Guys, we miss the strong silent alarm

[ocook]

I sincerely hope they have Fixed the fundamental failure of the weak and ineffective silent alarm feature which has been on every device since the original Charge HR. I used to rely so heavily on the silent alarm, it was so powerful and persistent on the old Charge HR that it woke me every time without fail, while leaving my partner sleeping. I even threw out my alarm clock. Then the strong and persistent vibration was absolutely ruined in the Blaze and replaced by an awful, useless, weak series of 3 short bursts which then doesn't repeat itself. The Fitbit guys screwed over so many peoply who were late for work on the first day they wore their Blaze. If anyone from Fitbit is reading this i beg you, make the silent alarm persist untill it is silenced by the user. Screw battery life, just wake me up. I beg you. It's such a gentle and peaceful way to wake up too, noise alarms are too jarring and violent. I mourne my zen mornings being lovingly shaken awake by my beloved first gen Charge HR. May he and his tenacious vibrations rest in peace. 

[HasseH]

I agree, the silent alarm (vibration) is disapointingly weak. I miss my Surge. Nothing wrong with the Surge, except I couldn't keep the wristband on. Replaced it three times and it kept falling off. The Ionic isn't offering very much more for twice the price and the silent alarm feature is what I miss the most.

I'd be very happy if it can be upgraded so the "strong" setting actually would be noticable.

//Hasse

[alvador]

This has been an issue for almost 2 years now and fitbit doesn’t do anything or even reply to thousands of messages and requests. My temporary solution is to reuse my old Charge HR at night and then use my Charge2 in the morning. This will be my routine until such time that I feel I already got my money back in buying a dud product (Charge2). Then I’ll buy a different brand aside from fitbit. 

[SunsetRunner]

Weird thing: while the alarm is too soft, the timer vibration is much stronger and is also not stopping by itself. I say give us the timer vibration and let it vibrate until manually stopped. Or at least give us an option to set it that way.

[anim8t]

Ok, after using it for almost 8 months... I'm done and seriously thinking about switching to the brand new Garmin Forerunner 645. If Fitbit doesn't care about their customers and doesn't give a **ahem** about their needs and problems. Why I should support them, really?

Constant feeling of paying 350 EUR for being free beta-tester is not a good feeling at all.

[anim8t]

[SunsetRunner]

My goodness, how horrible? I hope you don't own one.

[anim8t]

[SunsetRunner]

Well, with Garmin you potentially have the same freeze / UI glitches, sub zero bugs, and a really noisy UI on the phone. The hardware is slightly nicer, though.

[jbender68]

normal and strong are almost exactly the same... the vibration is weak and hardly noticeable on the Iconic for notifications

[Flashjones1]

I agree with most of your problems & the response from the developers is very poor indeed. The silent alarm is an absolute joke - I had no issues with the alarm on the Surge - but had to upgrade as the battery wouldn't last. They have taken it off the market - must have been a lemon. You would think that the new model would have kept one of the better features - but alas no ! When you complain about such things you get the standard "have you restarted it etc etc !" The after service is poor for a product that is not cheap. 

[Kakurot]

I recent bought a Ionic and previously owned a charge 2. The alarm vibration is much weaker. I have yet to wake up from the alarm. Where as the Charge 2 I had no issues with a much LONGER and more powerful vibration

[jbender68]

I do not think they are ever gonna address the vibration at this point, the sad thing is, if you do the "send a test notification" from the 3 dots on the notifications screen on android, it's better, I can at least feel it, so it's not a hardware issue, it's a software issue - if I could use that for notifications I would be much happier, but sadly no way to use it accept for the test notification to verify it's working

[ThereItIs]

Great idea to have the silent alarm. But The 5 sec vibration with one 9 min snooze doesn’t wake anyone up. The vibration should go off indefinitely until the user presses a button. And then the user can choose if he wants it to snooze or not.

but first things first, let the vibration run until the user performs an action. 

[SunsetRunner]

Hey guy, nobody cares if you personally can wake up from three buzzes from the watch, Every alarm on this planet keeps on going until you interact with it (snooze/stop).

So many people complaining about this it's incredible, the feature suggestion you guys point us to has 1500 votes and that's only from people who went online, created an account for the forum and actually voted it. Think about how many more there are out there that are annoyed by this but decided not to do anything about it and just set an alarm on their phone as well.

I understand the hardware limitations on everything else but this is something that can easily be done via a software update and Fitbit simply refuses to do so. And why? Just so that it doesn't record a couple of steps in the process of waking us up?

It's useless as is and the debate is not if it can wake someone up ever, is that why is it restricted from functioning like any other alarm on earth?

So sick of everything you regard as a solution, YES we know there is a strong and normal vibration intensity. YES we tried a hard reset, YES it's still annoying that it only vibrates three times and then auto snoozes for 9 minutes.

[anim8t]

Hey guys!

I gave up after being loyal Fitbit's customer for a long time and using Ionic for 8 months. Now I'm already using Garmin Forerunner 645 Music for 3 months and I just have no words to say how happy I am. The app is a bit not so intuitive as Fitbit's one, but everything else is just a night and day difference. Synchronization is not a problem anymore, I attach my watch to a USB CABLE and send several albums for 20 SECONDS!!!!!!!!!! It sounds like a miracle after Ionic disaster! And normal alarm and notifications with strong vibration are here. You can even enable SOUNDS from the watch for alarms! UI is better, screen interaction is better, battery life is better, HRM and GPS is more accurate... You've got the point 😉

Best,
Vitalii

[HasseH]

Well, I voted with my feet and got another brand, which actually both sync and wake me up.
Too bad, I really liked Fitbit. Unfortunately it went downhill fast when I spent more money on a product.

Hasse Hellström
www.aerotik.se
www.glastar.se

[Musicman1962]

I am really disappointed with my Fitbit Ionic as the silent alarm is useless and doesn't vibrate enough to make me aware of texts arriving. There is no difference between Normal and Strong in the settings.

Am I missing something?