Charge 5 STINKS at tracking Ice Hockey. It's somehow worse than my old Charge 2.

[Robtachi]

I recently purchased a Charge 5 to replace my Charge 2 that died, and I honestly really regret it. I'm well aware that Fitbit still, for some reason, doesn't have a tracking mode for Hockey and you need to select the generic "Workout" mode - that's what I was doing with my Charge 2.

However, the tracking on the 5 is so much worse. The workout is pausing and stopping constantly. I repeatedly have to restart a new workout every few minutes and what ends up getting tracked is meaningless spurts that don't do me any good. I never had an issue with the Charge 2's Workout tracking, even in games or scrimmages where I was not skating as hard as usual.

The nature of hockey is you are skating and working hard in short bursts, and resting for short intervals on the bench. I can't have the Charge 5 deciding that my workout is over every time I come off the ice, and if that's going to be the case, this tracker is functionally useless to me.

Other fitness wearables have dedicated hockey tracking apps, and I honestly wish I had bought one of those, had I known the Charge 5 would be so terrible at it.

[Julia_G]

Hi, @Robtachi I think it is very likely that your issue is to do with the haptic “button” on the Charge 5 which is very different from the  physical button on the Charge 2.

It sounds to me that what is happening is that your Charge 5 is either pausing, or stopping altogether your workouts many times during a match or practice.  That isn’t because it decides your workout is over - it doesn’t do that if you manually start an exercise - it is because the flexing of your wrist presses the button!

To fix this, I would recommend experimenting with turning the watch upside down during workouts, wearing it inside your wrist instead of outside, or trying it on the other wrist during matches (presumably you flex your wrist differently depending on its position on the stick.)

At least you could try - and let us know if any of that helps at all.

[ShadowNinja]

I would just like to point out that there is no haptic or physical button on the charge 5.

I have no idea why the workout ends automatically, but I hope that by me saying that there is no button will help in a little way

[Julia_G]

Hi, @ShadowNinja , you’re right!  C5 works by tap and swipe only! I had it confused with earlier model.  But the principle is the same.  

Could a sleeve be brushing against against the screen and causing it to react?