3 days setting up with customer support radio silence

[Jacycle]

I had a Blaze go south. Fitbit decided to send a replacement device which arrived 4 days ago. Since then I've been trying to get the Fitbit app (both android and Windows at various times) to connect with the device with no luck. I contacted customer support on Wednesday and got a fairly prompt, but boiler plate response suggesting that I try all of the steps I had already tried based on their support forums and pages. Since then, I've sent 3 other messages to the support email address (as their Wednesday email suggested). Here is the 4th email to https://contact.fitbit.com:

"Hi:

The radio silence is deafening. This morning I tried to connect this device to a Surface Pro 3. It connected and then announced that it would "update" the Blaze. And hung up on that step. Reported that it couldn't connect, and the Windows app would not return to the main start page - always returned to the "update was interrupted. Do you want to try again?"

So I uninstalled the Surface Pro 3 app, rebooted the computer, reinstalled the Surface Pro 3 app which then reported that it was connected to a Blaze and needed to update the device. When it tried to update, it reported that it could not connect." 

So far, since the first customer support email, its been radio silence from Fitbit.

I have wasted hours on this idiocy and am done with the device (a $200 brick, it seems), the app, the customer support (which acts mostly like a bot) and the company. 

[Jrdubyakc]

Sounds frustrating! I had a similar issue setting up my Blaze. Finally realized I had another Fitbit too close by and it was messing up the pairing process.  Is your old Blaze (or another Fitbit) in the area? If so, get it away - like really,really far away. I took mine outside to my car and then tried the pairing process again and it worked right away. Might not be your issue, but thought it was worth mentioning.

[Jacycle]

Not the problem. Old Blaze is turned off and in a drawer.

Some further research: Blaze uses 2 varieties of Bluetooth, Classic and Low Energy. Classic connects to a device for music and notifications. Low Energy (BLE) is how the device connects to the Fitbit App. I've been able to pair Classic to the Note 4, and of course that doesn't accomplish what I'm looking for. Several sites indicate that Android is notorious for problems with BLE, and that some chipsets are much worse than others. The Qualcomm chipset used by Samsung is rated on some sites as poor in connecting, staying connected, and speed of connection. I have been able to connect this device with a Surface Pro3 and with an iPhone. These problems started cropping up after a couple of phone updates a couple of months ago. Last December, the connection was slick as a whistle. So it looks as though Fitbit's coders haven't been doing so hot keeping up with Android changes and that they've not done their homework checking functionality with different hardware (chipsets). I have an old Windows Phone, so charged it up and downloaded the Fitbit app from the Windows store. Unfortunately, it looks as though Fitbit has given up on that platform. The Blaze is not listed in the available devices in the app. I have been successful in avoiding Bluetooth for a long time. This is the first experience in many years with connecting devices, and it reminds of the Bluetooth nightmares that drove me away in the mid-'90s.