Fitbit Pay is not always working on Ionic

[Gregga]

Hi there, I have a ionic - about 2 months old and sometime payment works other times it doesn’t. There doesn’t seem to be any continuity. Anyone else have this issue? 

I have tried paying on old and new terminals and it just seem temperamental! 

Moderator edit: updated subject for clarity

[LowVibe75]

Thank, yeah it’s a bit annoying.

I have found it works 100% of the time right after putting my PIN in. Today
I took the watch off my wrist and then launched FitBit Pay after it failed
the first time.

Once I put my PIN in it worked perfectly. This was faster than rebooting
the phone at least. If only there was a setting to ask for a PIN every
time, I would definitely use that because this seems to be the issue.

I tried to use it again not long after and it didn’t work, repeating the
above to get the PIN prompt worked again perfectly.

Cheers,

G.

[Colinm39]

@LowVibe75I have found the pin input to be more of a security setting.. In this link about Fitbit Pay explains it in detail.

When you take your watch off, and the moment you put the watch back on your wrist it prompts for a Pin, and there is the 24 hour cycle after the last Fitbit Pay  when you have to put the pin in again.  Sometimes I feel there is a random issue, and I put that down to security and welcome that.  Maybe it's the point where the watch has temporarily lost the HR measurement and interprets that as a "watch removal", so you go to use Fitbit Pay and it needs the pin..

All of this for security, I welcome....

---

@LowVibe75 wrote:
Thank, yeah it’s a bit annoying.

I have found it works 100% of the time right after putting my PIN in. Today
I took the watch off my wrist and then launched FitBit Pay after it failed
the first time.

Once I put my PIN in it worked perfectly. This was faster than rebooting
the phone at least. If only there was a setting to ask for a PIN every
time, I would definitely use that because this seems to be the issue.

I tried to use it again not long after and it didn’t work, repeating the
above to get the PIN prompt worked again perfectly.

Cheers,

G.

---

[LowVibe75]

I agree, this work works perfectly. I just wish there was a setting to ask
for it every time. For me, this is the only way I can get FitBit Pay to
work.

[Colinm39]

@LowVibe75Thanks for the reply.  Are you saying that you have to enter the pin every time you use FitBit Pay  ?

Because I wear my Ionic 24/7 and as I mentioned in my post, there the random issue and other times as stated by Fitbit in the link. Over a waking day I rarely have to input the Pin.

If you're forced to Pin every time there is something amiss..

Here is the link to Support and depending on what country you're in you will get the option to email.  I prefer to use that, put up with the first line of support... the waffle .. and then yopu reply with the facts again...

https://help.fitbit.com/?cu=1

---

@LowVibe75 wrote:
I agree, this work works perfectly. I just wish there was a setting to ask
for it every time. For me, this is the only way I can get FitBit Pay to
work.

---

[LowVibe75]

No, FitBit pay only works for one transaction or two after I have entered
my pin. Then after that it stops working. So in order to use it I have to
force it to ask for a PIN by either resetting it or taking it off my wrist.
If it asked me every time I would be happy.

G.

[Colinm39]

@LowVibe75I'm wondering if the Ionic is faltering on the HR detection.. Do you see many of the "--" because in my understanding that could be seen as a watch removal.

@EdsonFitbitThanks for the earlier input, could you throw some light on this issue because it's new to me..  I noticed today that the Unlock message with the padlock came up when I attempted Fitbit Pay.... How often will that occur or is it a timing thing ?

I can see three types of pin requests now, at the end of this para......and keeping in mind, during a day I rarely see these while using Fitbit Pay. My last calendar month there were 135 Fitbit Pay transactions, only two failures, because the Tap terminal could not contact the bank, re-tapping fixed that.. A dialup timing issue near Christmas..

• When I put the watch on after a shower.
• When I activate Fitbit Pay after a few hours it shows the numeric keypad
• or rarely the Unlock Padlock view. 

Thanks.. Colin

[LowVibe75]

I am deliberately triggering the PIN request otherwise FitBit Pay doesn’t
work. That’s why I take it off my wrist or reboot it. I don’t have an issue
with the PIN randomly requesting and FitBit working the rest of the time.

Sorry if I didn’t explain myself properly.

Cheers,

G.

[Colinm39]

@LowVibe75So to paint the picture, when you go to pay and press the LH button on the Ionic it shows the Credit Card image most of the time and will allow you to tap and pay or is this part failing ?

---

@LowVibe75 wrote:
I am deliberately triggering the PIN request otherwise FitBit Pay doesn’t
work. That’s why I take it off my wrist or reboot it. I don’t have an issue
with the PIN randomly requesting and FitBit working the rest of the time.

Sorry if I didn’t explain myself properly.

Cheers,

G.

---

[LowVibe75]

Hi, trying to paint the picture:

Hold down side button
Fitbit vibrates
Card comes up on screen ‘hold near reader’
Hold near reader, FitBit vibrates, nothing else happens
Sad face
Cancel transaction

Reset Fitbit (or remove from wrist briefly)

Hold down button
FitBit vibrates ‘tap to unlock’
Enter PIN
Card comes up on screen ‘hold near reader’
Hold near reader, FitBit vibrates, transaction completes
Happy face

If I use FitBit Pay again within say 10-15 minutes it works normally. After
that back to square one.

