All-day sync option removed from the app

[Jessiej]

Hi,

I have the Fitbit adidas ionic & a samsung galaxy s10e phone & since a fitbit update, I've noticed that the fitbit app is on all day sync but the button to switch it off has disappeared! I've logged into my profile to see if there is an option in there but no joy! I don't want all day sync on as it drains the battery! Anyone know how I turn it off?

Thanks in advance!

Jess

Moderator edit: subject for clarity

[Aereolis]

I was wondering what happened to my alta hr.... I went from charging it every 4-5 days to every 36 hours!  I charged it yesterday, reaching full charge at 5pm, and today at 9pm I got a notification that the battery is low @25%! I've deleted the saved Bluetooth profile, but don't think that will help much.... What's the point in having a fitness tracker that's advertised to last 7+ days, if it lasts a day? I've been extremely happy with my alta hr up till this just happened.

I understand that you are trying to drive less calls to your call centers, and get less emails about devices not syncing, but this is not the way to do it. The (my) alta hr is not old by any means, it's 1.75 years old. Some quality control is in order before releasing updates. 

You can surely do something to enable the feature in the menu when user has certain devices which are impacted, or all. 

I checked the recommendations about saving battery life, none of that really applies to the alta hr. How do I go from charging it once a week, to once a day, and this is considered a fair improvement? Somebody needs to reevaluate the times the devices last before making major changes such as this.

Most concerning is the option for enable /disable continuous all day synching is gone as well now. That feature really killed the battery in my alta hr when I tried it, in fact, I would get about the same battery life when that feature enabled as I do now. The other settings I had them enabled, but continuous synching disabled. 

[jillnicesteppin]

I'm having this same issue and it's super annoying. I like to be able to look at my app when I'm exercising and see my running step count and current heart rate. Please fix this!

[Jessiej]

Lots of you out there seem just as annoyed as me & quite rightly so! What I don't understand is they have left the button on the app to turn on & off for iPhone!! 🤔

[jillnicesteppin]

Hi Jessie- My all day sync button disappeared either yesterday or today on my iPhone 8 Fitbit app. 😞

[Jessiej]

Oh dear! It was there for a long time from when they took it off of android users as my friend has an iPhone. I asked her yesterday if it was still on there & she said that it was yesterday or the day before as she had to go in & switch it off.

[Mammazuk]

I have been reading the complaints about the all say sync draining the battery and wondered why I was not having the same issue. I don't check the app that often. I checked today and found it had not synced since May 29th when I had to do it manually with several tries because it was not automatically syncing. My husband has been having the same issue. I just manually did it again and it took 4 tries lasting 10 minutes to get it to sync. I also have it set up to sync with my Weight Watchers app and have been doing this manually and find that it doesn't even transmit correctly. It is either way less steps or shows no steps at all on some days. Very discouraging. It is pretty sad when I have to say I might be lucky the all day sync button doesn't work so at least it doesn't drain my battery.Sent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy smartphone

[Aereolis]

Deleting the Bluetooth profile doesn't help.

I refuse to disable Bluetooth entirely because of poorly thought out processes and procedures - unless I hear that this is a temporary fix, and the continuous synching (more accurate - in pretty sure the app said before it used more battery, or was explained on a website somewhere)  will be disabled, or the radio button/toggle will be returned. 

[DStap]

Dear LiliyaFitBit, I suggest that you escalate this "all day sync" battery drain issue as high and as quickly as possible. Your organisation really damages its reputation by making these arbitrary and unwarranted changes and destroys faith in your hardware and software. Your NPS is dropping fast.

Please confirm that you will require the all day sync choice to be re-instated, on behalf of your thousands and thousands of customers

Moderator Edit: Formatting

Moderator Edit: Word choice - Promoting

[MishPoshPit]

I’m so glad I found this I was losing my mind. I babbled something nonsensical into Google and found your post🤗  But ....That’s weird because it’s July/20 and this post is March/20....anyway, got my charge 4 a month ago.  That toggle option was there for the first week once I linked it. I turned it off and on a few times to see if it made a difference in the battery..then POOF! 👻 I’ve been going BONKERS!!! And the worst part is that according to your explanation it should be constantly syncing, however, mine only syncs when I open the app! Can u explain that ?🤯🤪🤣

[MishPoshPit]

Holy cow! I have a charge 4 & it’s been a nightmare! I took your advice and when I checked all the apps it now says that the Is uninstalled!!! Fingers crossed thanks for your help! I guess we’ll see if it takes it away again! Thanks so much!!!

[LL10]

I am sorry but what Fitbit is proposing in not acceptable!

Turn off this turn off that and you'll be fine!??

Turn off the screen. Turn off GPS. Turn off notifications. Don't play music.

Don't turn your wrist too much.??

Really!? Listen carefully what everyone is telling you: the watch battery is draining 20 times faster since the last update. We changed NOTHING in our settings. So it is the d.. Sync All The Time that has been updated and draining power. It is not acceptable to ask us to turn off things otherwise the watch is unusable for what we paid good money for. Do what's needed and fast. This is already my fourth Ionic in 3 years. It's always one issue or another. Replace the watch, pay some more money! always some BS. Come on!!!

