Fitbit stopped syncing with Pixel or Android? Try this easy million step process!

[spaceguns]

Hopefully this helps someone else.

Initial issue - Fitbit Alta HR stopped synching to Pixel 2. Would not sync to other Pixel phones we had. Could not manually connect phone to device via Bluetooth, could not re-add the device to the phone through the app. Only feedback the app gave was "try again". This "error code" was less than useful.

Managed to resolve it through this easy million step process I figured out. I have done this a few times to make sure the steps are solid and have tried to break them down into very basic step-by-step in the hope that someone can get their device back up and running instead of needing to buy a new one. Maybe some of these steps could be skipped, etc but I will leave that to anyone who wants to tinker with it further.

First off, just remove the device form the app/account and restart it. If you're reading this I'm sure you've done that already but I want to make sure we have a clean-ish slate here.

Use Windows 10 on a computer with Bluetooth. The "process" should be able to work on a Mac device as well but the actual step by step will be different. If your computer does not have Bluetooth consider a cheap dongle or having a friend help you out before throwing down money for a new device or a new phone.

Okay, from the top starting with being ready to go on the Computer running Windows 10.

Connect device to Computer via Bluetooth

Click Windows icon in lower left
Type bluetooth
Select "Bluetooth & other devices"
There will be a toggle switch right under where it says "Bluetooth" in the right column near the top. If it does not say "On" click the switch to turn Bluetooth On.
Click "Add Bluetooth or other device"
Click "Bluetooth". It may take a few minutes for you to see all the results in your area.

---Troubleshooting not seeing your fitbit on the Bluetooth Device list.
If you do not see your watch in the results just restart everything once to troubleshoot. Your PC, turn your phone off temporarily, and restart your fitbit using these instructions.
https://help.fitbit.com/articles/en_US/Help_article/1186.htm

If you end up seeing a ton of devices then you need to go somewhere less crowded and try again. A busy location may flood you with a ton of device options and sorting out your fitbit from the 10 others in the room is beyond this troubleshooting guide.

Once you do start from the top and try again.
---

Once your device is visible

Click your watch brand (in my case Alta HR).
Click "done" once it pairs

Windows App Setup

Download the Windows Fitbit App following the link on this page
https://www.fitbit.com/setup

Install it, and log in.

Syncing/Binding the Device to your account via the Windows App

In the app in the upper right there is a small card icon, click it. This should bring you to a display where you see options on the left hand column starting with "View your profile"

Click "Set Up a Device"
Scroll and find your device, click on it
Click "Set up Your XXXX"
Click "I Agree"
Click the "next arrow"
It said it was taking a while but I just let it run for approx 1 minute
Finally get to the "We found your tracker!"
Click the "next arrow"
Enter the number on your tracker's display. There was about a 7 second delay before the display showed me the PIN. Enter the PIN shown into the windows app.
Now at the "Now, for the fun!" page.
I had to click 9 times before I got to the "Which wrist will you wear your tracker on?" page. Select your wrist and click next.
Select your preferred clock face and click next
"All Set!" Click the check mark.

You should now see the device in the upper right of the program next to the pencil icon.

Close the windows program.

Carrying it back over to your phone

Turn on Bluetooth on your phone
Open fitbit app on your phone
Click your little profile icon in the upper left.
You should not be on your Account page of the app. You should see the newly added device that you added via the Fitbit Windows application under Devices.
Click on your Device
"Getting things ready" - let it run for a minute.

There may be a red exclamation point next to "Sync" for a moment. Wait a second or hit the sync now icon.

Done

We now appear to be back in business (for now).

[Rich_Laue]

Why would someone tell Fitbit that they don't want to use a Fitbit tracker that they want to use? Especially when one already knows the app is not talking to the tracker? 

Do a quick search of. Removed tracker can not setup. 

[widevlad]

Well done spaceguns. After over a year, a charge 2 replacement, a different phone this trick has fixed the problem. I am hooked up again. Superb. Maybe the Fitbit team can learn something here. The only thing I changed was to download the Fitbit app on my win10 laptop from the Microsoft store and also restart my charge 2 by connecting it to charger and pressing button for 4 seconds. Then it was synching to phone as well as laptop.

[spaceguns]

Super glad this helped! Happy to help extend the useful life of these products. I just really, really wish if the community is going to be the ones troubleshooting this that we had access to actual logs or more useful data to help work these issues out.

What percentage of "dead, get a replacement" devices are actually falling victim to some sort of bluetooth synch issue despite their chipsets being fine. There is some type of software issue here and more open logs and error codes could help the community figure the issue out, since it seems like it's not a top issue the fitbit engineers and support are engaging the community with. To the UI/UX person who may be reading this concerned about the error codes/debugging interface intimidating customers just provide us some type of "advanced mode" or raw.

