S8 Blaze Support - Notifications?

[TMAN19]

I received a Blaze for a xmas gift and I am having trouble getting this to work properly with my Samsung Galaxy S8.

I spent a significant amount of time trying to get this to work because the Fitbit site says S8 is supported, including the features I want (notifications).

Here is what is happening, no matter what I have done (resetting fitbit, removing from the fitbit app, reinstalling fitbit app, wiping data / cache, wiping bluetooth data/cache.

1. I set up always via the app.   The set up process appears to work.  Syncing appears to work.  Steps and sleep tracking is working.
2. Notifications do not work.
3. Connected GPS does not work.
4. I can pair Bluetooth classic, and control music via the Blaze.
5. When I go to the bluetooth devices on the phone, it appears that the Blaze (the bluetooth LE device) is not pairing properly.  It is either not present at all, or present under Available Devices, or present under Available Devices (pairing).   If I try to pair manually from this screen I get "Pairing Rejected by Blaze"

Now I have tried this Blaze with my wife's phone (Sony Xperia XA1) and it worked perfectly first try.   On that phone under the bluetooth devices I see "Blaze" as paired.   I also have not had any problems with my S8 and every other bluetooth device I have used.  From all this I am deducing there is a problem with Blaze / Fitbit app pairing process bug when using the S8.

So my question to Fitbit is what is the process that I need to do to get the S8 to work properly.   I see a lot of posts on here about S8 / Blaze not working and occasionally I see someone say it is working, usually after some time it just starts working.  What is the definitive answer from Fitbit?   According to the website it does work so I would like to know how please.

Since this was a gift I cannot return this and I don't want to, the watch is pretty nice.   I have yet to factory restore my phone as that is a lot of work, and I don't want to do that unless it is known that it fixes the problem.

Thank you.

[Rich_Laue]

Hello @TMAN19 since you have connected to your wife's phone, have you disconnected your tracker from her phones Bluetooth? 

Blaze classic is only for music control. 

The blaze needs to be paired to the phone for notifications to work. This can not be done by the user, the Fitbit app does this pairing. 

I do not know the secret, 

Enable Fitbit notifications.

Enable always connected. 

Make sure notifications show in the phones lock screen. 

Send a text notification through the Fitbit app. This should force a pairing of the tracker, sometimes it does for me. If not I find I have to wait a day or two, not ideal and should not happen, but.. 

[TMAN19]

Yes - disconnected completely from my wifes phone.

I will try it with always connected on and see if it works eventually.  Are you saying you have an S8 and it works for you?

[akoneill19]

Having the same issue.. 😞

[Rich_Laue]

Yes I have an S8

Syncing seems to be temperamental. I'll go a while with now problems. Then I'll pull my hair out for a few days trying to get it to sync. 

Gps an notifications took a few hours to work with the Blaze. Notifications with the ionic took a couple of days. 

Reading the posts I understand that some S8's are having notification issues. 

[akoneill19]

Contacted Support on Twitter. was met with "Thanks for trying the fix we suggested. We are aware of some issues on the Samsung side that reduce Blaze's ability to connect with the S8. These issues affect several Bluetooth devices from other manufacturers as well and users will need to wait for Samsung to release an update which resolves this underlying issue."     

guess we are kinda outta luck 

[TMAN19]

Ok - so I guess we wait until Android 8.0 comes out on the S8 and hope it fixes the issue.

[Rich_Laue]

For me Android 7 and Fitbit work flawlessly until it comes to trying to sync. 

[Andreasmith]

Hi! I also got a blaze for christmas.... I have a Samsung Galaxy S8+ and I have had no issues with notifications or anything really. Granted it's only been a few days , but so far so good.

[Sweetde80]

I'm glad I'm not the only one. Came here this morning to search my syncing issues. I too received one for Xmas and notifications wasn't working, which in the end wasn't a big deal. But it hasn't synced in over 16h. Just a constant wheel. Not too impressed if it's just a wait for an update to tour phone.

[TMAN19]

I discovered another problem with S8 and Blaze.  I am unable to stream music over bluetooth without it being very choppy.   Never had this problem before.  I uninstalled the Fitbit app and the problem went away.  Reinstalled and problem came back.

There is something wrong with the way the S8 and Blaze are communicating.   I have given up - I removed fitbit app from my S8 completely.  I am now using an iphone 4s that I am leaving in a drawer hooked up to a charger, and that will be what I use to sync when I am nearby.   I will come back to the S8 when Android 8 is released.

PS - I also had the never finishing syncing problem - I had to remove the device and re-add it to fix it.

[Visualtps]

Please let everyone know when android 8 is released and if it solves all the problems with the Blaze.  I am sitting with a galaxy S3 and my blaze works flawlessly and would like to upgrade to the S8 when all the problems with Blaze are resolved.  Thanks

[Rich_Laue]

@TMAN19 if you haven't removed the Blame from your wife's phones Bluetooth, this will give you problems connecting to your phone. 

Get you tracker connected to your Fitbit account, if it isn't. This can be done through any phone. 

Setup notifications on the Fitbit app. 

Enable always connected and Fitbit notifications. 

Make sure your phone puts the notifications that you want on the phones AOD lock screen. If you don't see notifications here they will not be seen on the tracker. 

Go to the motifs Atkins on the Fitbit app. Press the settings in top right send test notification. 

If the Blaze does not show as a connected device in the Bluetooth settings, you will have to wait for the app to pair the tracker. You already noticed the user can not do this, it might take an hour or two but once paired it will work. 

[Rich_Laue]

@Visualtps android has already released 8 as a beta to be installed in selected countries. 

[TMAN19]

Amazingly, after 2 months, it started working.  The S8 was able to pair with with Blaze and now everything works great, including notifications.  I had given up all hope.

The only thing that I changed was I had been running with my S8 in power saving mode, and then after about 24hrs the fitbit app must have successfully paired, because I started receiving notifications.

I have since returned to normal mode and I am still receiving notifications.