New Ionic stopped pairing after 2 days, won't reconnect

[dwizum]

I've read (most of) the gigantic "RESOLVED: pairing issues" thread. Brand new Ionic, with Android phone (Oneplus phone with up to date OS, all patches etc.) My Ionic worked fine at first but now won't pair and I'm at a dead end in terms of what to do (except return it, I guess).

Got the watch for Christmas. On Christmas day, I paired my Ionic, things seemed fine. Did the firmware update, installed fitbit app, created account, everything seemed OK. Didn't really fiddle with the watch or phone after that, it was sync'ing correctly, I was getting notifications on the watch, etc. No issues.

This morning, I looked at the app on the phone to check my sleep info, and it said it hadn't synced since 5PM the night before. 

I've done everything I can think of to get it to resync. Reset the watch several times, deleted the app and all bluetooth connections from my phone (including my car, headphones, etc to make sure there was no interference), Turned off all other nearby bluetooth devices, restarted bluetooth on my phone, restarted the phone, removed the Ionic from my fitbit account, turned everything off and back on again, factory reset the Ionic, etc. and so on.

Every time, without fail, when I try to add the Ionic back in via the app, it finds the Ionic, prompts me for the 4 digit code, and then the process stalls after I enter the code. It never makes it past that step, it just times out and prompts me to try again.

I'm beyond frustrated, this is a cool watch and I'm eager to use it. Right now it's a paperweight. Not a very good first impression of Fitbit for me.

[DramaQueenDiva]

Have you tried unpairing the phone with the Ionic?  That sometimes works for me.

[dwizum]

Yup. I've basically started from scratch on both the phone and the watch, a few times each. This is what I do:

- Turn off watch. Delete Ionic from my fitbit profile, remove all bluetooth connections from phone's bluetooth settings. Delete app data on phone. Delete app from phone. Turn off bluetooth on phone.

- Turn phone off. Turn watch on. Factory reset watch.

- Turn phone on. Turn bluetooth on. Reinstall app. Follow process to add watch to fitbit app.

It hangs during the process of adding the watch to my account, when attempting to first connect the watch to the phone via bluetooth.

Earlier, it was hanging right after entering the 4 digit code. Just now, it got past that point, and it let me attempt the firmware update. The firmware update got about 5 minutes in, and then it failed and prompted me to try again. I removed everything, reset everything, etc as noted above, and it did the same thing. Got 5 minutes into the firmware update, and then failed again. I tried just hitting the retry button instead of resetting everything, and same thing. 5 minutes in, and it fails.

Pretty frustrating that I got a taste of the watch working for 2 days and now it can't even initialize. It seems like the bluetooth connectivity is just super super buggy. This is all happening with the watch and phone sitting 3 inches apart in the middle of an empty desk with no other bluetooth devices or other technology nearby.

[TysonIvanovich]

I'm having similar issues.  Watch was synching with app fine until this morning, now it's refusing to synch at all.

[Daybee8]

I am having this same EXACT issue and have done everything you have done.  What is wrong with this thing?  Very frustrating.  Why would FB release something that doesn't stay connected with bluetooth?  I gave my Blaze way, wish I still had it now.

FB, get off your butts and fix this issue!!  I use this every day, and not being able to download my information is ridiculous.

[TysonIvanovich]

Mine seems to be back to working again - here's what I did:

Initial state

• On android phone, bluetooth switched on
• Ionic already registered in fitbit app
• Last synch several hours ago, now refusing to synch

Steps

• Force stopped the fitbit app
• Switch phone off and on again
• On phone, went into Settings->Bluetooth
• Saw that I had two connected devices; Ionic and my headphones
• Clicked on the Ionic item, and then clicked 'Forget' to remove from paired devices
• Ionic no longer listed as paired.  Also, not even visible in the list of 'available' devices.
• Opened fitbit app and went into display for Ionic
• Synch started automatically, and now seems fine

Other possibilites

I did also try to pair my Ionic with my headphones, via the Settings->Bluetooth option on the watch.  I was making sure that bluetooth was still working on the watch, and it seemed fine.  I then unpaired the watch from the phone.  Not sure if this helped to fix the synch issue, but it seems unlikely.

[Daybee8]

I will try this to see if it will help my situation.

Since I posted I did a chat with FB tech support.  The tech told me the phone I had was not compatible with the Ionic - I had the HTC Desire 626.  He sent me a list of phones that are compatible and since I had all intentions of getting a new phone after Christmas anyways, I checked out the list and bought a Samsung Galaxy S7.  Initially it worked great and my text and phone calls were coming through the Ionic as well, but then a day later it stopped syncing again.  I have to reboot the phone and the Ionic to make it sync each time I want it to sync.  Ridiculous.  And now I'm not even getting my texts and phone calls on it anymore and that was working fine just two days ago.

