The Fitbit Community is a gathering place for real people who wish to exchange ideas, solutions, tips, techniques, and insight about the Fitbit products and services they love. By joining our Community, you agree to uphold these guidelines, so please take a moment to look them over.
I think you should be able to sync with your phone and then upload data at a later date. Let us store data locally so that an internet connection is not required to see current stats.
It would be nice if it would be possible to select whether the data is stored at Fitbit.com or locally (on a computer/phone).
I would find this useful if I can't access the Internet while on vacation/traveling yet still want to sync my fitbit data on a phone/laptop to review at the end of a day.
I will present a "con" argument to this. One of the things I REALLY like is that the data is not local! I sync with both an android and a dongle on a PC, and all my data is in one place, and it's backed up by fitbit.
If all the data was on my Android, for example, I could no longer sync with my PC. And if my Android broke, my data would be lost. On top of that, how much data should be local? A day, a week, a month, a year, 5 years?
I like the cloud too. Or at least, I don't mind it. I sync with an iPhone (lost the PC dongle), but I don't see how it would be a "con" to have an option to store data locally.
Not everyone has, needs, or wants a smartphone. Not everyone likes their personal data (yes, your weight and exercise information is personal data) stored in the cloud.
The fitbit dashboard is great and should be able to be adapted for use as a software application for PC (and/or a Windows 8.1 app) with an option to sync and store locally, sync and store to a fitbit.com account, or to do both.
You also ask "On top of that, how much data should be local? A day, a week, a month, a year, 5 years?" -- Yes. Or 10 years. Or whatever.
Haha, been there, done that. It's actually why I posted this, right before I left. Was out at sea for about a week, and had no internet connection (without paying outrageous prices).
As I don't believe there is a solution for this, I only could wait until I returned to land to sync my fitbit. The battery life was good though for the whole time I was at sea, so it kept recording my movements, but I just couldn't view it until I got back.
Just keep in mind, if you're wearing the Force, make sure it's secure. Fortunately for me, it made it through the cruise. Unfortunately for me, it fell off while I was traveling to and from locations. I guess lugging around luggage at an airport can make it a bit difficult to notice when the Force falls off.
Discussion: The "Fitbit Connect" and "Fitbit" smartphone applications require an "always on" internet connection. I am currently deployed and do not have internet access on my personnal computer, nor can I install the "Fitbit Connect" software on our government machines in order to configure and set up my "Fitbit Force" [This may apply to other Fitbit products as well].
For customers that are always on the move or traveling, we put our smartphones in "Airplane" mode to follow certain rules and regulation. While in "Airplane" mode certain phones you can activate the bluetooth feature allowing you to sync your application. [This i can't prove as i stated above so this is all speculation]. If in the case of the "always on" internet connection your Fitbit product may not sync because it cannot access your internet dashboard. [If someone can prove this please post in the comments].
Recommendation: In regards to the "Fitbit Connect" software and "Fitbit" smartphone application there is a "Internet Required" just to set up your Fitbit product. I have contacted Fitbit support and there is no "Offline" configuration and or setup in the future of this product. I believe that such a mode should be made for those of us that don't have internet connection at times as well as not at all.
Agreed. I'm currently evaluating other fitness trackers with a primary requirement being the option for local storage of collected data, and a local app to view and analyze (same reason that I use Sporttracks with my Garmin wrist GPS to track my runs (instead of MapMyRun or another of the web-based apps).
I like my Flex—have had for about a month through a health maintenance program with my employer—but will eventually switch to something else if a local option is never made available. Ideal would be both, with the cloud option remaining for backup and community sharing.
I am currently in the military and use the Fitbit Force when I am in port along with my Fitbit Aria. But when I am underway there is no internet access and the app will not pull the data off of the force without internet access. The force seems to keep a good amount of data for awhile but when I am gone for a few months at a time it would be nice if I could send the data over to the smartphone and then when I pull into port the phone could sync all of that data over to the fitbit servers.
I would like to totally agree with this suggestion. It is not always practical to have an always on internet connection just to access the data recorded on the actual device. Maybe a "light" version of the dashboard should be developed for android/iOS for when no internet connection is available. Or an app which allows One to sync when online.
I understand that no data is stored locally, either on a computer or in the app, so syncing over bluetooth without the internet is impossible. However, I don't understand why this should affect silent alarms. Would it be possible to allow silent alarms to be set via Android app over bluetooth? Minimal data would need to be stored; simply create an alarm ont he app and push it to the device. This would greatly improve the FItbit's use as a travel device, when people often don't have internet around the time they're heading to bed.
I would also like to be able to upload the data to my PC and analyse it there rather than uploading to the fitbit servers.
