Shirt sleeve interacting with screen. How did this escape every review?

[wfs]

EDIT: Here is a video I made demonstrating the bug

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjMIuFv_vKU

5 of my 7 run recordings since buying this device have been borked because my sleeve evidently will swipe the screen and cause it to pause, stop or otherwise interrupt the exercise session. Its EXTREMELY frustrating to say the least. I spent $200 on this device and its essentially unusable.

Today's run:  Checked my watch at around 1 mile to discover it was on the EDM screen and the exercise had stopped about 2 minutes prior.  I started another run exercise and this lasted 0.2 miles when my wrist buzzed and it had stopped the exercise again. I started it a 3rd time and it manged to survive the rest of the run, but it did pause twice.

I'm wearing a lululemon exercise shirt. Its just a normal shirt that doesn't have any strange design around the wrist or anything. But why can it control the screen? Shouldn't the screen require an actual fingertip?

I am not just hear to gripe. I want to see if it can be fixed. Is mine particularly buggy? Is this a known issue that is being worked on? Is there a setting somewhere to make the screen less sensitive? Lastly, can I get a refund even though I don't have the box any longer?

Cheers and thanks

[wfs]

Nice, fac73, thanks for doing that. Recommending we disable screen wake is not really a viable workaround. I do not want to have to double tap the screen while running to see my pace or distance. I just want to lift my arm and look.

[fac73]

Well... just had a response from FitBit support:

"this is an expected behavior since the Charge 5 is a wrist-based tracker."

Erm.... As you can expect, I've fired an email back explaining, amongst other things, that my previous Charge 2 and Charge 3 were also "wrist-based" and never once exhibited this behaviour and to go back to their development team and come back with a working solution. 

FitBit can't honestly expect that these devices should only be worn with short-sleeves no matter where in the world or what time of the year/day they're being used. Bloody ridiculous excuse!

We'll see what comes of my reply!

[Jamesrw]

Hi.  Just happened to me again.   I’m assuming it’s sweat rubbing on the screen and the material which means I think you have to activate the Water Lock to stop the screen being activated while running.   Will report back.  J

**ahem**. Water Lock only works in Swim Mode.  Fitbit - you need an option to put Water Lock on in Run mode etc.  you could fix the issue then. 

[wfs]

Bah, well good on you for trying.  FWIW, my shirt was bone dry in the test video I uploaded earlier.  I do think you're right though in that moisture can exacerbate the problem. I think there's also a static electricity factor: The more "static-y" the fabric, the easier it is to replicate the problem.  

[Jamesrw]

Actually the Water Lock works equally well in the dry or wet - I just tried it - it's in effect a screen lock which you double tap (very hard!) to activate/deactivate.  If they gave an option for it in all Modes (Run etc.) as they do with 'always on display' etc. and not just in Swim Mode I think this would fix it.   I would try a run with it in swim mode to see if it avoids stopping / changing / pausing!   Out again Thursday so may try then!

[hughbertd]

I just want to add my own frustrations to this thread. 

This is happening to me constantly (multiple times in a run) every time I exercise and is crazy annoying. 

Setting screen-wake to manual does nothing because the FitBit thinks you are tapping the screen which wakes the device regardless and then starts swiping. 

Now we're in the winter months this is a totally non-viable product for exercising in the cold. Clearly all the product testing was done indoors or in the summer. 

For FitBit to say this is expected behaviour is either insulting, or shows they don't understand what the issue actually is.