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Preventive maintenance for heart rate sensor cover

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During a cleaning of my Blaze I noticed a small crack on the clear plastic covering the heart rate sensor in between the green led lights. This is after about 8 months, so didn't happen right away, but not something you want to find happening to a product that should last longer than that.

 

Now customer service had no problem sending me a new tracker only (pebble they call it) because I'm still within my warranty. That's all good until I'm past warranty and this clearly known design flaw gives out again!

 

The sensor would definitely stop working due to malfunction caused from sweat and dirt getting inside. My reason for posting here today is to ask if anyone knows of anything to prevent this from happening again? I wad thinking something simple as packing tape or similar item? Not sure if that would effect the sensor or my skin. 

 

Any suggestions or feedback based on your experience would be great. 

 

Thank you,

 

Landon

Hard to see the crack, but clearly the plastic is getting fogged over and will hinder the sensor useless in no time...Hard to see the crack, but clearly the plastic is getting fogged over and will hinder the sensor useless in no time...

 Side note, I wish I would've know about this problem so I didn't need a replacement. Refurbished replacements are garbage! The replacement I received was broken, blacked out pixels and wouldn't even boot up! Not to mention the slowest possible shipping available. 5-8 days each way. 7 to me, 7 to return back, still waiting but expecting 10-14 days until it is back in my hands. Almost a month of tracking lost because of a 2 cent plastic part! 

 

Even more the reason to prevent this if possible.

 

Moderator edit: Format

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55 REPLIES 55

A warm welcome to the Community @nblivin. It's weird to hear that the heart rate sensor can get damaged. The only opportunity to damage it is when you charge it, I would recommend being careful at the moment of placing the tracker into the cradle. 

 

You can take a look at our wear & care article. Also, I am sorry to hear about the replacement you received but it's good to hear that you will receive a new one. At the moment of receiving it you can do the following from your Fitbit app to set it up:

 

  1. From the Fitbit app dashboard, tap or click the Account icon.
  2. Tap Set Up a Device.
  3. Choose your tracker and follow the onscreen instructions to continue.

 

Let me know if you need anything else. Woman Happy

Alejandra | Community Moderator, Fitbit

If you like something I recommended, I encourage you to mark that reply as "Best Answer". 🙂

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While I do appreciate your reply and respect your opinion. I do have to disagree completely with you.

 

Im not saying that its not possible to damage the device with improper technique for connecting to the charger, but that is definitely not the case in my situation.

 

I've had way too many devices (phones, laptops, anything that charges) get damaged or completely broken due to charging ports or charge releated procedures. 

 

I am totally aware of the way the Blaze fits into its cradle and would never force anything in its place.

 

With that being said, for now I plan to place a small piece of tape over the area with hopes of gaining some longevity to the device with no negative impact to heart rate monitoring.

 

Still waiting to get my replacement, they just today received the damaged one and are going to process and ship another one to me soon. Hopefully within a couple of weeks I can resume my works with the use of the sensor

 

 

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Hi,

I have had the same problem with my fitbit charge 2 hr and I was in contact with a member of staff at fitbit yesterday and they said that it cannot be replaced or fixed as they warranty does not cover accidental damage. However I do not understand how the tracker can get damaged if it is sitting flat on skin and I have taken care when placing it on charge and when cleaning. This appears to be a fault on the manufacturers part.

 

Also I see people have been given replacements and I have not which is very disappointing.

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I have found a few posts on this topic with very little answers from customer service. This a design flaw. I spoke with customer service and of course since my Charge 2 is out of warranty they offered me 25% off. Why would I buy another fitbit if this design flaw is not being addressed? No one can provide me with answers on how this could have happened and how to prevent it in the future. I won't be buying a replacement fitbit. 

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Finally figured out how to post the photoFinally figured out how to post the photo

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I just discovered the dreaded crack in my Fitbit Blaze today while cleaning after I wore it outside today while mowing. I clean everytime I mow which is typically twice a week. The screen is fine, I've had a screen protector on it since day one and suddenly there's a crack on the back? There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that this is a design flaw on the part of Fitbit. They chose to use cheap, thin, inferior plastic on a part that is exposed to moisture and chemicals people may put on their body, sunscreen, lotion, sweat and instead of admitting their mistake, the choose to blame the customer? Just last week, I was thinking about getting my mom the Versa for Mother's Day. I'm glad I did not waste my money. I will not be buying another Fitbit again and I will direct people to Garmin or some other manufacturer that admits their screwups instead of blaming the customer. Especially when it's become quite obvious that their is an issue with the device itself and not the people using it.

 

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Mine has done the same thing.  The polycarbonate, or polyester window has failed due to attack by sweat and skin oils.  I will be taking the Blaze apart and doing a detailed failure analysis and seeing what I can do repair it.  I was thinking maybe a window fabricated out of polyethylene which would be heat formed over the existing HR sensor dome and attached with adhesive to the edges of the dome.

