Why is this product so difficult to use and prone to failure

[Sasquatchmesa]

Buyers Beware, purchase at your own risk. This is one of the most disappointing purchases from Amazon in years. I was really looking forward to getting this product. I have two day prime but it still took me five days to get the item. Instead if delivering to my home they attempted to deliver it to the main office, in my neighborhood which was closed on Saturday. Why not just deliver it to my home.
Now to the product a blaze fitbit. I opened it upon delivery to start it charging. I tried to set it up on three different computers, all very current laptops bought within the last year. On the fist computer I tried to set it up on it said I need a dungle. This I later learned is a usb device that plugs into your computer if you don't have Bluetooth on your computer. Problem was I do I have several other electronic devices set up through blue tooth on the computer. FITBIT was going to charge me 20 dollars and shipping to get the dungle, even though this piece of equipment is required to use their device. To avoid trouble I attempted to set up the fitbit with another computer. At this point I called customer support at fitbit to get help installing the software.
You see when you buy these fitbit devices they don't come with any written instructions in the box on how to set it up or care for it. I need to make this clear NO INSTRUCTIONS of any kind. just a card directing you to a website.
Then you must download a very large piece of software to any device you want to pair the fitbit with. Depending on your internet speed this can take 20 minutes or more.
Then you must go through an amazing MAZE of ever changing mind numbing steps to get your new fitbit to pair with your computer/tablet/or phone. Codes/synchronizing/personal information, prepare for an hour or more of time wasted on basically nothing but FITBIT making this most arduous task you will ever take on for a consumer electronics product.
As I went thorough these steps with the rude and obnoxious representative at FITBIT we got to a point where she said the FITBIT would have to download and update itself and this would take around 10 minutes or so. Mind you I had tried to set it up myself, and had been on the phone with the representative for about an hour at this point.
Also remember this is a brand new FITBIT out of the box straight from the factory and it already needs software updates, UNBELIEVABLE.
As we tried to update the software it said that it could not update itself because the battery power was too low. I asked the rude representative about this and she said that "since the battery was at 15% it would not update until the battery reached 60% or more and that would take about 30 minutes to achieve.
I explained that I had plugged in the device when I received it and that was over THREE hours prior. I asked how long to charge the device she assured me 2 hours. When I explained that it at this point had been 4 hours plugged in she had no answer.
Also there is nowhere on the packaging that says it needs to be plugged in that it needs 60% battery power to update, that it needs updates or any way to see how charged the battery is by the end user, only she knew that information.
She could see that it was plugged in and charging through my PC and that in the time we had been talking it had gone from 15% power to 21% power this was over the course of an hour at that rate it would have taken over 16 hours to charge.
And I asked her if it was plugged into a power source and charging why the battery had to be at 60%. AGAIN SILENCE.
I can do anything on my computer, phone, tablet, kindle and other devices once plugged in I don't have to wait for the battery to be at 60% to use them. This makes for a device (FITBIT) that is not going to have much useful battery life.
And one other thing until you get this piece of JUNK set up you have no way to see how charged it is, you can only see that once you have all the software talking to each other and by going online. You have no way of seeing how charged the device is on the device. THAT IS CRAZY.
How do you know when its going to run out of power/die. The representative assured me that not being able to know how much battery life the device had was no problem.
As we were having this conversation I plugged the device into a 3rd computer. It charges by USB connection, and it never ever hit 25% power as we were on the phone another 25 minutes.
We finally had to hang up because we could go no further with out the device charging and once charged would have needed to update its brand new out of the box outdated software. She told me she would send detailed E-mail instructions as how to finish the set up once it was charged enough to update.
I asked how long after I got it updated it would take to finish the set up process. She assured me if no more glitches came up I could be ready to use the device in an hour or so of further computer inputs into the computer software program on the PC.
That night I plugged the device into a wall outlet usb charger and it never did charge it never would update so I guess it did not reach 60%. Of course I have no way of know how charged up it is. WHY SHOULD I KNOW I AM THE PERSON USING IT.
I am returning the unit since it is absolutely and completely worthless.
All this to find out how many steps you take. FITBIT should be ashamed of selling such shoddy and trashy merchandise on Amazon.
I cannot begin to explain the feeling of disappointment and of being used by a big corporation for profit, and nothing else.
At least in some small way I can warn others that this product should not be purchased.
It is a scam to steal the money from hard working Americans for a product that offers none of the benefits promised. BUYER BEWARE this is snake oil at it's best.

[WendyB]

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@Sasquatchmesa wrote:

Buyers Beware, purchase at your own risk. This is one of the most disappointing purchases from Amazon in years. I was really looking forward to getting this product. I have two day prime but it still took me five days to get the item. Instead if delivering to my home they attempted to deliver it to the main office, in my neighborhood which was closed on Saturday. Why not just deliver it to my home.

Take it up with Amazon they shipped it not fitbit. As for delivery else where my guess is you didnt change the shipping address when you ordered it on Amazon

Now to the product a blaze fitbit. I opened it upon delivery to start it charging. I tried to set it up on three different computers, all very current laptops bought within the last year. On the fist computer I tried to set it up on it said I need a dungle. This I later learned is a usb device that plugs into your computer if you don't have Bluetooth on your computer. Problem was I do I have several other electronic devices set up through blue tooth on the computer. FITBIT was going to charge me 20 dollars and shipping to get the dungle, even though this piece of equipment is required to use their device. To avoid trouble I attempted to set up the fitbit with another computer. At this point I called customer support at fitbit to get help installing the software.
You see when you buy these fitbit devices they don't come with any written instructions in the box on how to set it up or care for it. I need to make this clear NO INSTRUCTIONS of any kind. just a card directing you to a website.