Seems to me this is a bluetooth issue and I hope FB gets it fixed soon.  I will try what you did to see if it works for me.  Thanks for posting the steps.

[dwizum]

I need to post an update since it's been a few days. I will say that the only reason why I'm still using the watch versus returning it is in the hopes that this syncing issue is eventually solved.

I was (finally) able to get it to reconnect after a factory reset on the watch and deleting the app on my phone. Basically, treating it like a brand new Ionic, from scratch. My first time doing the setup back on Christmas was via wifi, the other time I mentioned in the last post was via bluetooth. It seems like the bluetooth initial setup is just do darned slow that the watch keeps reporting failure - maybe it's timing our or something.

Anyways, after a day or so, it goes right back to the behavior listed above. The phone app reports that there hasn't been a sync. HOWEVER, it turns out that the watch is PARTIALLY syncing with the phone. I still get notifications, and data related to steps and activities does transfer. The phone app cannot install apps or new watch faces on the watch, and the phone app does not receive any sleep-related data (which is a shame, because sleep data is one of the main things I'm interested in).

Once it reaches this state, the only way to recover is via another full factory reset. You cannot fix it by rebooting, restarting bluetooth, dropping bluetooth and re-pairing, deleting the watch from my account and re-adding, or any other method. I've had this happen 3 times now since my last post, each time the watch goes maybe 12 or 16 hours of full functionality before it starts reporting no syncs and loses functionality.

I'd be very happy to help fitbit people in any way possible with resolving this - capturing logs or any other data you need. I just really hope this issue is resolved, or else this watch is probably going back to the store.

[TysonIvanovich]

My Ionic has been synching fine for several days now.  The main things I've changed are:

• Unpaired my Bose Bluetooth headphones from my Android phone (not paired them up again since)
• Updated the version of Android on my phone.  I was on v5.1.1 which is 3 years old; I'm now on 6.0 which is still not the latest, but things seems okay at the moment.

[dwizum]

Glad you have it working. Mine is still the same. If I do a complete factory reset on the watch and delete everything from the phone, I can get it working for at least a few hours, sometimes a day.

I'm on Android 8.0 which is the latest, and have no other bluetooth connections to the phone (I deleted my wireless speaker, bose earbuds, and car). I put a utility on my phone (nRF Connect) that allows monitoring of bluetooth connections, and the Ionic actually shows as connected, it just stops functioning fully. My phone is Bluetooth 4.0 and has BLE, I can confirm that BLE is working fine with the nRF app.

I've just noticed that although the watch appears to be sending basic info to the phone (ie steps), that info doesn't get logged to my fitbit account and isn't visible on my dashboard, except for the few brief periods when it was correctly sync'ing.

[PeteG-1]

I think these are mostly due to the BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) implementations, on a lot of "parent" devices, such as phones, tablets, PCs, etc (coming for a s/w and h/w engineering perspective, I've done quite a bit of specification-design work)

While BLE was first brought to light in 2009, it's really been slow to show up, on many devices, at least in a "usable" form.  I think many chipset designers did a poor implementation, followed by a not-so-great stack driver (the part that your parent device "inherits" from the chipset designer), which makes for super-flaky connections to BLE devices.

New parent devices, say withing the last year or so, are getting really good at BLE, it would appear that most of the chipset and class-driver issues are getting worked out.

If you have an older device (phones in particular are bad, because carriers often "gate" these fixes, or never release them at all, test costs can be high), then things are hit-miss, unfortunately.

I tried to make my Mom's new Charge 2 pair to her (Win 10) tablet last week, and despite looking through the logs (event viewer makes this easier on Windows), all I could see is the devices connecting, starting to exchange data, and then the connection mysteriously "dropping" before the transaction completed.  You'd have to get down to the kernel/driver level, or close, most likely, in order to properly debug (I have some dated but interesting experience in kernel debugging) this type of issue.

The problem is, what are Fitbit engineers going to do, even IF they debug your HTC-whatever 3 year-old phone, only to find that the BLE driver isn't doing a good job of managing channel-selection?

Even IF they get HTC to work say with Qualcomm or similar, to fix the chipset driver (or firmware), they have to get them to push a fix to the carriers, and then the carriers have to do all their custom work, testing, and finally release the fix (likely as part of a bigger patch package).

Which carriers are going to do this on a 3 year old phone, hmm... ;-]

The PC/iOS (and what was WinPhone) model is FAR better in this regard, these patches come as part of the OS fix stream, independently of who's providing your data (i.e. ISP, carrier, etc). 

Google is working to fix this, project Treble is a step in the right direction, if they can get enough OEMs onboard (only a handful have committed, last time I checked).  This would allow them to push core fixes, such as a BLE problem, outside the loop of the carrier updates, because the OS components are (properly) abstracted, from the rest of the customizations. 

