How to End an Exercise on Charge 3?

[SunsetRunner]

Ok first workout and I can't end it, pressing the button only pauses it.  Holding it only brings up a notification and screen wake-up menu?

Moderator Edit: Updated Subject for Clarity

[vee]

I had the same problem..  kept pushing and tapping...finally saw that it was paused and the next push stopped it. Will be looking for more clarity on this! Right now I think you just have to hold the button down a bit longer, and tapping doesn't work. 

Update, I found the manual under the help section. It says one push to pause and another to stop. I think I was doing too much swiping and tapping. 

https://staticcs.fitbit.com/content/assets/help/manuals/manual_charge_3_en_US.pdf

[obuzzwan]

Yes, drove me crazy trying to end my rowing machine workout. It’ll take some getting used to for sure. 

[SantiR · Accepted solution]

@SunsetRunner @obuzzwan @vee I hope you're doing well! Thanks for taking the time to post your exercise tracking experiences with Charge 3 on this thread. Also, thanks for sharing the solution on how to end/finish an exercise and sharing the user manual too.

I will leave a step by step here on how to track exercise for other users to benefit from this as well:

1. On your tracker, open the Exercise app.
2. Swipe left to find an exercise.
3. Tap the exercise to select it.
4. Tap Start to begin the exercise, or tap Set Goal to choose a time, distance, or calorie goal depending on the activity.
5. Tap the play icon to begin tracking your exercise. Charge 3 shows several real-time stats including heart rate, calories burned, and elapsed time. Tap the middle stat to see additional stats.
6. When you're done with your workout or want to pause, press the button.
7. Press the button again and tap Finish to end the workout.
8. Swipe up to see your workout summary.
9. Tap the check mark to close the summary screen.

Note: If the Exercise uses GPS, you'll see a phone icon in the top left as your tracker connects to your phone's GPS sensors. When the screen says "connected" and Charge 3 vibrates, GPS is connected.

Hope this helps. Keep me posted! 

[vee]

Santi, I had another problem. I got it paused with the one press, but when I pushed the button again I got another screen. Not the one that has finish.  Again, it took several pushes to get the finish.  

" When you're done with your workout or want to pause, press the button. Press the button again and tap Finish to end the workout."

I wish the button were a little higher up, not right next to the skin, it's a little hard to push.

[rock123]

In my opinion, this user experience is much poorer than charge 2. 

To start an exercise you have to tap 'start' which has a play icon.  However, this doesn't actually start the exercise, it just takes you to the 'start' mode, where you tap another play icon.  Why the need to create another 'start' submenu and why on earth use the same icon.  

Finishing the mode is just as bad.  Previously I could do a long press to turn the mode off without even looking.  Now you have to push the button twice and then tap finish.  After a long run do really want to be fiddling like that?  I can't believe you put such a clunky interface out.  You can see why people are having a hard time turning exercise on and off.  

I really hope you reevaluate your UI design. 

[Lasarre]

Pushing twice doesn’t work for me. It just resumes the work out. 

[vee]

yeah, I love my Charge 3 but ending an exercise is so annoying!!  button..tap..button again... or something like that! Half the time nothing happens, or it resumes. I do not like how low the side button is. And yes, is this what I want to be doing at the end of my run? (especially since I have a Garmin on the other wrist! At least that is easy!)   Does anyone in charge at Fitbit read these messages, or do we have to go to another place to input suggestions?

[rock123]

I feel your pain. I think Fitbit was so focused on doing everything with
the new touchscreen, that they fell short on usability. It is common
knowledge that more clicks on websites decrease engagement. More taps and
presses are similarly off-putting on a touch device! Ironically they had
better usability when they were more constrained by the hardware's input
capabilities. Where any usability studies done?

[Alcocalories]

When you say button can you specify the physical button on the side of the watch or the screen (radio) button on the screen.

Getting to the screen which  ends an activity is random and intermittent. It is rubbish compared to the fitbit charge 2 and I wish I had that back now

[Alcocalories]

When you say button can you specify the physical button on the side of the watch or the screen (radio) button on the screen.

Getting to the screen which  ends an activity is random and intermittent. It is rubbish compared to the fit bit charge 2 and I wish I had that back now

[Plmqst]

Still does not end exercise. Tried everything....I think I have a malfunctioning Fitbit. So frustrated!

[Karen-R]

Thank you so much!!!  I just finished my walk outside over 6.25 miles and I couldn’t shut it off when I was done. You are an angel and I printed it out so now I have a copy Thank you again 

[gDolphin]

When you say in step 6 When you're done with your workout or want to pause, press the button?

What button? Press the left side of the fitbit "covering" "partially covering" "putting fingernail inside indentation" ?

Not stopping! I've tried all of the above.

[BilH]

I had difficulty with this myself yesterday when I tried an 'exercise' for the first time on my new Charge 3. Reading the directions in the manual (reproduced as a solution here) didn't help. It turns out that when I 'press the button' I was pressing too long/hard though I thought it was just a press and was taken to a 'settings' instead of a finish/pause. After many, many tries I finally got the press brief enough to get a chance to 'pause' and then 'finish'. I might have realized what was going wrong a lot sooner if the manual mentioned the 'settings' page for 'Wake Screen' / 'Notifications' when you press a bit longer.

[YogiJest]

Button? This is a user experience #fail 

fix it

[Vegan-Up]

Glad I learned today that I can still return this watch to Amazon - IMO, it isn't intuitive (really, I need to Google how to turn off the exercise?), the clock faces are ridiculous.....etc. Bye, bye Charge 3.  Hello Garmin.

[Mogalla]

Sorry what is “the button” ? Is that the thing on the left? I have pressed that over and over and I cannot stop my workout. My work around is that I go in to the app and change the screen layout and that seems to stop the workout also. This is really annoying. 

[BilH]

I agree it's really anoying but can you tell me a bit more about what you
are experiencing? I think when you press on the left side ("the button")
one of three things happens:
1) nothing at all
2) there is a slight vibration and the screen says :Screen Wake" and
"Notifications"
3) there is a slight vibration and the screen says "Paused" with an arrow
to "Resume"
Number 3) is the reaction you want. You get Number 1) when your press
didn't register and you get Number 2) when you pressed too long. Another
press will get you out of Number 2) and back to your exercise.

When you get Number 3) you can press the left again and you will get a
screen that says "Finish" and "Return" - pressing the top half of the
screen with end your exercise.

Hope that helps you out, BilH

[steve4776]

Agreed, terrible!  i hit the play icon the first time and started running.  but wait - wasn’t tracking!  oh, so i have to host start again?  oh why?  finishing the workout was so frustrating,  the second tap did not work for me, like another user said, another screen popped up, i was so confused.  i don’t know how i was able to finally stop it.  i liked the exercise function on the first Charge HR the best, no cycling thro gg workouts, just hold button and go.  if FitBit really knew their core customers, they’d know we just want to get on with the exercise. PLEASE simplify!