Guided Meditation Audios Keep Stopping

[KyungLK]

Hi All,

I signed up for Fitbit Premium several days ago, and have been trying out several features, especially the guided programs. 

Whenever I try to meditate using the guided meditation “Habits for Restful Sleep” program, however, all of the audio guides automatically quit out after a minute or so of playing. This is really annoying and beats the purpose of having a guided audio meditation in the first place. 

I’ve tried restarting the app, my phone, and resetting my router and internet. My internet connection is just fine according to diagnosis app I ran. 

Is anybody else having this problem, and is this related to the recent iOS update by any chance?

Moderator edit: Updated subject for clarity 

[Swood1028]

This response is from Nov 2019 and I’m having the issue now!  Clearly it hasnt been fixed-  the whole reason I signed up for premium was for the meditations. Looks like I will have to cancel... bummer

[Swood1028]

Wow fitbit!  The customer service used to he so awesome but seeing that this issue has been reported as far back as 5 months ago shows that you aren’t working on it!  Just cancelled the subscription since the whole reason I signed up doesnt even work!

[Christopher76]

I just signed up for FitBit Premium and last night I tried one of the "Relaxation Tools" to listen to audio to help me fall asleep. For some reason, the audio only plays for about 1 minute before abruptly stopping (even though the audio is supposed to last for 20 minutes). I cannot get it to play for longer than this. I have tried deleting the app and re-installing it, force closing the app and re-opening it, but nothing fixes it. I am running version 3.17 of the FitBit app on an iPhone X using iOS 13.4. I have read in this thread that a non-secure "work around" is turn off auto-lock on my iPhone, however I do not have the ability to do this. In the auto-lock settings on my iPhone, I can only select 30 seconds, 1 minute, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, 4 minutes or 5 minutes; there is no option to not select a time or to turn off auto-lock. So this means that at most I will be able to hear 5 minutes of the FitBit audio before it shuts off. Other apps that have audio (e.g. Spotify) can continue playing music/audio after my iPhone screen has locked. Why can't the FitBit app do the same thing? Why am I paying for a premium feature that doesn't work? When will this flaw be fixed in your app? 

[Daisyshooman]

Yup, I too signed up for Premium to help me to sleep and relax after long shifts working for the emergency services....and I too spent all last night trying to figure out a fix...there isn’t one. I’m so so disappointed in Fitbit who have been aware of this bug since at least November last year 🤬. Back to Headspace I shall go, bye bye FitBit Premium 👋

[Percula]

Headspace is vastly superior and they understand the subject. Fitbit just seem to be be bringing in other people’s content and hosting it (badly)

[KevCal]

It's May 27, over 6 months from the time the problem was first reported. Why am I paying SO much for premium each month? It would only be worth around $4/month even if everything worked. I'm not sure how much longer I'll last in premium. 

[Fitmillie]

My days with premium are counted... after this free trial i’m stopping. 
Just fixed a subscription with Headspace and I LOVE IT!! What a difference!!!

[KyungLK]

I’ve been staying away from this board for a while, but I am back because I am extremely frustrated with how Fitbit is handling its integration of third-party services into its Premium service. Instead of having the  audios and videos for sleep guide, meditation, and exercise seamlessly integrate into the Fitbit app, they decided to “import” it as external media files. So, in effect, Fitbit is not a platform that seamlessly “offering” these various (and often amazing) third-party services, it’s merely “playing” audios and videos on its app, degrading itself into a de facto media player (and a crappy one at that). This is why the guided meditation audios cease to play when the phone is turned off, and the same thing has been happening with exercise and other guide videos, with it being really difficult to adjust volume, navigate inside the video, and track metrics from these guided activities. 

In conclusion, Fitbit basically needs to overhaul the team that’s working on its Premium service (if there is even a single organization dedicated to it), and try to make it into an integrated fitness platform providing all of its current services in a streamlined manner through one single platform. Otherwise, I’m ditching my Ionic next year and switching to an Apple Watch. 

[Percula]

The fact that this issue still remains shows the level of interest they have in it. But also fundamentally for the charged “Premium” service that they’re bringing in other people content rather than producing their own? Whether for mindfulness or workouts. Seems almost unbelievable that a very large part of the Fitbit Premium is just other platforms content hosted as videos. I don’t have the time or inclination to check, but it wouldn’t surprise me if this is even their free content. 

the whole Premium experience is just a let down and not worth the money at all. 

[KyungLK]

I agree that Fitbit Premium is not very high on the list of issues they’re dealing with, which is a problem since it is still a paid service which not necessarily cheap compared to other similar services. I have no issue with how Fitbit provides its contents, whether it be via third-party apps or organically, as long as they are good (some contents including exercise videos and guided programs are decent). But the problem, again, is that they’re integrated so poorly that it may as well be a free service. In fact, I wouldn’t use them even if they were free, the way they’re organized right now. It’s not worth my money and time to use premium services at this point. 

I’ll also add that it’s a shame because there’s so much potential in Premium to become a holistic health tracking/management service platform integrating different aspects of individual apps out there. Even now, there’s just so much content provided through the service that has great potentials. Incompetent execution and failure to synthesize all that with Fitbit’s organic data and service has squandered  them away. I expect there may be some changes now that Google’s buying Fitbit, but like myriads of independent startups Google acquired, Fitbit might just fade into obscurity in a couple of years due to neglect. We’ll just have to see.

[Speedbuggy4]

Same on android, not relaxing at all with a glowing screen not to mention the battery drain and the screen stays on even when the session has finished so I have to get out of bed to do the feedback so I can turn it off, which means I'm fully awake again. I use a different program altogether now 

[trad74]

So more then year of people complaining and they still haven't fixed it??? Thats disappointing 

[Suziefox]

Wheres the auto lock?

[Gatica]

I have same issue as the OP, only it started occuring recently on my Samsung Galaxy S20 with Android 12. I thought it was the wireless headphones,so I tried using the USB-C wired headphones, but it still paused after about a minute. I had this installed previously on Galaxy S9 and it worked fine there.

[MarciaO1]

I is happing to mine also. I have a XR iPhone, and my software version is 15.4.1.  Can anyone come up with a solution? I do not have sleep settings on my phone. 

[YojanaFitbit]

@Gatica and @MarciaO1 Thank you for reporting this issue with us.

Please confirm that you've tried the following steps:

• Make sure you don't have any other apps that play audio running in the background. 
• Keep your app and phone updated and make sure you have a solid Wi-Fi or 4G connection. 
• Try logging out from the Fitbit app and force quitting it. After this, please try starting a guided meditation. 

Thank you for sharing your feedback with us.

[MarciaO1]

try that and it did not work. this is one of the many that stop after two minutes.

Kind regards, Marcia.

[YojanaFitbit]

@MarciaO1 Thank you for getting back to us. Is this happening with all audios? Are you getting any error message?

Your help is greatly appreciated while we work on solving this.

See you around.

[Gatica]

It wasn't the network connection or another audio app. However, seems there's been an update rolled out and it's working pefectly fine for me now. I'm able to stream the meditation tracks and they play without a hitch.

[MarciaO1]

well they are still not all playing completely to the end. I just tried one called Emerald evening and it quit after two minutes. I am very disappointed in this premium package and will not be renewing it.

Kind regards, Marcia.