Keeping watch face active / or pairing with treadmill

[bobpies]

Hi guys,

I got a blaze for my birthday last month - whilst initially, I thought it was great there are some really annoying things right now that I hope there may be an answer to that I'm simply overlooking.

I use it mainly to track my heart rate when doing HIIT. Those of you that do this will know that you are pushing yourself really hard during these sessions - and all I want to know when I'm 30 seconds into a sprint is whether or not my heart rate has climbed over the 160 mark, and where exactly it is. I want to know this instantly, but there doesn't' seem to be a way to keep the watch face active when I'm doing training. Which leaves me resorting to the "auto on glance" thing that hardly ever works.

So the sweat is pouring - I've done my "glance", the screen is still black - so now I gotta tap it, "tap tap" nothing. "tap tap tap" - finally.

So it's gone from a glance to smashing the screen 5 times all whilst sprinting at full pelt - when I do it on the elliptical trainer I nearly fall off it!

So ultimately I guess I'm asking, is there a way to keep the watch face active whilst training mode is active? I don't care about battery life for the 45 mins I'm working out - I'd rather know my time and heart rate instantly than having to bash my wrist every 30 seconds.

If it's not a feature at all, does anyone know if it's included in the new firmware incoming?

Secondly, then, I've been resorting to trying to pair my watch to the treadmill / elliptical. They all have like a built in sync with wireless sports devices and I was hoping I could overcome the heart rate monitoring that way - however, I cannot seem to find a way to put the watch into a pairing mode that the treadmill will pick up? In fact, I cannot seem to find a way to put it into pairing mode at all - is it locked to one device? (your phone?)

sorry for the questions, hopefully, someone here has a quick answer for me 🙂

[Silverginger]

Your request is so timely,I have the same frustration myself.Nothing worse than faffing with technology when in the red zone.

I cant help with the "always on " problem,though like you I would hope this is something for a firmware upgrade.

On the Bluetooth issue,have you tried pairing in "Bluetooth Classic" mode ? Settings>swipe up>Bluetooth Classic>set to pair... then pair with treadmill ?

[bobpies]

i can't seem to see any kind of pairing options in the settings menu?

[dorketh]

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@bobpies wrote:

i can't seem to see any kind of pairing options in the settings menu?

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There should be an option for "bluetooth classic" in the settings menu, but believe that is intended for bluetooth music control, not transmission of the heart rate to nearby devices.

That would be a brilliant feature to have - and on occasion I've seen the fitbit (briefly) appear as a possible heart rate source when starting up the PM5 on concept 2 rowers and ski ergs (although in those cases the heart rate monitoring tends to leave something to be desired).

Maybe if you set the "quick view" option that would just wake up the blaze when you lift your wrist?

[bobpies]

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@dorketh wrote:

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@bobpies wrote:

i can't seem to see any kind of pairing options in the settings menu?

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There should be an option for "bluetooth classic" in the settings menu, but believe that is intended for bluetooth music control, not transmission of the heart rate to nearby devices.

That would be a brilliant feature to have - and on occasion I've seen the fitbit (briefly) appear as a possible heart rate source when starting up the PM5 on concept 2 rowers and ski ergs (although in those cases the heart rate monitoring tends to leave something to be desired).

Maybe if you set the "quick view" option that would just wake up the blaze when you lift your wrist?

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I already have "quick view" on - problem is that it very rarely works. - like I just tried it now as a test and it did not work. You have to really pronounciate the movement of wrist titled away to wrist titled toward. Not something you really want to be thinking about when you are pushing for 170 bpm lol 🙂

on a side note - i've managed to see the bluetooth menu - after deactivating the bluetooth on my phone. will try it out later tonight when im back at the gym. 

Its a nice device, but some more control is needed - screen always on during training seems a bit of a no brainer to me.

[MikeF]

The short answer is No and No.

The Blaze (and all of the other trackers other than the Surge) will only turn the display on for 10s on a Tap of Quick View switch. That's set in firmware and not user-adjustable.

Similarly, the Blaze will communicate only with the Fitbit app on whatever platform you run it. It's not able to pair or communicate with anything else. The additional Bluetooth Classic mode is available for pairing with those phones that don't support the Blaze music controls via the "normal" Bluetooth LE pairing.

[TracyV125]

@bobpies Most of the time the quick view will work for me if I use the correct movement.  Tapping on the screen doesn't always work because my fingers are most likely sweaty.

I have found though that if the quick view doesn't work while on treadmill or elliptical exercise mode on my Blaze I just quickly push the left button.  That will light up your screen WITHOUT accidentally ending your workout.

Just make sure that you've previously toggled through the stats so that the heart rate is the stat you will see when you do this.  My Blaze seems to keep the stat that I used last in that exercise as my default.

Hope this helps!

[lorraineg]

I wonder if resetting your blaze would help? Or if it's not too late, exchanging it? The quick view on mine works very well and I rarely have to exaggerate movement for it to work. I do sprint intervals on the treadmill, choose the "treadmill" option and it works really well.  I think if it were working properly, you may not have an issue..