Persist notifications for media control on Android

[obelix_55]

With my Android phone, music controls are quite unreliable at the moment. I'm having to constantly change the music source for the controls to show up if I wanted to play songs from my phone.

However, what I've found is that the playback notifications for some music players will show up on the Fitbit Versa and allow control of the music via the notification actions (screenshots below)

Spotify playback notification

Spotify notification actions on Versa

Spotify notification actions on Versa (cont.)

Global player notification

Global player notification actions on Versa

Global player notification actions on Versa (cont.)

What happens though is that after selecting one of the actions (eg. Play/Pause) on the Fitbit the notification is dismissed and I can no longer control it on the Fitbit until I play/pause on my phone to show a new notification on the Fitbit. What would be great is if notifications could be persisted on the Fitbit, so we could continue to control media.

Another advantage I found is that these controls are much easier to access, only needing to swipe down on the Versa rather than having to hold the left button and scroll to the Music Control tab

Steps to reproduce the behaviour:

1. Open Spotify
2. Play a song
3. Pause a song
4. A Spotify notification should appear on the Versa
5. Select the notification
6. Select a notification action (Play/Pause)
7. The selected action will run
8. The notification will be dismissed on the Versa

Expected behaviour:

Persist playback notifications for further media control

Actual behaviour:

The notification will no longer show on the Versa after a notification action is selected.

[RobertoME]

Hi @obelix_55, welcome aboard to the Fitbit Community and my apologies for the late response. I was reading the issue you are experiencing with Music control and just to let you know. I appreciate you have shared screenshots, however the images are broken. Nonetheless, I know what you are referring regarding the persistent notification you saw from Spotify.

To start with this, Music control may failed when there is not an steady bluetooth connection and one way to force its connection, is either change the audio source like you do. I have had a similar experience and what I do as a workaround, is to enable the Bluetooth settings of the Versa in Pair mode. In occasions this behavior may be different based on the mobile phone.

For some troubleshooting steps, please review this help article: Why can't I control music on my phone with my Fitbit device?

About the notification you mentioned, note that this is not a feature of the Versa. This is related to the option of App notifications and Quick replies.

When you play music in Spotify, it will open a notification in your phone with music control in the status bar. Due to the app notifications, this function is sent to your Versa as a regular notification. Due to the new option of Quick reply that enable certain actions directly from the Versa, it will allow you to control the music.

But once you hit "Play" this notification will disappear. See this as if you were replying a text notification; as soon you replied it will disappear.

Hope this helps. See you around.

[Iyae]

Yes we know why it's getting rid of the Spotify notification the point is we don't want it too it makes the controls useless can you please forward this for feedback. Have them programmed it so that if it's a Spotify notification it remains persistent that way we can change and control our music from The Watch