Upcoming changes to the Weight Tracking Page

[LenaFit]

2/10/2018

Please see this post for additional updates based on user feedback.

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1/3/2018

Hi again! Just wanted to let you all know that the improvements to the Weight page is now live. Hope you like the new look!

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Hi everyone! We are excited to announce the launch of our updated website dashboard Weight Page, planned to go live in the coming year. This update will provide a great new aesthetic, interface improvements, and better alignment with the Fitbit app so that you have a consistent experience no matter where you are. 

In the updated interface, you'll now be able to edit any weight entry, rather than having to delete and recreate them to make changes. You'll also be able to set Weight Goals right from the dashboard, as well as clearly visualize weight entries on the graph using a new tool tip.

You might notice that weight badges are now found exclusively in the Badge Locker, to organize all your achievements in a single location. You'll find an easy link to your badges on the right side of the page.

Also note that you may occasionally see the weight tile on your dashboard differ from recent weigh-ins by a tiny amount (usually 0.1). Our team is aware of this, and working to resolve it in an upcoming release. Your Weight Page data should always be correct.

We will add some screenshots soon to aid in visualizing the change. We hope you enjoy the new look and features on the updated Weight Page! Please let us know if you have any questions about this feature or if we can help you get familiar with the changes.

[MarkNZ]

For future improvements??
I would have thought the feedback was so overwhelmingly negative about the
latest update, that you guys would roll back immediately.
Or perhaps i should have worded that . . . "hoped" it would get rolled
back.

[BigYin100]

Given no one form Fitbit replied to this I raised the matter directly with them via customer service. I have pasted the reply I received below.I have not revealed the senders ID as I consider the response to be both patronising and insincere. The response shows a contempt for the users of Fitbit's products.It is not acceptable (to me anyway) to be dismissed with so obviously a cut/paste reply and a lack of understanding of the issues raised.

Hello Steve,

Thank you for your feedback regarding the new weight graph. We also appreciate the screenshot you shared for our reference.

We understand how important it is to be able to monitor your weight correctly and at the same time to feel credited for every fitness achievement. We are constantly striving to improve our features to make sure that we deliver what you need to track your fitness effectively and your constructive feedback is highly valued.

We think that your suggestion will help us come up with better features in the future. The best place to make your voice heard is the features suggestions board on our community. Our product development teams consult this page regularly to ensure we're delivering on what our customers need and want. We would appreciate it if you will take a moment to visit us and give us your feedback or suggestion.

We found a suggestion similar to yours and by voting on this idea, you can be sure that our team will be considering your feedback. To vote, you may click here.

We thank you for being an active member of the Fitbit community. If there’s anything else we can assist you with, feel free to let us know.

Moderator edit: word choice

[elmbury]

Someone will have designed the new Weight Tracking Page, someone else will probably have tested it, and someone else will then have approved its release.  What I am most concerned about is these people clearly do not use this feature themselves.

[latecomer]

Without withdrawing my view that Fitbit has treated its long term and loyal customers with great disrespect, and fearing that they will continue to ignore us, here is my workaround. If, like me, you are satisfied with a graph with end-month data points, (ie 12 a year) this took me an evening. I have no Excel  skills and limited Word skills.  Using Insert>Line Chart in Word I set up a chart with kilos 65-90 (vertical) and months (horizontal) I have 4 years of data starting at 90k and currently 75k. On the Chart Elements (+) button I selected automatic update so that the horizontal axis in particular grows as I add data. I then set up my months in Edit Data. Then in Fitibit>Settings>Data Export>Time period custom select last day of month; open XLS file and note the weight (BMI is there too).  Back on the chart add the weight to each.   Result -  a simple chart which is not a (nearly) straight line and where the cursor enables you to read each data point (kgs and date). You can add a trend line too.       

[USAF-Larry]

That is basically the same thing I do, @latecomer, except I use LibreOffice Calc (primarily because I use Linux instead of Windows), but I was maintaining my own charts before Fitbit made any changes to their graphical display. So, nothing changed for me.  I have always preferred maintaining my own data so I can manipulate it to give me the trend information I can best use.  Thanks for posting your experience!

[bassetmama]

The big question is are they going to do something about it?

[USAF-Larry]

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@bassetmama wrote:
The big question is are they going to do something about it?

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It is almost certain that it will change. Which direction, though, no one knows....  That is the main reason I maintain my own data archives.

[BigYin100]

I originally posted #23, with a follow up on #82, regarding this matter. Because of the way this board works you can't see there is no connection between the posts.

