Fitbit: Shockingly poor quality products?

[PwDiddyLa]

I have had my Fitbit Charge 5 now since January, and I have been thrilled with many things…. It’s helped me hone in quite a bit more on reaching my fitness goals.

There’s a lot of really great things about Fitbit’s app especially (I subscribe to premium)…. I like that it’s all in one. 

That said, the hardware/firmware itself is, quite frankly, of very poor quality, and extremely buggy. It’s as if they’re pushing “beta” products out as if they’re well tested and production ready. They are not production ready. 

In the months I have had the device, and in speaking with others and monitoring the forums here (I am an IT systems architect, so note that I have meticulously followed the instructions and troubleshooting to the letter and researched the issues, and worked to resolve them) , I realized that:

- The Fitbit device has a 50/50 chance of the alarms working in the morning.  It’s comical to set the alarm and go back in 5 minutes later only to find that it didn’t save. 

- The battery will frequently go from 40% one minute, to completely dead at 0% and a black screen one hour later (happens every other week at least).

- The heart rate monitor is wildly erratic and inaccurate during workouts…. If you’re into interval training, it’s basically useless (I now use a telemetry chest strap and iRunner to better track my heart rate during workouts).

- The readiness score is hit or miss…. It can appear or not, even when you’ve done everything right. 

To add insult to injury, now that I have had to patch together multiple tools/devices to make up for Fitbit’s inadequacies, they don’t sync data with other devices well at all, so I have to pay for other apps for syncing. 

I could go on and on, but one only needs to take a quick look at any of the forums here and will see that there is simply no spirit of quality on behalf of Fitbit. 

I am very disappointed, and frustrated. As it stands, I wouldn’t consider buying another device made by Fitbit, and if the experiences of several friends rings true, I expect my device will fail completely in a year or less.

I’d like to know what others experiences have been along these lines, and what they’ve replaced their devices with.  I know that the Apple Watch will be a quality device, but I want something with a battery that lasts for several days…. 

I know I’m not the only one with these challenges, I would like to see what other “amateur athletes” who work hard and play hard have gone to.

[MDcrabster65]

Thank you for your post. I'm beyond frustrated with my Charge 5, which I also got in January. For the first several months, it seemed to work fine. Sleep metrics were sometimes a bit off, but I didn't get too concerned. Had that issue occasionally with a basic Versa that lasted for maybe 3 years.

Today, I "earned" over 10k steps driving my daughter to school! Never had this happen with a Fitbit before. Why today? Who knows! This will be a total dealbreaker if it keeps happening.

My Charge 5 stopped holding a decent charge (how ironic, given its name) about a month ago. I reset it often per instructions in another thread, and it still doesn't hold a full charge longer than a couple days--but I guess that's better than half a day, which is what was happening before. Guess it's only a matter of time before mine starts losing charge in an hour like yours is doing.

When I pause a run, my watch may or may not let me return to it. It's annoying to have to start a new run and then marry the stats together later to see what my distance and pace were.

I have also experienced alarms I set not alarming. Again, never had this issue with the old Versa. I agree that Charge 5 is more than likely my last Fitbit. Did Google buying them out screw them up this badly? Whatever, the lack of quality and the lack of concern on the part of the company about all of these lemon watches speaks volumes. They just. Don't. Care.

[RAP88]

Thank you for these articulate descriptions of your charge 5. I have had many of the same issues. The sleep tracker has been calculating off by one hour for months. I buy the same foods that were not listed. I’ve logged new food, taken pictures, etc even a month later it’s not updated into the system. 
Many times while trying to log food it just spins and never gets logged. 

Fitbit Customer service is moving through the motions and making you jump through all sorts of hoops. Premium Customer Service has listened and attempted to fox the problems. Yet I still haven’t heard back from anyone about the above issues. 

i will now keep checking here to see my next steps. 

[PwDiddyLa]

Interesting…. I haven’t tried adding foods…. But I do use the nutrition tracker daily…. The funny thing is that for me, it’s the only thing that has worked reliably haha

[Saritared]

I know this is an old post but I have had a Fitbit versa lite since they came out - this is my third - and since they started being affiliated with Google quality has truly decreased.

They seem to have changed the way they figure resting heart rate. For about 10 years, my rhr varied between 58 and 62 depending on stress, etc., varying about 2 points each day. Suddenly, starting in maybe March, its always 64, every day, nonstop. But my BP is the same as it was. 
Next, I think they used to suppress wild variations that didn’t last long (likely positional). I started getting really high spikes with 0 accompanying symptoms.I’m a weight lifter; I know what 200 bpm fees like and my body didn’t match the watch. 
Finally, I’ve also noticed the weird irregularities with battery life that you mentioned. 
I chose Fb to avoid constant surveillance - I turn off location, etc., but honestly I could just get a swatch at this point. 

[Saritared]

Ooh I have seen the car thing and the running thing. So small yet so annoying. Their help desk used to be so responsive and nice and now that they’re under Google, it’s not.