[cchdawkins]

Many thanks for this. Very useful. I can't see why people are complaining so much if the problem can be fixed so easily, less than half an hour, and it's only needed twice a day. 

[spaceguns]

I know, right? There is some problem on fitbit's end with how they handle bluetooth.

Tip as a lesson learned. Not 100% on this but REMOVE the fitbit from windows bluetooth devices at the end. The PC bluetooth may interfere with the device by trying to passively connect with it instead of the phone after.

I'm still tinkering with it as my wife's device has issues, but the bottom line is that there is some bluetooth/software in fitbit bug causing these issues and not a hardware failure or an issue with your phones.

[widevlad]

yes as soon as i had linked up the phone (with the laptop off) i wanted to change the default menu items on the phone.  From the phone app it didn't seem to be responsive (it turned out to be a time lag! as it picked up the changes later).  When I turned laptop on again; and had watch, phone and laptop all in close proximity I had a conflict reported on the laptop app saying that the fitbit unit was assigned to another device (i.e. the phone) turning off bluetooth on the laptop sorted that out.  when I need it back on for headphones I'll disconnect charge 2 from laptop bluetooth manually so there is no conflict.  I was hoping to get to the position where  charge2 > bluetooth > phone > wifi > updates app > laptop uses wifi to access app data.  Think this is how it could all connects. but at moment with bluetooth on laptop switched off I get no data on the app at all.  So need to find the route to see data on the app with no assigned devices.  After all the app should be assigned to an account not a device???

 BTW I should have said the phone in question was a Motorola, then a Nokia 5 now a Nokia 3.2.

[spaceguns]

May be able to fix that by removing the fitbit from Windows Bluetooth. It should prevent the prevent it from continuing to pair with the computer, but you would need to repair it using the above steps if you needed to run this fix again.

With bluetooth on.

Hit the windows icon in the lower left

Type "bluetooth"

Select "Bluetooth & other devices"

Scroll down to "Other Devices"

If you see your fitbit click on it then click "Remove"

[widevlad]

All was good but no updated data on laptop whilst laptop bluetooth was off.

Daren't remove the connected device from the windows app in case it undoes all the good-work so far in connecting with the phone.  So now have:  Laptop bluetooth on > remove Charge2 device > laptop bluetooth off (for now).  

Now lost synch connection to phone!!!  so removing device from laptop bluetooth has removed it from the account which causes phone sync to fail again!!  Goodness knows how Fitbit have designed the connectivity logic in their accounts and device software.  The bluetooth connection data with the laptop is influencing the bluetooth connection to the phone - - - totally confused.

[widevlad]

update:

forgot about the timelag ::::   phone app now fine after switching app on and off again.  It went through a bit of a sync hiccup after disconnecting charge2 from windows bluetooth system!!!!   So now have bluetooth phone connection fine with a windows app with no data.

[spaceguns]

Weird. I just tested this out on my system.

Earlier I manually removed fitbit from bluetooth pairing on Windows as above.

Just opened the Fitbit app on my Windows machine. Everything synched up with what I'm assuming was my wife's earlier synch to her phone, I noted the stepcount. Checked and the fitbit is not currently paired with Windows. It shows data through today.

Just had my wife synch her fitbit via her phone. It worked successfully.

On windows in the fitbit app I clicked the fitbit device icon and asked it to synch. Connection failed because it was looking for the device and tried to go into the pairing menu.

Closed the fitbit app. Went into task manager and watched it for a minute until it fully quit.

Reopened the fitbit app in Windows, it shows the updated stepcount from the synch my wife did on her phone a moment ago. Then it went into "trying to find the device" pairing mode.

So data synch on the windows app is App Open -> Data from fitbit servers -> Then attempt a device pair and synch.

Maybe try removing from Windows with the fitbit app closed. The bluetooth connection to your phone and to your computer should be entirely independent unless the fitbit Windows app is mucking with it somehow. So close the Windows app before dumping it from the Bluetooth connections.

Serious question - anyone else think it may be worth pinging some of the actual fitbit firmware engineers over this via other channels? We may be playing community whackamole with this stuff but I don't see a way to formally report bugs like this.

Edit - Glad to see yours is working fine. Still I would love to see a bug tracker. Makes me feel these things are acknowledged and actively being worked on as open issues.

[PeeveP]

and it only cost $150!!

[Danny2112]

This is exactly what fixed my Charge 2 (the mobile app wouldn't get past the pin screen). Thank you so much for suggesting this.