Access to account's charts from mobile phone?

[dmitri8]

I'm unable to see the graphs for daily steps, for me or any of my Fitbit "Friends", online on my mobile device. It is one of Verizon's top-of-the-line phones (Droid Turbo 2), and the reason I'm not seeing the charts is that Adobe Flash is needed for them:

"You are seeing this because you don't have Adobe Flash plugin installed. Get Adobe Flash to view this graph."

Clicking on the link takes me to the Adobe site which says this:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7zi594MsaKeZjQ2OV9XTXZrZkE/view?usp=docslist_api

(In case the link doesn't work:
"We're Sorry

This content requires Adobe Flash Player, which is not supported by your device. This content can be viewed on a desktop computer or on mobile devices that support Flash Player.

Copyright © 2015 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved.")

Same results/behavior with my previous phones, and nobody I know with a mobile phone (whether Android or Apple) can see those charts.

This "feature request" started in Feb 2014:
https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Feature-Requests/Get-rid-of-Flash-from-the-web-site/idi-p/134271

There has been no official comment/response to it in more than two years.

I now realize that this should no longer be considered a "feature request", but a "bug report", for the following reasons:

- it appears impossible to use some of the most essential parts of fitbit.com on a mobile device;

- this technology (Flash) has been officially dead for years;

- Adobe itself (the creator of the technology, no less) dropped support for it and suggested that HTML5 be used for mobile media development;

- the rewrite of those sections of the website to use technologies alternative to Flash is a fairly simple and easy task (I'm saying this as a software developer with 30+ years of experience).

So I'm asking here, if anyone else is having this problem and how they're dealing with it.

I'm also asking a Fitbit representative to express the company's official stand on this extremely annoying issue that seems to have been continuously ignored, for years.

And if there is some workaround for this problem, please post it here.

Thank you

Moderator edit: format

[JuanJoFitbit]

@dmitri8 It's great to see you in the Community! I'm sorry to hear that your Dashboard can be viewed due to the requirement of Adobe Flash. Your post caught my attention since it has no response. I'd like to know if your phone shows your stats' charts now, if not let me know and I'll be around to assist you further.

Looking forward to your response my friend! 

[dmitri8]

No it does not, as your website still requires Adobe Flash on that page (at least). Do you have a smartphone? Go to this URL: https://www.fitbit.com/user/2GF2SQ -- can you see any graphs there?

[dmitri8]

P.S. thanks for the response anyway; better late than never. So, anything else to say on this at all? (Or should I prepare to wait another 3 months for the next reply?)

[RobertoME]

Hello @dmitri8, I must say first excuse us for not having a recent update about your inquiry. I've seen my friend @JuanJoFitbit was assisting you. Hope you don't mind if I post my insight about this issue.

I would like to know if you are seeing your charts through the phones's browser? If this is the case, keep in mind some websites as is Fitbit uses Flash player script to run the website and even if is a high end phone, it does not have the capability to run these scripts, since the most common is Java. With the mobile app is not required, Flash script so it should not give you this issue. Otherwise it will be required to use a computer to visualize correctly the charts.

With the link you kindly shared, I can see perfectly the information, because I'm seeing your post using my computer. Perhaps you can share a screenshot to have a better understanding of this issue? If you need more help to do this use this link: http://www.take-a-screenshot.org/

Hope this helps and keep me updated, I'll be around.

[dmitri8]

The reason that I have to view those charts via browser is because the app only shows my charts/step history -- I can't view my friends' or other people's steps in your mobile app. That page (link I posted earlier) has this one chart, titled "30 day graph of time active (in hours)", that doesn't seem to be available in your app, which makes it impossible to view on a mobile device.

Getting rid of flash/rewriting that chart in HTML/JavaScript would solve the problem. Flash is a dead technology. See the many posts on this thread: https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Feature-Requests/Get-rid-of-Flash-from-the-web-site/idi-p/134271

[RobertoME]

Hi @dmitri8, thank you for getting back to me and I understand why you use the browser of your phone. Indeed the app does not show this information.

