Lock screen/buttons during exercise for all Fitbit devices

[Sharpypus]

I've seen similar ideas/feedback noted for the Surge/Blaze and I'd love to see the same sort of thing for the Ionic, I also saw an idea to change the 'stop exercise' button to the (left) hand button on the Ionic which would too be good but would very much prefer a lock screen if possible 🙂

When I'm sometimes performing pushups, boxing, burpees or anything that causes my hand to bend, I've sometimes ended up pushing the bottom right hand button to 'pause' the workout and then sometimes ended up pushing multiple buttons during workouts to end it prematurely.

I'd love it if it were possible to disable the buttons during certain workouts or have some kind of lock screen, maybe even a long-button push option to only unlock the screen when holding one of the buttons for a few seconds etc. At the moment, it's just far too easy to accidentally click the right hand buttons which are tied to pausing/ending workouts.

An idea which would be great would be that my old android watch had, I could turn the screen on with a button although in order to interact any further, I would need to manually swipe away a lock screen (or you could set it up with a PIN each time) and then you'd be able to start/end/pause the workout.

Thanks a lot for reading, really hope this could be considered for a future firmware update 

Moderator Edit: Clarified subject and updated label

[MarreFitbit]

Nice suggestion, thanks for sharing. We look forward to hearing what other community members think.

[SunsetRunner]

Def need a lock option stupid thing kept pausing!!

[itonelovely]

Often, when I'm in the middle of a workout, my watch will end up pausing or completely exiting out of workout mode. I would like to suggest a way to lock the watch in workout mode so that even if buttons are pressed by accident the watch will stay in workout mode. Thank you!

[ScottKilbo]

This is an excellent idea.  I've lost a few workouts this way.

[Aaidanheb12]

Please create a feature to lock my versa when I am working out. Any time my wrist bend I always hit the pause button and then my workouts won't even track. Please create a feature that can correct this as soon as posisble. I love this product but I bought it for the sole reason of tracking my caloires in a workout and right now I can't accurately do that thanks to this missing feature. 

[ScottyDM]

My complaint on this was about the iPhone app. Am not sure whether all comments that are merged here are about that. Why is it such a big deal to change an obviously problematic pause button in an app? The app undergoes updates fairly frequently. In fact, it is annoying that after one, it has to clean things up—sometimes for a very long time—after opening the app and before a session can begin. But, that is another issue. As far as Fitbit’s failure to responsively fix the subject issue, my solution has been to switch to a different product made by Polar. The app works in conjunction with my heart rate monitor. It doesn’t have the third party interfacing capacity of Fitbit, but it works flawlessly with regard to the subject complaint. I periodically open the Fitbit app to see if this has been fixed. To date, still nothing. Somewhere here, Fitbit goes so far as to say it is no longer being considered. Well, I figured out that it most likely was never being considered. I think that is foolish.

[iamprad]

So much this. I play ice hockey and my glove always pauses or cancels the work out.

I really want to upgrade to the versa but feel like I'll have the same issue as I did with the blaze. 

So something to lock the screen during workouts are on  

[MrBadger]

My complaint was about the watch rather than the app. But I have to say I
was more than a little miffed at the summary dismissal without any
acknowledgment that having clothing pause or even complete an exercise
session might be an issue that needed to be addressed. I can't believe I'm
the only one to have run on to it. I was actually half expecting that there
was some obvious workaround I was missing. Oh well.

--
Come, my friends, 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world. -- Tennyson

[btna]

Everytime I do plank pose during my yoga session, I need to be careful not to push the pause button with my wrist. This is annoying. 

[Smither-s]

 This really needs to be implemented. Even if it's via an app, rather than a firmware update. I do yoga, and indoor climbing with the Versa and my hand position just triggers the buttons frequently. 

[FitMom86]

YES! Please come up with something...every time I do a plank or anything where my hand moves back...it pauses...it is such an inconvience whole working out. I'm disappointed because I upgraded from the HR 2 for this and never had a problem with my HR 2 as far as pausing goes...please implement solutions!

[BatWarren]

Adding more weight to this one. 

