Park and Eric Friedman, has opened preorders for Luffu Link, a screenless LTE health-and-safety band expected to ship in early 2027. The device combines activity and sleep tracking with heart-rate and breathing data, GPS location awareness, voice notes and an emergency-help function that works without a nearby phone.¹

The company’s model is deliberately broader than a conventional fitness tracker. A wearer can press the band’s button to log a medication, symptom, meal or mood update; Luffu’s app then uses AI to organize those observations alongside health data and flag changes for the family. Park says the aim is not another stream of charts, but answers to questions such as: “what changed? Does it matter? Does somebody need to know?”¹

That promise rests on a delicate balance. Luffu says families control what is shared with its AI and with relatives, while the band can send location, battery level and recent health information with a spoken request for help. A double press can also simply signal that everything is fine.²

Park frames the device as a way to preserve autonomy as much as improve oversight. “The purpose of it is to keep people healthy, safe, independent, but also connected to the people who care about them,” he said.² The company’s other account of the product makes the same case: a quiet, jewelry-inspired guardian rather than an overt emergency pendant or another dashboard.¹

Luffu lists Link at roughly $300, with preorder pricing around $250; one report says the service requires a $20 monthly family plan covering up to four people, even though cellular connectivity itself carries no separate carrier charge.² The founders are also teasing a home-screen device, suggesting the wristband is intended as the first piece of a wider family-care system.¹