I see it as a privacy issue - The data is mine and I shouldn't have to share it with anyone if I don't want to. All that is required is for the application on the PC that currently does the sync and upload to have an option whereby the data is output instead to e.g. a .csv file that I can load into a spreadsheet. It's a fairly simple request.
Allow the flex to do what you are advertising, which is sync over bluetooth without wifi. You advertise that flex can sync over bluetooth to mobile devices. This statement fails to include a key caveate, the mobile device requires an internet or data connection. Epic fail. Issue an update that enables the app to store history up to one month without connecting to wifi. Simple fix. Then you won't be false advertising.
Why do I need an internet connection to sync my Flex via bluetooth to a device. Thats crazy. Sync to the device, store the data on the device until a connection is avalable, then sync to the Fit Bit server. Currently no new data can be viewed on a smart phone unless you're in an area with data reception. In Australia thats a VERY small percentage of the country!
This is a very poor design, almost as bad as yout PC setup that requires a specific version of Internet Explorer ONLY and then requires security to be abandoned durig the process - the most frustrating technology setup Ive ever experienced ... and I can not use my netbook running XP for syncing because I can not install Fit Bit Connect!
Yes its rediculous that the data has to be synced through a device (phone/tablet/PC) to the fitbit servers but isnt saved to the device until it is downloaded back from the server.
I want the data synced to my device when Im away from a net connection.
It makes much more sense from a user prespective if the data is synced to storage on the device THEN synced to the fitbit servers via a net connection when available. Poor user experience and therefore poor app design.
I agree, all I want is to maintain my information on my own PC or phone. All I need is a basic dashboard or just a way to load the data into an Excel workbook were I can create my own dashboard.
There is no reason for this information to be public, (Yes I know you say I can lock it down, but I work in the security industry and know how weak it is). Plus what is to keep Fitbit from selling this information, once you upload it is their data.
I use mine as a daily reminder of activity and do not upload.
Would be a great app without having to upload to fitbit servers. Now only marginal...
The Fit bit dashboard is cloud based only, Had I known this I probably would not have bought it my fitbit one. Good though it is. As every new unit is sold and used that is more and more internet space and Fitbit website resource that is required. If we had this on our own stand alone programme this would free up things from Fit bit a lot and give us more choice and hey it would save fitbit money in the medium to long term.
So what about it Fitbit. Give us a simple stand alone dashboard. It may be hard for all you constantly connected young townies to believe but some of use do not have easy or regular access to the net at home and certainly not all the time when travelling abroad.
So let the clouds disperse and give us some blue sky!
Please allow local data storage! I recently travelled out of the country for several weeks and had to pay extra $$ for a limited data package (available only when I had a signal). I didn't realize my fitbit would not synch UNLESS I had an internet connection, and lost some data because I didn't have a signal for over a week. And while I don't know how much data is used during a sync, I was reluctant to add fitbit sync to my allowed data usage once a connection was available. There is no reason why the phone app should not be able to save/store the data until it is reasonable to sync with the servers.
While the privacy issue and my reluctance to used cloud based storage are yet a different issue, not allowing my mobile app to temporarily store the the data rendered my fitbit nearly useless while I was traveling - and I went out of my way to take my fitbit with me just to help ensure I stayed on track with my training!
I need this too, setting the alarm on my ipad when out of range or in other countries without internet, and since the ipad sends the alarm data to the fitbit, it is absolutely possible to do
And either the fitbit can send this tiny bit of data back to the internet when connected, or it would get orverwritten when internet is there, in both cases it would still work !!
The real need for a silent alarm is typically when travelling long-distance, where you often sleep at places where you should not disturb those around you
I travel frequently and would like to be able to change the time on my Force by manually changing the time on my iPhone and having it sync. Currently, changing time requires a wireless internet or cellular data connection to my phone which is not always available.
We should be able to set silent alarms and enable call notifications without an internet connection. I had to use my phone alarm at my parents house because they don't have Internet and my phone did not have service. Now I just tried to set an alarm again as get the message that "fitbit.com is down for maintenance".
I tried to enable call notification and it tells me sync is in progress but when I click to sync it says that fitbit.com is down so it is blocking call notifications as well. These settings should be able to be made offline.
The mobile app needs to be able to sync alarms without the internet. I, too, was traveling for a couple of weeks through several different timezones and the alarms kept going off at strange times and I couldn't do anything about it. This is a MUST HAVE feature. Ignore the internet connection or lack thereof. 1) Pull the alarm settings from the fitbit to the mobile app. 2) Allow editing. 3) Push the alarm settings back to the fitbit.
Join us on the Community Forums!
Community Guidelines
Learn the Basics
Join the Community!
Not finding your answer on the Community Forums?
Go to the Help Site
Contact Support