Maps gone and bluetooth has issues

[SunsetRunner]

I think I'm about to give up now.

After other weird issues with my Inspire, like notifications randomly not working (restarting my phone seems to be the only - temporary - fix), yoga exercises logged via my Inspire show as walks (when trying to amend manually, it reverts back to walk), and not to mention the workaround I had to do to be able to see my cardio score after the latest app update (change system language on my phone and change back again - it works now, but seriously?), I today noticed that there was no map shown in the app after my walk. When I thought about it, I realized that there had never been that litte GPS arrow usually visible in the corner, in fact, it hadn't even tried to connect to the GPS on my phone.

"When did this happen?" I wondered since I don't always check the map after a walk, even though I always use the GPS. I checked. Couldn't find maps for any walks the last few days. Went back a couple of weeks. No map. Went back to August, when I'm 100% there were maps, always, after every walk.

Every singly map is gone.

Started to check bluetooth settings. Unpaired the Inspire, restarted the BT on my phone, tried to pair, got stuck on "pairing" until timed out. Restarted my phone, restarted the Inspire, tried again. You know what? Now my phone can't even find the Inspire in the list of available BT devices. The Inspire still syncs with the app though, but I guess I'm out of luck when it comes to maps.

I'm so annoyed that all my old maps went missing. Where did they go? Is there any chance of retrieving that data or is it lost?

What is going on?

You know what? My partner has a watch from another famous brand lying around. I think I will go back to that brand instead. The brand in question also has its flaws, but at least I did not experience this level of bugs and weird behaviour back when I used it. Sorry Fitbit. But all the bugs are just too much for me.

[Julia_G]

Hi, @SunsetRunner , with respect to maps: you will only get a map for your walk if you manually track your walk using the exercise app on your Fitbit device.  You can set GPS to be on or off on the app.  To check this, from the clock face on your Inspire 3 swipe left to come to the exercise app.  Swipe up to find “walk” and then tap to open. When you have opened the exercise app on the Inspire, rather than starting your walk immediately swipe up to find settings and make sure that GPS is toggled to ON.  

When you are ready to walk, start your exercise using the app on the Fitbit.  (You can also now set it to auto start and stop, so you don’t even need to remember to start and stop!).  Your Fitbit will try to connect to GPS (using your phone’s GPS chip, so of course you must have your phone with you).  When you have completed your exercise and synced your Inspire 3 you should have a map of your walk.

If you rely on SmartTrack to auto capture your walks, GPS will not be turned on and you will not get a map.  However, with your exercise app you will.

Re your Bluetooth issues - it is *not* possible to connect your Fitbit device to Bluetooth using your phone’s Bluetooth settings.  This will *never* work (and never has).  Instead you *must* only connect to Bluetooth via the Fitbit app, but since you say it still syncs it sounds like you have done that and there is no issue there.

Unfortunately if your GPS was not on during past walks then you won’t have those maps.  However, if you follow the instructions here, you should have maps for future walks (as long as GPS is able to connect).

I hope this helps!

[SunsetRunner]

Hi @Julia_G thanks for your input. I found the setting you mentioned and GPS now works. The question is, why did it became disabled in the first place? I have used maps for walks as long as I have had a Fitbit and it was just a couple of days before my last post that the GPS stopped working and the maps (even from earlier walks that I know HAD maps I have been looking at) were gone. So there was definitely something fishy going on with the software.

[EllenTL]

Total stab in the dark at your problems but the latest update sure screwed many inspire 3 with android users 🤷🏻‍:female_sign:..🤞for a fixed update for all. 

[Julia_G]

Hi, @SunsetRunner , I am very glad that my suggestion has solved your issue for you.  To answer your follow up question as best I can, I have found over the years that following an update settings sometimes revert to defaults and the user will need to re-set these to their own preferences.  It is one of the first things I check when my Fitbit suddenly does not seem to be behaving as it had been previously….