FitBit = Fail

Ventucky Red

Ventucky Red

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Jon
////Rant On

If you're thinking for getting a fitness tracker smart watch thingy, ole Ventucky here urges you to stay away from FitBit.

I am on my second watch with them and the customer support and service is the pits. First watch was the Ionic which was the top of the line, failed after 11 months.. they gave me a credit towards the new Versa 2 which failed after 6 months.. it has been a fight for the last two months to get them to honor the warranty as they said I abused the unit.. what the hay, they are meant to be worn and used. After a barrage of emails they finally agreed to replace the watch or are you ready for this... give me a credit towards the new Versa 3. I told that them since I bought the watch directly from them in both cases that I wanted a full refund that is the money out of pocket and the credit I was given for the first failed unit.. One would have thought I was asking for the keys to the kingdom and after some more dickering I finally said, send me the new watch... After a 2 week delivery (combination of USPS and FedEx) period that watch arrives and it is a used watch, wrapped bubble wrap in a regular padded envelope with no charger, wrist band, etc.... Unbelievable, and back on the phone we go... Their policy is to replace the unit, they don't specify if it is refurbished or new.. As I noted to them I sent back the original watch in the original box with everything included, charger, instructions etc.... as instructed.. They mentioned I could buy a new charging cable and wrist band and then changed their tune and said the would send me one. This was yesterday, I get the shipment notification today and they are anticipating a 9/9/20 delivery date from Tennessee to CA!!!!!!!!!

Seems like their watches are designed to fail when a new models comes out and they make as hard as possible to get service for their existing units.. I would recommend anything but FitBit Didn't Google buy this company?

Thanks for letting me vent...

Rant Off////
 
Fitbit? What is this, 2011? ;)
 
My first FitBit was a Charge2. It lasted about 2 years before the band just wore out. It kept coming loose and I eventually lost it. For about $150 plus tax (around $7/mo) I got a watch, a fitness tracker with reasonably accurate hear rate monitor, and a phone alerter that allowed me to keep my phone in my pocket and ringer turned off and still know when someone was trying to call me; very handy.

Now, I have a Charge3. In addition to the all the features of the -2, I can now preview text messages and push notifications without digging the phone out of my pocket. And, although this one was a gift, I believe its still the same price that the 2 was.
 
I wear a FitBit but, yes, their quality and customer service both suck big ones. I won't buy another.
 
I have an Inspire, that isn't quite inspiring, but seems OK. I got it to see how I would like a fitness tracker before I sprung for a more expensive one.
 
Fitbit is in the process of being bought by Google.

Expect lower quality and even worse support than they already had, soon.

LOL
 
I wouldn't buy another Fitbit, but I wanted something waterproof and this one is.
 
I was thinking the same thing about my Garmin vivo2. It just died after two years. I like the slim nature of it, but I don't think I can bring myself to shell out another $70 for a glorified watch...
 
I’ve got a Charge 3 as a gift last year that, while I really like a couple of the features, I probably won’t replace when it dies...the “glorified watch” thing. Based on the customer service comments here, that’s probably a wise choice for me.

Crappy customer service seems to be the “in” thing right now. I’ve had to discontinue giving my money to three different companies in the last two weeks based on their customer service.
 
The Fitbit wasn't much more than the Timex Triathlon watches I used to buy. Those would last a few years before the strap would break, or the waterproofing would not work anymore.
 
I gave up on FitBit. My first one failed (and my wife's on her third). I bought the new top of the line one as they advertised that it would have sp02 readings, etc.. I found out after buying it is they didn't support that feature and wouldn't forecast when or if they would. The rest of the software was crap. I made Amazon take it back. Went back to AppleWatch which is more useful for me.

They have no customer support whatsoever. Their standard offer if yours breaks is to offer 25% off a new one. The problem is that that's 25% off the inflated MSRP. You can buy the thing at that same price if you go to Amazon or one of the competitive retailers.
 
Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe said:
https://www.bitdefender.com/box/blo...tary-bases-exposed-soldiers-fitness-trackers/
Click to expand...
You would think the military would have banned fitness trackers and other trackers at bases, but I'm not in the military so I don't have other people's secrets to keep. I already know I can be tracked through my tech. I remember when I thought FlightAware was a little uncomfortable, even though those were not my airplanes. I was flying someone else's. I've come a long way since then in accepting things the way they are now.
 