[PeteG-1]

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@dwizum wrote:

Glad you have it working. Mine is still the same. If I do a complete factory reset on the watch and delete everything from the phone, I can get it working for at least a few hours, sometimes a day.

I'm on Android 8.0 which is the latest, and have no other bluetooth connections to the phone (I deleted my wireless speaker, bose earbuds, and car). I put a utility on my phone (nRF Connect) that allows monitoring of bluetooth connections, and the Ionic actually shows as connected, it just stops functioning fully. My phone is Bluetooth 4.0 and has BLE, I can confirm that BLE is working fine with the nRF app.

I've just noticed that although the watch appears to be sending basic info to the phone (ie steps), that info doesn't get logged to my fitbit account and isn't visible on my dashboard, except for the few brief periods when it was correctly sync'ing.

---

Does the nRF app track across multiple channel switches (among the 40 allowed), or data-rates, to see it'll push max for BLE (aroiund 0.27mbs)?  

I suspect a lot of these driver/chipset implementations are simply subpar, and the fixes are delayed, sometimes indefinitely, particularly on phones gated by carriers.

What is Fitbit going to do, if they start to push a bigger data package, say from 3 days of logging, and the phone decides to "bug out", in the middle, they're  sort of stuck, until someone fixes the other, buggy side of things.

[dwizum]

Pete, I'd love to know more about troubleshooting this. I'm considering it as much an academic exercise as a way to get a functional watch, at this point. I know a little about hardware and software development but my experience isn't bluetooth specific.

How do we find out if it is related to BLE issues? How do you know if a given device has "good" BLE or not?

My phone is only about a year old and was pretty high spec (it's a OnePlus 3T) so it would be disappointing to know that it has a poorly implemented or old BLE. But I'm on the verge of getting a new phone anyways and would like to have some idea about compatibility with this watch if I decide to keep it.

I don't know if I really trust Fitbit's list of "approved" hardware since the forum is full of people with pretty much my same exact issue using officially approved devices. It's interesting that their list does not include my phone, but does include it's much older predecessor, the OnePlus 1.

[PeteG-1]

---

@dwizum wrote:

Pete, I'd love to know more about troubleshooting this. I'm considering it as much an academic exercise as a way to get a functional watch, at this point. I know a little about hardware and software development but my experience isn't bluetooth specific.

How do we find out if it is related to BLE issues? How do you know if a given device has "good" BLE or not?

My phone is only about a year old and was pretty high spec (it's a OnePlus 3T) so it would be disappointing to know that it has a poorly implemented or old BLE. But I'm on the verge of getting a new phone anyways and would like to have some idea about compatibility with this watch if I decide to keep it.

I don't know if I really trust Fitbit's list of "approved" hardware since the forum is full of people with pretty much my same exact issue using officially approved devices. It's interesting that their list does not include my phone, but does include it's much older predecessor, the OnePlus 1.

---

@dwizumThis can be a little tricky, but easier on a PC, where you can typically get a least one "known good" component, i.e. the stack-driver for your BLE device.

On a phone/tablet, you might have a "marginal" BLE chipset AND/OR stack-driver, so it's much harder, plus there aren't many great logging options, you pretty much have to install the Android SDK to do much, IMO.  I'm not an iOS guy, so my experience is all PC/handheld, from a s/w and h/w design perspective, some Bluetooth and other radios, but a lot more on USB, video, storage, wired-network, and such.  The debugging is a bit more "tricky", when you're dealing with a "sometimes connected" device, in particular BLE switches channels and tries to "downgrade" it's data-rate frequently, to minimize the Energy use part (BLE, right ;-]).

You can do a bit of initial "debug" work, by figuring out which chipset(s) your devices have, and searching them up, to see what kind of issues people are having.

Then, assuming your chpset seems pretty solid from this part, you have to try to "narrow" things down to your device, and often to your firmware/OS version, which in the US is almost always gated by your carrier (and sometimes customized by them, unfortunately, IMO).

On a PC, if you have a "good" chipset then things are a lot easier.  Even if your PC (desktop, laptop, whatever) has a "marginal" BLE chipset, you can probably add a cheap BLE dongle via USB, one that gets really good reviews.

At this point, you've removed the BLE h/w issues (most), and the driver ones (again, most), since these are both current and the "best availalbe" for the platform, NOT your specific PC.

The "approved" hardware is still edgy IMO, because Fitbit doesn't know which S7 has been updated to wihch firmware version, and which (possibliy customized) OS version as well, per the carrier issue.  Good luck getting any consistency for the phone, since there are likely a couple of hundred ROM variants out there...

