No Fitbit Notifications on Phone and Watch

[SunsetRunner]

Hello

I got a new phone (Pixel 8 Pro) and watch (Pixel Watch 2) and I am using Fitbit for the first time, coming from Samsung devices and Samsung Health App.

I have some issues related to Fitbit notifications and don't know what to do. I am using Fitbit now for about 3 weeks but I did not get a single notification so far, neither on phone nor watch. As an example, I have auto-detect exercises switched on. When I go into the Fitbit App, it shows my recent walking and mountain biking. So the detection works, but I don't get a notification when the activity gets detected nor when it ends. It also does not show low battery, step goal progress or any other options that I can select in the notification setting.

My settings on phone

• Fitbit App - Fitbit settings - App settings - Push notifications / Email notifications: Everything is turned on
• Press and hold on Fitbin App Icon - App Information - Notifications: Everything is turned on. (The App info tells me "About 0 notifications per week")
• Watch app - Notifications - Watch apps / Phone apps: Fitbit is enabled

My settings on watch

• Fitbit exercise - All exercise - Walk - Settings: Start/End workout reminders turned on
• General Settings - Apps and notifications - Notifications - Show all - Fitbit: All notification settings and categories turned on

My actions so far

• checking all notification related settings on phone and watch and turned on everything I can find
• clear app data and cache from fitbit app on phone
• re-installing fitbit app on phone
• re-connecting watch with phone
• factory reset the watch

I also found the following thread which seems to have the same problem but no solution: https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Android-App/No-Fitbit-notifications-on-Android/td-p/5577886

I am happy for any help.

Best regards

Max

[RiekoC]

Hello @SunsetRunner 

I've been using the Pixel Watch 2 since it was released last year. I don't see the push notifications too often on my watch:

• Since my normal usage doesn't drop my battery to the level that would trigger a low battery notification, I don't have experience with that one. I think this is supposed to trigger when your battery is less than 20%
• I don't usually use Auto track for my exercises. I think I've seen my watch asked me once if I was doing a walk, even though it has auto-detected & tracked a walk more than once.
• I get a notification when I complete my daily step goal. But no notification for progress. This used to have specific percentage goal notifications, but maybe it's been changed to only completing daily step goal.
• New sleep insights I believe is the monthly sleep animal, which I get on the first day of the month
• I have seen exercise goal progress, telling me that I've almost completed my weekly exercise goal, when I complete it, and when I've exceeded my goal.
• I have seen notification for new badges. These don't occur very often.
• I do see Cheers & taunts as well as social feed from friends. Again, this doesn't happen very often as I only have a couple of Fitbit friends. I turned off Family activity since no one in my family uses Fitbit.

Under Email notifications:

• Don't see Low battery, already explained
• New badges is turned off. It's enough for me to get the push notifications.
• I've gotten notifications for friend requests & private messages
• Family activity turned off
• I get the Weekly summary email which gives me an overview of how I did & compares it to the previous week

I'm not sure what else you can do about your notifications since you've pretty done the recommended troubleshooting.

Is there a notification that you think is essential that you're not getting?

[SunsetRunner]

Hello @RiekoC 

Thank you for your reply. Over the last weekend I met some friends who also use Fitbit with Pixel Watch. They have the opposite problem of me, they get so many notifications and they try to turn them off lol

---

Is there a notification that you think is essential that you're not getting?

I use the Watch and App mostly for activity tracking. For me it is very annoying that I have to go into the App on my phone manually after each walk or bike-ride to see if it was detected, or to check if an activity was falsely detected. Also, you mentioned that you get weekly summaries with comparisons from previous weeks - I did not even know that it provides that feature, I would love to have that too. Is it maybe a premium feature?

Update: Last Sunday I've got my first email notification about a badge that I've earned. However, still no push-notifications on phone or watch at all. And beside badge notification, no other email notifications

[RiekoC]

Hi @SunsetRunner 

I'm pretty sure the weekly summary isn't a premium feature. Not sure why you're not seeing it. I usually get mine in my email late Monday/early Tuesday. Have you checked your junk folder for it?

Although it's a nice feature when it works, I don't rely on Auto-detect for my workouts. I have the Fitbit Exercise tile on my watch and use it to manually start & stop my workouts. Tracking my workouts this way is more reliable. I like being able to look at the display on my watch to see my workout metrics. It's also easy to customize the settings for each type of workout using this tile. You can also set up which metrics display on the watch during your workout.