[Mammazuk]

Sorry I still have no clue. Mine isn't syncing unless I open the app and manually sync it. Even then it takes several tries and a lot of time, if at all. Sometimes I give up and try again and again later and it finally syncs. Not much help from fitbit. They finally responded to my post weeks after I posted to it. They just directed me to one of their self help postings that are not helpful. I sure miss the old days when you could call a company, speak to a live person who actually knows something and can help fix your problem quickly. Now they sell you something and expect you to spend your own time (and lots of it) to try and find a fix for a problem they created. Poor customer service.😖Sent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy smartphone

[MishPoshPit]

🤬😢 bummer to hear. I’ve never tried contacting them before. Well thank goodness for these communities! Thanks for writing.

[Kiwifox]

When I first got a Fitbit the all day sync noticeably drained my phone battery and the solution was to turn it off. I understand that you guys would recommend all day sync for updates and such, but I'm having negative results from it and the only way I can fix it is to turn off my Bluetooth. Seems pretty awful that I have to disable a feature on my phone because you decided to remove an option from your app. It should be my choice of I want to be the most up to date, or if I think it's better to not have to charge my phone multiple times a day.

[rick_se]

I use a Fitbit zip, which uses a coin-type battery (CR-2025).  It is advertised to run for 4-6 months on a battery, but it is only lasting 2 weeks at this point.  I suspect that this is due to auto-syncing all day, but of course I'm not 100% sure.

I had this problem a year or to ago (with a zip) and at the time was able to fix it by turning off the "all-day sync" option in the app.  That was a fine compromise as far as I was concerned.  But now that option is gone.

So while I can't really be certain that it is some kind of bluetooth all-day polling/syncing that is causing rapid battery drain, it really exhibits the same symptoms I had before when that was the cause.  And of course, since I'm using a zip which doesn't have a rechargeable battery internal to it, the quick battery drain is actually going to cost me in battery purchases rather than annoyance at having to recharge more often.

I'd definitely ask that support folks escalate this specific case at least to development management because zip users seemingly have no recourse - we can't just charge up a little more often.  Maybe reenable the option in the app?  Maybe only for zips and/or any other fitbits that use disposable batteries?

[jimmyrose]

Exactly my experience. Last time I had issues, turning this off fixed the problem. Now it's not there. 

Of course the problem might have been something else in the update, but clearly enough people are experiencing battery drain that something has been messed up. 

I'm down to about 24 hours

[SunsetRunner]

All day sync is killing the battery on my Ionic. Usually I can go a week with charging and now it’s every other day. Annoying to say the least and frustrating that my step count is no longer accurate since I have to charge so much. 

[Aereolis]

My issue hasn't been the all-day sync it seems.  When I first go the fitbit alta HR i turned on all the setting in the menu to see how it did.  The battery was lasting like two days!  I had turned all the features off I had turned on, and found that it only synced whenever i went into the app and it synced on it's own, or i manually synced it.  So i went online and did some reading.  The all day sync will periodically synchronize with your phone throughout the day - in my experience only a few times a day - and i do mean a few times a day as often the data would not be updated in the app for hours at a time.  The setting "Always Connected" will leave the fitbit connected always, improving data reliability, at a cost of battery life to your fitbit and your phone - so that it will be accurate every single time you open the app.

I had tried the "always connected" and indeed it killed the battery on my fitbit at 2-3x the rate of having it off.

One thing many of you may be having are issues with your newer versions of android putting the fitbit application to sleep so that it doesn't periodically connect to your fitbit to synchronize data.  It needs to be in an exemption list on your phone so that android doesn't put it to sleep.

Alternatively leaving the application open, just sitting there, with your phone screen on for a minute or two & less than 5 minutes, with the fitibit beside it will sync it 99% of the time.

[Steve_KJ]

As several others have mentioned, I am another who didn't mind having the all-day sync switched on, and haven't had noticeable battery problems (although the battery life on my 3 year old charge 2 has decreased, I have put this down to age related wear and tear on the battery itself). My concern is that my device does not 'periodically sync' as stated, but will now only sync when I manually do it (and usually only at the third or fourth attempt.

Clearly something isn't working properly for so many users to have these problems, and responding to people reporting problems by simply stating that these problems shouldn't happen is in no way helpful.

Since I first got my Charge 2 a few years ago I have found that it helped me with my ambition to become more physically active, and as someone who is now a regular runner I have been considering an upgrade for some time; however, from what I have seen on this thread, the likelihood is that this will almost certainly NOT be another Fitbit. Shame. It was fun while it lasted. I guess you used that variant on the old adage: "if it ain't broke, 'improve' it until it is"

[Amber_H]

I am another person annoyed by this feature being removed/altered.

I have a Fitbit Blaze. It would normally last me anywhere from 3 to 5 days. I also DID have the always connected on during this time. I noticed in the last month, my Blaze has been having a hard time keeping a charge for more than 24 hours now. I will not hear the excuse "it shouldn't effect your battery life" because based on the feedback provided here and also my own personal experience, that is complete bogus. There is evidence and proof all over that removing control of the feature and also altering the setting itself has lead to significant battery drain to the Fitbit and/or phone.

Why? Because constantly searching for the bluetooth signal is like roaming in a sense is the best way to put it. If you go out somewhere where there is little to no cell signal for your phone, it drains the battery of the phone very quickly. This is what I believe is happening to our Fitbits now that they are required to connect constantly.

Also, anyone else remember the warning when turning on "Always connected?" I sure do. It warned us as follows: "Note that turning on this feature may cause the battery on your device to drain more quickly than normal."