Blaze pausing while cycling - not safe and making me crazy

[Gatman]

Hi Folks,

I’ve been using a Blaze for 2.5 years since my wife got if for me for Christmas in 2017.  I’ve generally been satisfied except for one thing:  the well-documented problem with exercise ending too soon because you bump the face or a button.  I’ve given up hope on Fitbit every addressing it since it’s been 3 years now since someone logged that request. 

I’m a lefty, and I wear the Blaze on my left hand and the buttons to pause and finish a workout are right next to my wrist/hand.  Before the pandemic hit I was mostly lifting weights and I wear gloves when I do. So I would loosen the band and push it up my arm to avoid bumping the buttons when I do pushups or something that flexes my wrist and makes the glove bump the buttons.  I’d still have to watch to make sure I didn’t accidentally hit the screen doing something, and once or twice a week that would happen and I’d have to un-pause the workout after I noticed it.  Grrrrr.

I recently dusted off my road bike and the experience with the Blaze has me ready to take a hammer to it.  I’ve done 11 rides, and only two have been completed without unwanted pauses.  I can’t push it up my arm because the bumps from riding make it eventually fall down over and over.  I tried moving it to my right arm and got one good ride in, but today I was 10 miles into a 20-mile ride and noticed the Blaze had paused at 1.76 miles – no idea why.

So this thing has become a huge safety hazard because I’m constantly looking at it to make sure it hasn’t paused.  Not good.  I was curious what other cylists might be doing.  I picked up a Garmin bike computer, but I see I haven’t found a way to sync my ride data from that device to the Fitbit.  I can also track in MapMyRide, which gets results almost identical to the Garmin.  I’d spring for something new if I knew it would work, but honestly, I’m about ready to ditch Fitbit at this point because I just don’t think they care about anything other than banging out new products.

Would love to hear from some other cyclists to see what they’re doing.  I really like the Fitbit app, so that’s got me looking around for options.

Thanks,

Gary

[MarkMM]

I just turned the pause feature off. When I was having trouble with the bluetooth connection dropping, it would pause, and then I was getting NO Data recorded while riding. 

Due to the connection drops, I also turned off use GPS. I was tracking with Samsung health and fitbit at the same time anyway. Now I just use Samsung health for tracking miles, and fitbit is still tracking heart rate, etc.

[Gatman]

"I just turned the pause feature off."

Wait...what...how do you do that?  I just looked around for 15 minutes trying to find a way to do that and couldn't.

Please let me know.

Thanks,

Gary

[MarkMM]

Apologies. I wasn't fully awake yet when I replied earlier. I even knew I was wrong when I saw you replied.

I had issues with the automatic pause feature that you can disable. Not something brushing against the tracker. 

I only had issues a couple times with brushing pausing mine. A certain sweater winter riding I think was pausing mine a couple times. 

Again, sorry for replying so quickly. 

[Gatman]

Thanks again for the response.

You mention an automatic pause feature that you can disable.  I've looked and looked and don't see anything like that for biking.  The only options I have for biking is "Use phone GPS" and "Secondary Stat" (which can be set to a few different things - I have it on elapsed time).

Can you point me to this feature?

Thanks,

Gary

[MarkMM]

Hi, I've been mostly using the Versa for a while. I turned on my blaze and it doesn't have the option. I forgot. Versa has auto pause where if you're stopped for traffic or whatever, it pauses. Mine was pausing when the bluetooth connection dropped, so I disabled it.