Wrong activity times (and other issues) after syncing Pixel watch with Fitbit app on Pixel phone

[Toolio]

Hi all.
I have a time stamp issue with Fitbit that is driving me crazy. I have tried everything suggested in various (now closed) discussions about this problem in these forums and nothing works. I am using all Google products—Fitbit, the Google Pixel watch (first generation) and a Google Pixel phone. I am hoping someone can help. I apologize in advance for the long post, but details are necessary.

The problem, in a nutshell, is that all Fitbit activities recorded on the watch are registered in the phone Fitbit app (also in an iPad app when I tested, but which I don’t normally use) as three hours later than they actually occur here in my home of Salvador. Brasil. In addition to this, because of the three hour “advance”, any regular steps or other activities recorded by the Fitbit watch after 9 pm are included in the next day’s step count and will not sync until after midnight. Before that time steps and tracked activities such as walking will sync.

For example, when I go for a vigorous walk of eight kilometers (my main form of exercise) at 4 pm and track it as an activity on my watch, here is what happens when I sync with the app.

1. Time of walk on app will be registered as three hours later, 7 pm. Yet if I go to edit the app details the time is indicated as the correct 4 pm
2. If I walk at 10 pm the activity will not sync until after midnight, and it would then show up as having taken place at 1 am. In addition, regular (not activity) steps tracked by the watch at 10 pm will also not show up in the app until after midnight, despite syncing.
3. Heart data tracked by the watch during the walk tracked as an activity will not show up until three hours later, even after syncing. It is as though, for heart monitoring purposes, the didn’t happen until three hour later. The data appears to be accurate.

Like many others who have had this problem. I travel. That is not an unusual thing for people to do. I live in Brasil but spend a lot of time in Canada, near Toronto. I returned to Brasil from Canada about six weeks ago, which is when the three-hour delay started. However, this is the second time I have done this with the same devices and the first time there was no problem with the Fitbit app time stamps. Plus, there is no three-hour time difference between the two locations. The time in Brasil, where I am at the moment, is currently two hours later than Toronto. Before the daylight savings change in Canada it was one hour. The only other different time zone I have visited in the year or so since I have had the watch was Barcelona in March, which is four hours ahead of my home in Brasil and five or six hours ahead of my Canada home, depending on the time of year. When I returned from using the watch in Barcelona, the time stamps were fine. So, I have no idea where this three-hour difference comes from and why it has happened after only one of three trips.

Here is a (partial) list of things I have done (almost all of them several times) to try to remedy the situation. These include the “official” suggestions by Fitbit personnel on these forums, and other measures that have worked for some Fitbit users with similar issues. None has made any difference.

1. Changed the time zone in the Fitbit app (several times, several locations and back to the correct time zone). I have tried syncing between changes and not syncing between changes.
2. Experimented with changing the time zone settings in my phone and watch, both separately and simultaneously, experimenting with different time zones to try to remove the three-hour gap.
3. Experimented with auto and non-auto time zones on the phone and watch, but simultaneously and separately.
4. Changed the location settings on all devices—both different and identical settings for each device and the app.
5. Cleared the cache on the Fitbit app on the watch and rebooted.
6. Experimented with auto and non auto time zone and location settings in the app.
7. Uninstalled and reinstalled Fitbit app on both the watch and phone
8. Factory reset the watch.

It seems to me to be rather silly that Fitbit can’t handle time zone issues. This is a world in which many Fitbit users frequently travel and change time zones. I am not the only person who has had this problem, as evidenced by many other discussions here and elsewhere. Some people have been able to resolve it, others have not. It also seems that, since I am using all Google devices and products, that this should work seamlessly.

[EDIT: After my initial post I installed Google Fit apps on my devices to test. I'm not a big fan. Howevever, it records the proper time for all activities, tracked or otherwise. I also installed Strava, which reports the corret time for tracked activities. This seems to indicate the problem lies with Fitbit rather than device settings.]

Suggestions are welcome. Thanks in advance.

[Gr4ndp4]

Hi, @Toolio welcome to the community. May I suggest you review the time zone settings in your account online dashboard? Log onto your account on your laptop/PC>dashboard in the upper right>settings gear>settings> scroll down to see time zone settings. These will allow you to experiment with the account time settings. Experience demonstrates occasional issues with time zones during Daylight Saving changes but this will mostly be just one hour. I assume when you are travelling both your phone & PW1 are on though perhaps in Aeroplane mode, such disconnection may disturb syncing between your devices on your arrival at a new destination. If your PW1 is LTE it will grab the arrival time independently of the phone (maybe the source of conflict)

You might also like to review the PW forum Sign in - Google Accounts 

I hope this helps.

Cheers

[Toolio]

---

@Gr4ndp4 wrote:

Hi, @Toolio welcome to the community. May I suggest you review the time zone settings in your account online dashboard? Log onto your account on your laptop/PC>dashboard in the upper right>settings gear>settings> scroll down to see time zone settings. These will allow you to experiment with the account time settings.

---

Thank you very much for the suggestions. I seldom use the online dashboard. I was hopeful after reading your response because my online dashboard settings indicated the UTC time zone, which is actually is three hours ahead. However, experimenting with that setting after reading your post has resulted in no change. I did a series of short walks around the house, experiementing with the "old" Toronto time zone, my current time zone of UTC -3 and a couple of time zones unrelated to my problem. After syncing each time, the activity was listed on both the app and the online dashboard as three hours later than my local time zone in Brasil, which is the constant problem. If I open the details of the activity in "edit", the time is the correct Brasil time.

In answer to your questions about use of the watch while travelling, it is turned on while on the plane but in airplane mode. I check and or adjust the settings in my devices when I land. The watch is not an LTE model, so that doesn't come into play.

Neverthless, the online dashboard now has the correct time zone (as did the app on the phone). I'll leave it there and hope that something might kick in later. Thanks to your suggestion this is the only discrepancy I have discovered so far that actually amounted to three hours.

[UPDATE] The next day the time problem remains. Unfortunately, ensuring the online dashboard was set to the correct time zone was not the solution. All devices and apps are set to the correct time zone (UTC -3), yet the time stamp of tracked activities shows up as 3 hours later when the watch and app are synced. This only occurs with Fitbit. Activities tracked by Google Fit and Strava report the correct times/]

[Toolio · Accepted solution]

Well, well, well. After three weeks of tinkering with settings, I finally arrived at a solution. It makes no sense, but it worked.

I waited until a few minutes past 9 pm local time (when the Fitbit app thought the new day was starting, because everything Fitbit, as explained above, was three hours later than local time). Then I tried something I've tried previously many times, only not at this mysterious time of the day.

In the Pixel watch, with time zone and time settings set to manual, I decided to try setting the time zone to another city in my time zone, then back again. So, with the time zone set to São Paulo I then changed to Buenos Aires and back to São Paulo. Both are in the GMT/UTC -3 time zone, and when the setting is changed and accepted the Pixel watch simply reads "GMT-03:00" when either is chosen. However, despite appearing to be the same time zone, the city change and back again was the magic elixir. As soon as I did that the three-hour time difference when syncing to the Fitbit app disappeared.

It has been fine for 24 hours now, so I assume the problem won't rear its head again until I travel to another time zone. I carefully recorded all my watch, phone and Fitbit app and dashboard settings under the new "working" regime. I hope ensuring that mimicking those settings in the future will avoid problems.

I'm leaving this detailed response in the hope that it will help someone who has this problem in the future. Please note that the time of day when making the settings adjustment in the watch proved critical.