Hi Fitbit, I have had my Blaze a couple of days but so far have encountered lots of fairly glaring software issues (the hardware I can find no fault with, good job with that!)…..
Setup
During setup the device failed to connect to Bluetooth on my phone three times, when it finally did it kept dropping the connection meaning updates failed half way through. I had to hard reset my Fitbit twice before it connected and performed the required update which was very slow (far longer than the stated 10 minutes).
Watch faces
The first thing I went to do was update my watch face however I was disappointed to find there where only four, none of which were particularly attractive or functional, they certainly did not match the physical design of the watch which I really like.
As mentioned by others in the community I was expecting to see the same watch faces as where shown in the ads which were much more stylish, I was disappoint to find out these where 'mock-ups', very misleading Fitbit.
Every watch face seems to be a compromise with non actually showing the important metrics on a single screen that I feel most would want to see (Heart rate, Calories, Steps). Having to double tap then swipe through screens seems to defeat the point of having them right there on your wrist, in the time I spent swiping through I could just have easily pulled out my phone opened the app and had every metric right there in front of me.
Is there a reason why users can't customise what they want to see Fitbit?
Music Controls
For some reason these share a screen with the notification on/off selection so if you are double tapping to turn on the screen or just hitting controls during a workout it is easy to turn notifications on or off in error, this design choice is bizarre. If the ability to turn on/off notifications is so important why not give them their own screen? If not then put why are they not in the settings menu. The extra real estate could have been used for either making the music controls larger or adding extra functionality such as shuffle.
In fact why is the music screen not just a big play/pause button with swipe left or right to change track, that would be far more intuitive and far easier to use when exercising. In fact during a workout why force people to switch screens to change to the music play, while not just make use of the swipe left and right?
Finally the controls are unreliable, they completely stop working, it will show the track and if you change the track on the device it changes on the watch but the controls don’t do anything. I went looking for an answer and found a month old thread regarding this on the forum yet no fix, having important functionality that is clearly broken with no fix a month after it has been reported is a big disappointment Fitbit.
On top of this the controls can take up to 30 seconds to connect with me having to constantly double tap as it turns off the screen while doing this making it even more frustrating.
Workouts
With these there is hardly any control.
First and foremost you can only have a maximum of only two metrics on the workout screen, the blaze has a beautiful screen with plenty of space that could easily accommodate three, four or even five metrics, there is certainly room since the workout summary fits four metrics with plenty of space for a fifth in a right hand column:
For example as a runner I would personally want to see my heartbeat, pace, distance and elapsed time however I can only choose heartbeat and one other. To see other metrics you have to swipe which as a runner knows is going to go some way to knocking you off your stride.
For cycling I would even go as far as to suggest this is dangerous, having so few metrics mean that anybody cycling needs to take one hand of the bar and reach over and swipe, this is far from ideal.
For all workouts I would also expect to set a training zone and get some haptic feedback once reached or left, for example once my heartrate reached my cardio zone, there is no setting for this at all. A really odd omission for a training device.
There are no goals for exercises, for example I may want to set a calorie goal for a work out or if I am out cycling I may want a distance goal, all really basic stuff.
No ability to a create workout plans or schedules, or at least I could not find any method of doing this, am I missing it somewhere? As a fitness device I would expect this to be a standard feature. As a smart device you would you not want users to create workout plans with reminders and exercises?
Fitstar seems to have been shoehorned in and I felt like it was a bit of a kick in the teeth since you are expected to pay a pretty hefty price for it when the standard device didn’t even contain what I would consider very basic functionality.
Smartwatch features
These are very basic in the extreme, for most people I would expect notifications to be the most useful however even these are extremely limiting.
I know most people with a smart phone will use multiple messaging apps (text message, Whatsapp, Facebook messenger etc) however you can select to get notifications from only one which I suspect will make notifications useless to a lot of people, myself included.
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Fitbit are there plans to address any of these issues? If so can you advise what is being worked on and what we can expect to see in future firmware updates?
Best Answer