I wear my Ionic on my left wrist; the most annoying one so far was losing the first hour of a ~14km obstacle course race in April, but my workouts regularly get paused when doing bootcamp or weights by inadvertently hitting the side button.

At least I can disable the autopause feature when running to not lose those; it's frustrating that there is no option to disable the pause from this button.

[Kaplan.Seth]

We definitely need a lock feature on the workout screen - without it, the workout tracking is basically useless when it comes to things like boxing, kickboxing, basketball, etc.  thanks!

[MikeWilliamsNZ]

The Versa really need a lock screen option. It keeps pausing as my hand wraps touch it during kickboxing.

Also, it might stop the fascination my one year old daughter has with it. She keeps messing with it.

[Roadtofitness7]

I would very much like to see FitBit Versa have a screen lock function as I’m regularly losing data on various activities due to accidental pausing of the tracker.  

My iWatch had the lock screen feature and was super.  The only reason I changed to FitBit Versa was to get more data and longer batter life - ironic how I’m getting less due to the accidental pause. 

To the FitBit team, please consider adding this important feature, and reduce the daily frustrations!  I’m sure many others will agree it would make a huge difference.  

[jimplas67]

I do Spartan race and tough mudders on a regular basis. Early this year I saw that either the  Spartan or TM pro team was wearing the Ionic so I started using mine during races instead of my Garmin. The results are very disappointing as the run is paused constantly during crawls and climbs.  I can't tell you how unhappy that makes you when you're trying to use the device to stay on track toward your goals.  How hard can it be to make pausing a two button function?  Please add this feature!!!!

[rilyn7]

Pausing mid exercise is the worst feature of the ionic. If this is not fixed soon I will be switching to a different tracking device. Does anyone have any suggestions for a heart rate/gps tracker?

I run or bike 5-7 a week and about half of my exercises get paused midway through. This is incredibly irritating since tracking my exercises is important to my training. There is nothing worse than running 18 miles to learn that the run was paused 7 miles in. Sure I may no longer get that strava KOM, but I lose a correct training log that is imperative to my training success. 

I think a double tap of the pause button would work, or even a long hold. This shouldn't take much programming and should be an easy fix.

[Dav-E]

I hope that there will be a fix for this problem really soon.

Already lost several excercises/bike-rides due to the pauze button!

[AndyCyclist]

Yes! I came to make the same suggestion. I do jiujitsu/ground fighting, and among other things we grab each others wrists. Pretty much every time a match ends, I check my watch, and my workout has been paused.

I tried covering it with a wrist sweatband, which stops the screen from registering touches, but does not prevent the buttons from being pushed. I'd like to be able to tell it to record a workout for xx minutes and ignore all inputs during that time.

[ScottyDM]

@rilyn7 you might take a look at Polar products. I use their chest strap monitor and iOS app, but they have other solutions as well. I find the accuracy of the chest type HRM to be worth the extra effort and the Polar is by far the best. If you don’t carry a phone during workouts, this can be accommodated, but one of their watches might be a better choice. Polar has pause features that work flawlessly. Too, they are much more responsive to customer suggestions than FitBit begins to be.

[Richie967]

@Fitbit - This is exceptionally frustrating. I have a Blaze which pauses all the time when I'm running, Was considering getting a versa, but after discovering this also cannot be locked during a workout. It'll probably mean a Garmin. Maybe if we tweet Fitbit they'll do something about it. 

The Suggestion was made months and months ago.

[MrBadger]

What is especially frustrating is that there has been not a peep out of
FitBit itself. Well, other than an initial response to my suggestion saying
basically "Yeah, we're not going to do that." 😞

--
Come, my friends, 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world. -- Tennyson

[Richie967]

Now that’s really frustrating. I would have thought that was a pretty basic requirement for a fitness watch? 

Im thinking of upgrading from a Blaze to a versa, that must have a lock function?!

[jimplas67]

No lock function on the Versa either. Apparently FitBit doesn't think a
lock function is necessary.

[MrBadger]

I'd love to know what the official FitBit reasoning on this is???