Manual is here and can be found on the help pages if you look. Its at the very top of the page.

https://staticcs.fitbit.com/content/assets/help/manuals/manual_blaze_en_US.pdf

Then you must download a very large piece of software to any device you want to pair the fitbit with. Depending on your internet speed this can take 20 minutes or more.
Then you must go through an amazing MAZE of ever changing mind numbing steps to get your new fitbit to pair with your computer/tablet/or phone. Codes/synchronizing/personal information, prepare for an hour or more of time wasted on basically nothing but FITBIT making this most arduous task you will ever take on for a consumer electronics product.
As I went thorough these steps with the rude and obnoxious representative at FITBIT we got to a point where she said the FITBIT would have to download and update itself and this would take around 10 minutes or so. Mind you I had tried to set it up myself, and had been on the phone with the representative for about an hour at this point.
Also remember this is a brand new FITBIT out of the box straight from the factory and it already needs software updates, UNBELIEVABLE.
As we tried to update the software it said that it could not update itself because the battery power was too low. I asked the rude representative about this and she said that "since the battery was at 15% it would not update until the battery reached 60% or more and that would take about 30 minutes to achieve.
I explained that I had plugged in the device when I received it and that was over THREE hours prior. I asked how long to charge the device she assured me 2 hours. When I explained that it at this point had been 4 hours plugged in she had no answer.
Also there is nowhere on the packaging that says it needs to be plugged in that it needs 60% battery power to update, that it needs updates or any way to see how charged the battery is by the end user, only she knew that information.
She could see that it was plugged in and charging through my PC and that in the time we had been talking it had gone from 15% power to 21% power this was over the course of an hour at that rate it would have taken over 16 hours to charge.
And I asked her if it was plugged into a power source and charging why the battery had to be at 60%. AGAIN SILENCE.
I can do anything on my computer, phone, tablet, kindle and other devices once plugged in I don't have to wait for the battery to be at 60% to use them. This makes for a device (FITBIT) that is not going to have much useful battery life.
And one other thing until you get this piece of JUNK set up you have no way to see how charged it is, you can only see that once you have all the software talking to each other and by going online. You have no way of seeing how charged the device is on the device. THAT IS CRAZY.
How do you know when its going to run out of power/die. The representative assured me that not being able to know how much battery life the device had was no problem.
As we were having this conversation I plugged the device into a 3rd computer. It charges by USB connection, and it never ever hit 25% power as we were on the phone another 25 minutes.
We finally had to hang up because we could go no further with out the device charging and once charged would have needed to update its brand new out of the box outdated software. She told me she would send detailed E-mail instructions as how to finish the set up once it was charged enough to update.
I asked how long after I got it updated it would take to finish the set up process. She assured me if no more glitches came up I could be ready to use the device in an hour or so of further computer inputs into the computer software program on the PC.
That night I plugged the device into a wall outlet usb charger and it never did charge it never would update so I guess it did not reach 60%. Of course I have no way of know how charged up it is. WHY SHOULD I KNOW I AM THE PERSON USING IT.
I am returning the unit since it is absolutely and completely worthless.
All this to find out how many steps you take. FITBIT should be ashamed of selling such shoddy and trashy merchandise on Amazon.
I cannot begin to explain the feeling of disappointment and of being used by a big corporation for profit, and nothing else.
At least in some small way I can warn others that this product should not be purchased.
It is a scam to steal the money from hard working Americans for a product that offers none of the benefits promised. BUYER BEWARE this is snake oil at it's best.

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Sorry the rest was a bunch of run together sentences

[Rich_Laue]

Youve purchased a product that needs internet access to be used correctly. Fitbit assumes that you have access to the internet, and provides all manuals in their extensive interactive help site,  link found below totles as Help"

Not goving any info on the compiters makes it hard to help, would you also have a phone that might work?

For me the whole setup procedure took less than 10 minutes.

You dont say if it is setup?

[Sasquatchmesa]

I do and did have internet access, and it was initial set-up. I had over three hours into set-up and still never was able to get the device to do anything.

Since that frustrating day I have gone to many other sites talking about the fitbit product. The general discussion revolves around the fact that Fitbit is a poorly built and supported product.
It last from nine months to 1 year at most before complete and total failure.
Also Fitbit has some of the worst consumer support in the fitness band market.
With so many other options available out their of better quality devices, better entry price points, and better and more responsive customer support. It would be a very hard sell to even consider buying a product from a company with such an ongoing public relations problem because of poor build quality and support.
Fitbit will be a has been in less than 5 years. They don't get it

 If management at the very highest levels is not tossed out on it ear, and the company moved in the direction of consumer friendly.
It does not have a prayer.
It has in the last year alone moved very far in the direction of Fitbit has been.

[Rich_Laue]

I gues no one told my 6 year old Ultra, 5 year old One, 2.5 year old Surge that they should be dead. Yes my 31 month old Charge HR needs its contacts cleaned so that it may charge.

[Sasquatchmesa]

I am very happy that you have had such good luck with your devices.
I think that better price point items that work out of the box by other company's,

still garner more and more attention from new potential buyers.

The amount invested it those products represents quite the investment.