@AZRobJr, like @JohnnyRow , you were unlucky to start your "serious exercising" when Fitbit experienced serious technical issues. From my experience, this isn't normal and it isn't happening often so you might try to see how things work when the problem is solved. I use multiple platforms and every platform experiences serious issues from time to time. Usually, from the user's perspective, all that it's needed is to be patient and wait until things go back to normal.
"Yesterday I started doing serious exercise with tracking. Getting up at 5:30 am and getting out! " - I like this sentence as this tells me I'm not doing "serious exercise", for me 5:30am is the middle of the night 🤣 Jokes aside, you should properly define "serious". Fitbit may be enough until you reach a certain level when it stops delivering what you need. I've been there. Starting from Charge 2, during my weight loss I started doing indoor cycling (back then I was too heavy to run) and didn't care much about other metrics but calories. Weeks passed, and I started slowly getting into running and again, in the beginning, it was enough (HR, pace, distance). It was already what I could call a "serious exercise" but the data I collected didn't serve any other purpose to me (still, mostly I was focusing on calories and didn't follow any training regime). Then, I switched to Ionic already doing long-distance running. Being past my weight-loss journey I got involved with other sports like rock climbing, outdoor cycling, and callisthenics. This is where Fitbit stopped being fit for my purpose (steps, calories and active minutes were not important metrics anymore). It took one year to migrate from Charge 2 to Ionic and then upgrade to a different brand (Suunto) six months later. This is when I started looking into data for training purposes and needed a chest strap (accurate and no-lag HR), cycling sensors (speed/cadence, distance without GPS) and started running with a Stryd pod etc. Fitbit ecosystem wasn't enough anymore for many reasons (it hasn't changed until now).
Exercise data serves no real purpose in the Fitbit platform. It's just there but using it for training (or "serious exercise") isn't working. There is no way to compare activities, aggregate by type, and track progress. I'm not able to compare my activities, search by metrics, or even simply search for a specific activity. If I want to find an activity in Fitbit, first I need to open a Garmin account (I track here and there so dates match) and find it using the calendar feature so I know the date and with a workaround of altering Fitbit Dashboard URL jump to that day to extract activity - major chore. Scrolling through activities in the app or Dashboard to find the one isn't an option. Same, when looking at data, you can't analyse only sections of exercise or overlay data (for example, pace, elevation and HR on one chart etc.). This makes Fitbit not suitable for workout analysis purposes.
Fitbit has no way of connecting external sensors which is a major issue for me. I use multiple sensors (now I'm thinking to get AR goggles for swimming) and Fitbit can't connect to any of them. For cycling, I use a power meter, speed, cadence, hr and sometimes a bike computer as an extended display for my watch, and for indoor sessions, I use the smart trainer (the watch can control resistance). When I run, I use HR, Stryd pod and temperature sensor. For now, I only use an external HR sensor when I swim, but I'm thinking of getting AR goggles to see structured workout details and metrics when in water. I can do all of it with my current watch, can't do any of it with Fitbit.
Fitbit doesn't provide any training facilities. Yes, it does have some video workouts but it's not what I mean (and trying out some running workouts I find them rather poor anyway). What I'm talking about is a feature called "structured workouts" or "structured intervals" when you have a complex workout uploaded to your watch and while running or doing any other structured activity the watch is guiding you. There is an "Interval Workout" on Fitbit but it's a far cry from what's needed in structured training. The feature includes training plans and being able to upload workouts into the watch from other third-party services like TrainingPeaks or Final Surge. After I switched to Suunto I found out that this feature has been taken away from the platform (with the death of MovesCount) and was never coming back. I haven't experienced it because I joined after that (and back then I didn't even know how awesome structured workouts are). Eventually, I needed that feature too so I switched to Garmin a year later because now Suunto wasn't enough (and I didn't like I'd needed to use speed/cadence as a single sensor on my bike rather than using two separate sensors but when buying Suunto I didn't think about it).
Eventually, I moved to Garmin Fenix 6 Pro, and now Fenix 7 but I use most of the features of that platform, and it supports my training very well in all areas: running, cycling and swimming (you can use structured workouts for all of them and now I find it particularly effective when swimming as I'm training for my first triathlon).
I'm also a "data nerd" but data is as good as our understanding of it 🙂 It's nice to have a million charts and complex analyses but what matters is whether we understand it and are able to use it in training. This is what for me is "serious exercising" when you understand what you're doing and support your decisions with the data you collect.
So for me, it wasn't a glitch that caused the saying "I'm done, gonna jump ships" but a longer process that was more driven by increasing needs and the Fitbit platform not going in the same direction as I was. Fitbit watches aren't sports watches. They are fitness trackers with very basic sports tracking and that part of functionality was never a priority for Fitbit.
It doesn't matter what platform you use as long as it ticks most of the boxes for you.
Platinum Fitbit Product Experts share support knowledge on the forums and advocate for the betterment of Fitbit products and services. Learn more
Best Answer
Gold Fitbit Product Experts share support knowledge on the forums and advocate for the betterment of Fitbit products and services. Learn more