There's a Recent Activity tile that you can add to your watch that will show your last workout along with the time. That way you don't have to go to the app to see if your workout session was detected/tracked.

At least you got a Badge notification in your email, so that confirms your email is correct.

Although I'm not sure that this will work to resolve your notification issue considering you've done most of this during your troubleshooting, this is what I would try:

• Confirm Fitbit app is up to date on phone & watch
• Turn off all notifications
• On your phone, clear the cache for the Fitbit app
• Turn the notifications back on
• Restart the watch

Got my fingers crossed that this will work for you.

[SunsetRunner]

Hello @RiekoC 

Thank you for your reply. I checked spam folder but there is nothing inside.

I will try the recommended troubleshooting later after I get home from work. In the meanwhile, I made some screenshots from my settings. In google play store, its says there is no update available and it is up to date. I also had a connection issue with my phone and watch yesterday, so I had to factory rest the watch again. It let me wonder if all issues are coming from the Pixel devices and not from the Fitbit App itself.

I go for about 4 walks every day and use my bike to get to work. It would be very annoying for me when I have to think about starting a workout on the watch every time before that. And the auto-detect feature works very well for me, just sometimes it recognizes a walk falsely. That's why I would really like the notification. As a summary of the activity and to detect wrong/missing activities without checking everything manually. For the "Recent Activity" Tile, I am pretty sure that it did not show auto-detected activities there for me, just manually started activities. But I will check that later again.

[RiekoC]

Hi @SunsetRunner 

Thanks for sharing your screenshots. With a few exceptions, that matches what I have for my Fitbit app notifications on my Pixel 8 apps and notifications in the Fitbit app.

It could be that your notifications will work after the factory reset.

FWIW, I had to do a factory reset on my Pixel Watch yesterday for a different issue. I cleared both the storage & cache for the Fitbit app on my phone before I did the factory reset. So far, this seems to have worked for me. I haven't see a re-occurrence of my issue, but time will tell.

Glad to see your post in the Pixel Watch forum. It's good to explore all possible options. Someone else might have additional troubleshooting steps to try.

You might want to add your screenshots to your post in the Pixel Watch forum, too. It helps to have as much info as possible when we're trying to help troubleshoot.

[SunsetRunner]

Hi @RiekoC 

Yesterday I factory reset my phone and watch again. Right after that, I got an email notification about the weekly activity summary that you have mentioned before. In addition to the badge email notification that I have received, it seems like the mail notification is working now. Still no push notifications at all though.

When I opened the Google Watch App after the factory reset, it says that Google Play Services needs to be updated. There I noticed, that Google Play Services might not be installed on the Google Watch. I can not update it, I have tried with 2 different WIFI connections. It says "Check that the device has a network connection" always. I do not now if Google Play Service is required to run on the App. I will ask that in the Pixel Watch Forum.

[RiekoC]

Hi @SunsetRunner 

I'm glad that you finally got a weekly summary. It does sound like your email notifications are working.

As for push notifications, there aren't that many that I get routinely other than completing my daily step goal. Just to let you know, the push notifications tend to appear briefly. There are times when I get a vibration for a push notification and if I don't check quick enough, I'll miss it. 

Sorry to see that you're having issues with installing Google Play services on your watch. I don't think that impacts the Fitbit notifications. Still, it should be working. Hope someone in the Watch forum has some insight on how to fix it. 🤞

[SunsetRunner]

Hi @RiekoC 

Yesterday I created a new google/fitbit account to see if that solves the problem. I got out for cycling, but no notifications (even though the workout was auto-detected within the app). In the evening, I also walked to the supermarket and surprisingly I've got my first push notification from an auto-detected activity (see picture). This is exactly the kind of notification that I wish for. So in general, the notification and the communication of the devices seems to work.

As for now, it is and was the only notification that I've got. Cycling and walking from today was detected but not notified. I changed everything back to my original account.

I am also in contact with google support since I do not get notifications or automated app updates from the play store. Maybe the problems are related and has something to do with my google account. I will keep you up to date. Cheers and thank you so far.

[RiekoC]

Hi @SunsetRunner 

Thanks for the update. Glad to see that you're seeing Fitbit notifications. BTW, nice watch band. 😁 👍

Sorry to see that the issues with Google Play store is still in progress. Hope they can help you get everything straighten out. 

I'll be keeping watch for your updates or additional questions. 

Thank you for your patience as we worked together on your Fitbit notification issues.