FitBit will be billed at my standard rate of $200 per hour for engineering services.

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How did it work for you? I have a replacement coming and would like to put something on to prevent that failure from happening again as well. 

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@E.B. wrote:

How did it work for you? I have a replacement coming and would like to put something on to prevent that failure from happening again as well. 


Try the tape. I started the tape test yesterday after repairing the corroded pins on U1 on the HR sensor board.

 

"Duck" brand HD clear packing tape.  Check Menard's, Home Depot or Wal-Mart.

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Can you post pictures of how you used the tape? 

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@E.B. wrote:

Can you post pictures of how you used the tape? 


Tape covering sensor.  I did not trim the excess off to evaluate how it will peel over time.Tape covering sensor. I did not trim the excess off to evaluate how it will peel over time.

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Thank you! I have a replacement Blaze on it's way to me, what with not being able to use my 50% discount they offered me toward an equal but supposedly better built model ( the Versa), a model they claim has addressed this manufacturing issue and  is the obvious replacement for the Blaze  No, no, I can't do that but I'm supposed to be grateful for the opportunity to buy an older model tracker or tracker with less features and not at all equal to what I originally purchased.  Oh or I can get a replacement Blaze that was already broken at some point before and has already proven will break in a year or less or daily use, unless I duct tape it. Thank you Fibit for your incredible generosity.   I'm not gonna Iie, I was pretty ticked for about 15 minutes but then I realized I was actually going to give this company $160.00 more of my hard earned dollars and this after they have already proven to me  to be incapable of producing a product that will last 18 months of the daily use they claim their product is built for. Thank you Fitbit for saving me another costly mistake but I really do thank the customer service department. They have been incredibly pleasant to deal with.

 

@KB9WNS thank you again for the picture, I will most certainly try this when my replacement arrives.

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Design seems to be rather solid.  I am wondering if they lost control of their Chinese manufacturer and got hit by the infamous Chinese "quality fade" which is very common over there.

"quality fade" is where after the first several production runs the contract manufacturer slowly reduces the quality and the cost to make the items.  There are definite differences in the build quality of the three Blaze's I got with the newest looking the worst. 


@E.B. wrote:

 @KB9WNS thank you again for the picture, I will most certainly try this when my replacement arrives. Duct tape, Fitbit should be ashamed. Lesson learned.


 

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 I put two layers of it on there yesterday morning and have been testing it out. I don't know if the heart rate monitor is more accurate but it does seem to aquire readings more successfully during strenuous activity. For example, I was outside push mowing for a good 6 hours today, and I got a reading everytime I looked at my Blaze, which was very nice. I also have peace of mind knowing that that faulty plastic, doomed to fail on the back, now has a few extra layers of protection. Thank you @KB9WNS for such a fantastic suggestion!

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I have the blaze as well. It worked perfectly until this past Wednesday when It just stopped tracking my heart rate. I’ve tried every suggestion with no success. My green lights still blink and glow but it doesn’t register anything. I contacted customer service and they didn’t even try to help me since it’s out of warranty. I also got the coupon of 25% at Fitbit.com ONLY. I agree with others, why would I want to buy another one with no help as to what even went wrong and with no help from the company. Annoyed for sure. Guess I’ll just have a fancy watch for now. 

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@E.B. wrote:

 I put two layers of it on there yesterday morning and have been testing it out. I don't know if the heart rate monitor is more accurate but it does seem to aquire readings more successfully during strenuous activity. For example, I was outside push mowing for a good 6 hours today, and I got a reading everytime I looked at my Blaze, which was very nice. I also have peace of mind knowing that that faulty plastic, doomed to fail on the back, now has a few extra layers of protection. Thank you @KB9WNS for such a fantastic suggestion!


I used a single layer with very good results.  Much better then expected.  Duck tape to the rescue!

Quack  Quack!

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It looks like mine has discoloration or build up and I’m thinking it’s due to a crack. My green light will not turn off no matter what I do, it’s getting my tracker hot to the touch because it glows green constantly and drains my battery within a few hours. Is there any way to clean that screen on the inside and then cover it with tape to hopefully get the green glow to go away?

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I can't say for sure but I doubt it. After I contacted Fitbit customer service about the crack and had a replacement ordered, I turned the heart rate monitor off so I could still use it to count my steps but within a day or two the battery started draining within hours and by the next day it stopped charging altogether. I would imagine since your battery is draining so fast that your Fitbit is probably to the point of failure and will need replacing. 

 

While I was angry at the failing of the tracker over such a simple piece that was skimped out on, I was able to contact customer service who were wonderful to deal with, and I was sent a replacement pebble (blaze tracker without the bands or cables) within a week, despite technically being out of warranty for a month. Granted this is clearly a build quality issue and not user error so I think it should be covered and apparently so do they. Especially since they won't let you use the discount they offer towards a newer model tracker that has addressed the flaw in the build quality.

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Thank you so much for the fast reply, that makes me feel a lot better!

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