I think what this issue shows is important.

First - there is a clear disconnect between what Fitbit maintain is an "improvement"  (see #80) in their offering and how their users perceive the changes they have made. It is hard to believe that should Fitbit's development team have run these latest changes through a user base that the type of comments that are being posted here would not have been detected. So either they didn't do that (in which case this is incredibly poor practise) or they did test the changes but decided to ignore the feedback. The question then would be why would you implement a change that your user base does not support.The likely answer to that is cost. 

Second - whilst this community board is useful for users to talk to one another, as has been mentioned by other posters, if we want to have any chance of real action then comments need to be aired in a more public (Facebook/Twitter etc) forum. Fitbit's lack of comment/intervention as a result of comments placed here does not make this an effective medium to be a catalyst for change. 

Third - it always impresses me how users find work around's for the "**ahem** up's" that companies implement in the name of change. I am grateful to all that post whose intent is to help make the use of these products more meaningful and beneficial. It is because of this that many have remained loyal to the product line, whilst the company has not shown this loyalty to its users.

[phv]

To illustrate how poor the new dashboard is, here is a comparison of two BMI evolution graphes t with the broadest period of time and most details obtained respectively...

(FIGURE 1) ...using the recently "improved" fitbit dashboard

(FIGURE 2) ....by exploiting the raw data exported out of FitBit cloud and then imported in a decent dashboard tool, in this case with the Amazon cloud service QuickSight which is free up to 1Gb of data:

Both visuals were produced based on the identical data set, so you would expect to see "the same"!!

I believe those visuals are clear enough to indicate how bad (and even useless) the new FitBit dashboard became!!!

Btw, as you can notice, I should spend more time doing sport rather than posting in fitbit forums to recover the recent weight increase ...

[USAF-Larry]

@phv, same data, different smoothing techniques.  That is why I export all of my data and use a spreadsheet to graph it.  I can get the general trends from the Fitbit graph, and I can get the detailed info from my file displayed in the spreadsheet.

[phv]

@USAF-Larry I know! 🙂 but this is the point: the former version of the dashboard was good enough to avoid that complexity for normal consumers.

FitBit offers two things:

- neat devices,

- nice online cloud services to manage your data, and provide analysis tool (some of them being actually paid, with the premium subscription).

There is change of marketing strategy for both

- now wrist-devices only (the One was dropped from catalog)

- and in parallel a change of cloud services towards "simple visuals you could look at on the wrist" (the richer dashboards being removed from the full web site).

This forum allows to give feedback on how users appreciate (or not) such changes. They are also an opportunity for fitbit to demonstrate our reactive they are (or not) to their client feedback.

[KateFitbit]

Hi Everyone- As @MariamV mentioned in her post, we do hear that many are concerned about the changes to the weight tracking chart. Our team has received and is reviewing the feedback. Once I hear further, I'll be sure to update this thread. Thanks again for taking time out to provide feedback. 

[MarkNZ]

Well done @phv. This is an awesome representation of just how bad the update is. Nice job!

[helrj]

I am just adding my voice to all the others - I have exactly the same issue - I notice that the phone app still has the data point graph as well as the 'trends' I am wondering if this is some sort of stuff up because I really can't see why it has changed - the new graph is really completely useless - they may was well get rid of this function completely than provide such a poor option - if it had been like this when I first started using fitbit I wouldn't have even bothered using it.  I have had a response to an earlier message about this and basically they said - they are not going to change it so suck it up - a bit disappointing 

[Joe1953]

What is so strange is that Fitbit doesn't even respond to any of the questions or complaints that are being expressed. It makes you wonder if they really care.

[taucan62]

Can we revert back to the old page? Horribly ugly, and to enter a new weight you have to ERASE the current weight. "graph" (using the term loosely, is useless. Just a wavy line.

[clchapman2]

Lena, 

I was horrified to find that I have lost all my data from over 2 years ago.   My doctor advised me to lose weight slowly and it always helped to remind me how far I have come by looking at the data over many years.  How do I get this data back???

[USAF-Larry]

@clchapman2, the data isn't really gone, it just does not show on the the graph - I have downloaded all of my data so I can analyze it in various ways that is not possible on the web page.

Curious what happens on your dashboard Weight log if you change the selection at the top of the graph to "1yr", and then use the back arrow on the date display to go backwards by the year (and you give it time to refresh the graph)?  Does it just show a flat line when you go backwards beyond a certain date?

[fitdenver]

Thank you for restoring the old view!

[Joe1953]

Are you just joking or did I miss something? The charts look the same to me.