My fitbit stopped charging after about 2 years...I feel like I got a bargain, but no way I'll ever own another one.

Fitbit might want to look up the history of Zip Drive, a "high capacity" drive for it's time. It was brilliant except that the drive would randomly crash, corrupt the disk and then corrupt every disk put into it after that. I know researchers who lost years of work this way. It was THE notorious "this is failed engineering" product of it's day.

The company's stock was under $1 in Jan 1996 and reached over $150/share around late May, only to slowly lose value and eventually be sold to EMC at $3.84/share 12 years later.

The military does control personal tech on deployment.
 
bflynn said:
The military does control personal tech on deployment.
Click to expand...
That seems like something they ought to do if they want to keep soldiers' movements secret. Or maybe they don't care, in which case the article is much ado about nothing.
 
I've no experience with FitBit's since the very first clip on-model was introduced back in 2009. My company was giving them out to employees. Little-bitty things, just over an inch long, as seen in the photo. It was a wonder of technology at the time; you could train it to your walking and running pace length, and it was quite accurate. It would count stairs climbed, and I remember spending time late one evening in my building trying to figure out how it knew NOT to count stairs if I was ascending 4 floors in the elevator while simulating stair climbing movements, but if I climbed the actual stairs in the same time the elevator ascent had taken, the count was correct. It came with a soft wrist wrap, and if you wore it at night it used time not moving as a surrogate for REM sleep and was actually a pretty good sleep tracker.

And you couldn't kill the thing. It would run for days on a charge. Mine went through the washer/drier several times. I lost it one fall while doing post-storm cleanup in heavy leaves and brush, then found it with the lawnmower 5 months later. It was dropped innumerable times, chewed by the dog, etc...and it just kept working. The durability was astounding. Sad to hear the new hardware from Fitbit doesn't measure up.

I finally lost use of mine when I had to take it off to go through airport security, and the TSA attendant I had to hand it to managed to drop it, not see it, step on it, and smash it.

011.jpg
 
So you're saying it was indestructible except by TSA screeners. Doesn't surprise me. The step and flight counting was indeed pretty good. Mine was a model with GPS as well so it did pretty good over distances. But it lasted a bit over a year before it wouldn't come on anymore (suspect the battery wasn't charging, but no way to tell for sure).
 
flyingron said:
So you're saying it was indestructible except by TSA screeners.
Click to expand...

Yep, it was idiot-proof for garden-variety idiots, but the TSA screeners are a couple of standard deviations outside the norm for that distribution.
 
Shipping it as checked luggage with United would have been another way to destroy it.

I have had good luck with Garmin watches. None of these electronic things is a Rolex that you hand to your grandson. They seem to last about as long as a cellphone.
 
Everskyward said:
That seems like something they ought to do if they want to keep soldiers' movements secret.
Click to expand...
That's why they aren't allowed in certain places.

Someone working security who's watching a perimeter will track the perimeter and show anyone with access to their data where it is and when it's being watched. Heat maps showing travel of multiple tracks to, from, or around certain areas can be useful, too. Even going out for a run can show someone various trails or other details they can't get from Google Earth.
 
Famous story (wives tale?) of a soldier in Afghanistan who took a picture of himself in his barracks and posted it to facebook so his wife could see that he was OK. The bad guys pulled it off Facebook, read the geotagging in the photo put there by the phone and within 15 minutes the fire base was under mortar attack. Yes, they are very aware of electronic signal intelligence as well as personal devices.
 
I have a 3 month old Charge 4. My frustration is the incredible, unfathomable inaccuracy.I've used a quartz-accelerometer pedometer for 4-6 years, so lots of data and known distances, validated with various GPS units. Fitbit is +-5% for steps if I'm actually walking/hiking/running.

But around the house? It's high by an average of 163%! That's shameful. I've also seen 'unexpected' results from the heart rate.

Did some recent hikes using the Fitbit GPS. One recorded a 6 mile hike as 8.2 miles, and 2,100 feet of elevation gain versus actual 800 feet. Another hike logged as 0.6 miles with 1,262 vertical gain. Gain is close, but the hike was twelve times longer!

My primary interest is tracking my sleep, which seems consistent, but accuracy unknown.

Dunno if there is a way to do a full reset of the Charge 4?
If not, I'm inclined to just wear it sleeping and use my phone for GPS tracking of distance, elevation, pace, etc. (No HR info, of course.)

Thoughts? Comments? Suggestions?
 
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