I'm agree with you about Flash scripts; some websites still use this script yet, but nowadays is more easy to run a site using Java script as it has wider applications allowing to visualise content on mobile platforms.

I feel bad that at the moment is not possible to offer you a prompt solution, but I will share your feedback and the idea you posted with our teams. Its a good start that this request is in the feature request board, since the product team constantly looks forward to reading and incorporating your suggestions into future versions of Fitbit trackers and apps.

See you around and keep me posted if you have more questions.

[Incognito]

You know what, you can probably forget fixing your website for mobile, but instead fix your mobile app so that it can show all the same information that can be accessed via the web dashboard.  

[dmitri8]

Yeah that would certainly work as well -- at least for me and probably most others, although it seems there are many people out there who visit fitbit.com on PCs and Macs to get that data.

On another note, I'm not sure the app can ever do everything the website does, nor does it need to.  Also it's a lot easier IMO to rewrite a few charts in HTML/CSS/JS instead of Flash, than to develop a bunch of new functionality for the mobile apps.

[dmitri8]

Thank you @RobertoME

Just wanted to note one thing, re. this:

---

@RobertoME wrote:

Its a good start that this request is in the feature request board, since the product team constantly looks forward to reading and incorporating your suggestions into future versions of Fitbit trackers and apps.

---

It's all good and well, but that thread (that "feature request") started two and a half years ago!

That's some awfully long time to be "looking forward to reading and incorporating suggestions"... 

[snjena54]

The stat chart is visible. But my phone is not able to update/ synchronise since Sunday 8.16pm.Need your help. Mine is motoG,2nd gen android version 6.0.

[RobertoME]

Hi there @dmitri8, yes I know some ideas are been suggested long time ago, specially this type of requests that is slightly technical. But rest assure that this does not mean is going unaware. As soon I got any update I will keep you posted.

Welcome aboard @snjena54, if the issue still persist and your tracker is not syncing, I recommend the post of @SunsetRunner. You will find the steps for troubleshoot syncing issues with Android devices.

Let me know how it goes.

[reg.a]

Any updates in this issue?

[dmitri8]

reg.a wrote:

Any updates in this issue?

---

Meh, it's only been a little over one Earth year...  Fitbit's product managers operate in Jupiter years. 🙂

[dmitri8]

So, almost a year-and-a-half later... I still can't see the charts on the main Account page (https://www.fitbit.com/user/2GF2SQ) -- getting "you need Flash" warnings instead.

Any movement on this, @RobertoME?

Thanks

[reg.a]

Hi, 

As a workaround, I installed Puffin Browser app in my phone. This has built-in flash player, unlike other mobile browsers so i can view the charts on my phone now 🙂

[dmitri8]

Yeah there are ways around it -- I just prefer to have one browser app for everything. I used to have Dolphin for a while (which supported Flash, not sure if they still do), but it wasn't working as well for some other sites, and its UI was "busier" than Chrome's, so I went with Chrome years ago and never looked back.

I just can't talk myself into having a separate browser app installed just to see one page on one site... Especially a site that seems to refuse to solve the problem it has.

I'll check out Puffin (thanks), maybe it's as good as Chrome in all other respects and I can just switch to it.

The bottom line though, is that Fitbit has a problem they need to solve here.

[reg.a]

Yes, I agree. Fitbit really needs to improve its mobile app especially most of the population now uses smart phones more than PCs.

[RobertoME]

Hi there @dmitri8 and welcome aboard to the Fitbit Community @reg.a. My apologies since has not been much to inform about your concerns and I understand it is taking a longer time to have this updates. I agree with you @reg.a and @dmitri8, now that a increasing number of people use smartphones instead of computers, it is important to optimized the web-dashboard and the Fitbit app and rest assure we are constantly working to improve the Fitbit experience.

Recently the suggestion you shared before @dmitri8 has been updated back in December; mentioning "We are gradually reducing Flash on the site and as elements of the dashboard are redesigned, there will be less and less as time goes on"

Once again thank you for all your comments and feedback.