Access to Other Applications While Tracking With the Exercise Application

[DurangoKen]

Currently, while the tracking exercise application is running, the user does not have access to other applications, with the exception of the Music App, unless you actually end the exercise tracking application.  For instance, if your Bluetooth earbuds loose their connection with the Ionic and want to reestablish the connection, or you want to use the Altimeter App to see what your current elevation is, you need to end the exercise.   Then you need to start over with the the exercise tracking application.  Access to other applications without having to end your current exercise tracking application would be nice.

[WavyDavey]

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@DurangoKen wrote:

Currently, while the tracking exercise application is running, the user does not have access to other applications, with the exception of the Music App, unless you actually end the exercise tracking application.  For instance, if your Bluetooth earbuds loose their connection with the Ionic and want to reestablish the connection, or you want to use the Altimeter App to see what your current elevation is, you need to end the exercise.   Then you need to start over with the the exercise tracking application.  Access to other applications without having to end your current exercise tracking application would be nice.

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Hi @DurangoKen,

If I lose bluetooth connection during an exercise, I just swipe to music control, and can reconnect the headset from there, without having to pause the exercise.

I think the issue with that kind of multi-tasking is, Fitbit can't control what 3rd party developers are going to do. So running apps alongside of fitness tracking could lead to all kinds of issues. For example, yesterday someone reported the altimeter app was draining their battery, due to losing GPS signal. If they had been tracking exercise at the same time, the tracking would have been lost also. Make sense?

[SunsetRunner]

cancelled

[bbarrera]

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@WavyDavey wrote:

I think the issue with that kind of multi-tasking is, Fitbit can't control what 3rd party developers are going to do.

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Fitbit has control over the fitbitOS, including how it services apps in the background. If this was purely a battery issue, then Fitbit wouldn't have added always-on display to Exercise mode which is a great way to kill your battery without any 3rd party apps.

I think the real issue here is that the fitbitOS is still a bit immature. I'll offer a bit of speculation, its certainly possible for Fitbit to enable 3rd party app multi-tasking in a future Ionic firmware update. And given there are a bunch of things that unnecessarily push you back to your phone, or provide a frustrating user experience, I would expect Fitbit to improve fitbitOS over time. 

[WavyDavey]

It may just be for stability who knows? Someone reported an app that drained their ionic battery because the app continuously tried to locate GPS satellites. We can agree the app developer should have logic to avoid that, but imagine if that app killed the battery during tracked exercise? 

For those that have used other smart watches, do they allow multi tasking as described above?

[bbarrera]

@WavyDavey Like I said you can drain the battery with a brand new Ionic, without loading any apps, by going for a hike and setting to always on display. On the SDK forum its been stated that only a single 3rd party app can run at a time. Like I said, that could change, but thats the way it works now.

I have a first gen Apple Watch, its had multi-tasking from the beginning. For example, start a workout, switch to timer app and set 50 minute timer to remind me about dinner in oven, switch to remote app and stop the music in garage, switch back to workout and go out for a walk. 

[DurangoKen · Accepted solution]

Thanks!  I see the "Device..." box in the music control screen and will give that a try.

[Thoar]

I agree. I have a great fitbit ionic app “swimpro” that gives me pushoff times and sets for swimming, but the developer didnt incorporate workout tracking in the app. It would have been great if i could use both the swimpro app AND the workout swim tracker so i could have my swimming logged. It was even more disappointing that while using an app, the automatic workout tracker gets disabled too. This would be great to see in the 2.0 update.