Hope this helps illustrating the problem.

G.

[Colinm39]

@LowVibe75Thanks again... There is enough here for the moderators to give you some advice....

You will be asked the obvious questions.. Like OS level of the Ionic etc.....

Let's hope there is a positive solution for you because what you're experiencing shouldn't be happening..

---

@LowVibe75 wrote:
Hi, trying to paint the picture:

Hold down side button
Fitbit vibrates
Card comes up on screen ‘hold near reader’
Hold near reader, FitBit vibrates, nothing else happens
Sad face
Cancel transaction

Reset Fitbit (or remove from wrist briefly)

Hold down button
FitBit vibrates ‘tap to unlock’
Enter PIN
Card comes up on screen ‘hold near reader’
Hold near reader, FitBit vibrates, transaction completes
Happy face

If I use FitBit Pay again within say 10-15 minutes it works normally. After
that back to square one.

Hope this helps illustrating the problem.

G.

---

[LowVibe75]

Cheers, I hope so too. I have already done multiple factory resets, removed
the card, deactivated FitBit Pay and renabled all of those things. Not sure
what else to try at this point but hopefully there is a solution somewhere.

G.

[Colinm39]

@LowVibe75  The only success I have had with Fitbit is to use the email option..   It gets well documented and you have evidence based data and you get results.  Maybe because I'm in Australia and we have the email option.  I believe that option is not available in some countries..

Fitbit have replaced two of my Ionics, both within 3 working days from OS to Australia. The first was a non working GPS and the second with dramatic battery discharge at about 4 days..

I'm happy with my current Ionic, and getting about 6.5 days battery, I still have the One and my others..  All working, but in "retirement" except the One...

[LowVibe75]

I’m in Aus also, I have an open ticket raised via email but I thought I
would see if anyone in the community had a similar issue and some other
things to try.

I couldn’t find anything when I searched apart from other intermittent
issues with FitBit Pay. So I get to be the odd one out.

The Ionic is working perfectly apart from the one annoying issue. I love
it. It’s annoying as FitBit Pay is super handy for me. M

G.

[Gregga]

Yeah - I’m in Oz too. So maybe it really is down to the slow tech here

[Colinm39]

@LowVibe75@GreggaSeeing we are domicile in the same country let's now narrow the options..

I'm with the ANZ Bank using Visa card..  I have no issues with the three Fitbits since the release on day one, even with the other issues, but Fitbit Pay kept working.

Another plus with Fitbit Pay, I had my card compromised by a large electronics/appliance retailer a few weeks ago and Fitbit Pay was up and running within hours with my replacement Visa Card number, before my new Visa Card arrived in the mail.  The attempted online theft never got the goods because the retailer's systems picked up the problem and froze my card in their system. A $4,500 TV set via their online system.. They blamed a "rogue" merchant/person somewhere in their system..

[LowVibe75]

It’s a great system, no doubt. The issue I’m having frustrates me as to me
it seems like a software glitch, which a factory reset would fix. The fact
that it actually works, the system is fine makes it more frustrating. It
just doesn’t quite work the way it should for me.

I’m with Westpac, and only have the one card to test unfortunately.

Westpac are super keen on FitBit Pay though, so I’d be surprised if it was
an issue with the way they are set up. Adding the card in was a piece of
cake.

I’ll see how far I can get with FitBit support but I do plan on giving
Westpac a call and seeing if they have heard of the issue before.

G.

[Robyn-TWR]

@Colinm39 Hi Colin, I’m in Aus too and having Fitbit Pay issues too with my Ionic, which is why I’m reading this thread - but what caught my eye is that you say you get 6.5 days out of your Ionic’s battery. Do you use the GPS function much?  I am lucky if my Ionic lasts more than 2 days between charges, if I use the GPS.

Thanks

[Colinm39]

@Robyn-TWRNo GPS, I have done all of that on all of my Fitbits including the Ionic and decided the effort while the heavy consuming the Ionic battery wasn't worth the effort... The benchmark is only 10 hours of continuous GPS use and nearly flat.. I have GPS tracked all of my walking routes and verified them on the Android.  So I'm just interested in my times and speed.

I use Workout most of the time, for brisk walks, sleep analysis, gardening, shopping at the malls because I brisk walk between shopping points.. I have all notifications working as well.

I will be losing my Premium in March and rather than fiddle with the new export for HR data I now use PulseWatch's free HR analysis which picks up your data from your Fitbit site. If you use Workout you get about 30 HR plots/minute, if not you only get 8 HR plots/minute

A little off subject, but hopefully imparting knowledge is always a feel good situation in these forums.

Here is the PulseWatch link  and it's fast and exportable into Excel...

[LowVibe75]

I use about 10-15% battery a day with normal use, and about 10% an hour
tracking with GPS. So well within the quoted battery life, happy with that.

[Robyn-TWR]

@Colinm39 sharing knowledge is great - thanks 😄

Also, I would have shared here what my Fitbit Pay issues are, as they’re different  to  @Gregga  issue - but I’ve detailed them already in a separate thread and i fear if I list it here, the mods will delete it and say its cross posting