I have a OnePlus 5T, having moved from a Nexus 6P, and long line of Win Phones before (I was a Windows developer/designer for quite awhile), and both of these, and my 950XL WinPhone would sync ot my Charge 2, and now my Ionic as well.  This combination has had close to zero connection issues, over the time of both my Charge 2 and now Ionic.

The stack drivers are typically MUCH better on things like the Windows Phone, or the 6P, or the OnePlus, because they do minimal, if any, modifications to stock, and as such, they get the Microsoft  or Google (well tested) drivers, immediately.  They also release updates often, OnePlus not quite as often as the 6P or Windows device, but frequently, and they do good research, I think, before investing in their BLE chipset, since all they is phones, and they need to really work well.

Hopefully this is more enlightening, rather than confusing, I'm happy to point to some BLE specs on the consortium site, or maybe work up a simple "test flowchart", although I bet you have a pretty good idea on that one, with any s/w experience.

If you want to start with a PC, you can create a couple of custom-filters for the EventViewer, and it'll let you quickly view the Bluetooth activity, and any warnings/failures, and see when connections eastablish/drop.

I have noticed that larger payloads are a bit less reliable, so sync-ing fairly often will probably help here too.  This is probably because the BLE spec calls for such low throughput (to save power, again), that if some components goes to sleep, say on your phone, it's not going to be able to "interrupt" in enough time, and all that data gets dropped, and there's even more on the next sync, and the next...

If I sync more or less once/day, I have almost zero issues.  If I sync every few days, then I occasionally see a drop, even WITH the relatively-known-good hardware.

[dwizum]

Here's a log from the nRF app, showing me connecting to the watch then trying to sync in the fitbit app. The first few seconds are the nRF app connecting and getting parameters, the sync attempt starts at around 16:01:27. You can see it sends a few bytes of info, disconnects, and then reconnects.

nRF Connect, 2018-01-02
Ionic (D0:14:EB:7D:CE:1E)
V 16:01:12.861 Connecting to D0:14:EB:7D:CE:1E...
D 16:01:12.861 gatt = device.connectGatt(autoConnect = false, TRANSPORT_LE, preferred PHY = LE 1M)
D 16:01:12.865 [Callback] Connection state changed with status: 0 and new state: CONNECTED (2)
I 16:01:12.865 Connected to D0:14:EB:7D:CE:1E
D 16:01:12.868 wait(1600ms)
W 16:01:12.868 Requested MTU not supported. MTU changed to: 185
V 16:01:14.470 Discovering services...
D 16:01:14.470 gatt.discoverServices()
D 16:01:14.482 [Callback] Services discovered with status: 0
I 16:01:14.504 Services discovered
V 16:01:14.534 Generic Attribute (0x1801)
- Service Changed [I] (0x2A05)
   Client Characteristic Configuration (0x2902)
Generic Access (0x1800)
- Device Name [R W] (0x2A00)
- Appearance [R] (0x2A01)
Unknown Service (adabfb00-6e7d-4601-bda2-bffaa68956ba)
- Unknown Characteristic [N R] (adabfb01-6e7d-4601-bda2-bffaa68956ba)
   Client Characteristic Configuration (0x2902)
- Unknown Characteristic [R W WNR] (adabfb02-6e7d-4601-bda2-bffaa68956ba)
- Unknown Characteristic [N R] (adabfb03-6e7d-4601-bda2-bffaa68956ba)
   Client Characteristic Configuration (0x2902)
- Unknown Characteristic [R] (adabfb04-6e7d-4601-bda2-bffaa68956ba)
- Unknown Characteristic [I] (adabfb05-6e7d-4601-bda2-bffaa68956ba)
   Client Characteristic Configuration (0x2902)
- Unknown Characteristic [N R] (adabfb06-6e7d-4601-bda2-bffaa68956ba)
   Client Characteristic Configuration (0x2902)
Unknown Service (558dfa00-4fa8-4105-9f02-4eaa93e62980)
- Unknown Characteristic [N R] (558dfa01-4fa8-4105-9f02-4eaa93e62980)
   Client Characteristic Configuration (0x2902)
Device Information (0x180A)
- Manufacturer Name String [R] (0x2A29)
- Model Number String [R] (0x2A24)
- Firmware Revision String [R] (0x2A26)
- Software Revision String [R] (0x2A28)
I 16:01:27.896 Notification received from adabfb01-6e7d-4601-bda2-bffaa68956ba, value: (0x) C0-14-0C-0B-00-00-1E-CE-7D-EB-14-D0-B9-00
A 16:01:27.896 "(0x) C0-14-0C-0B-00-00-1E-CE-7D-EB-14-D0-B9-00" received
I 16:01:28.436 Notification received from adabfb01-6e7d-4601-bda2-bffaa68956ba, value: (0x) C0-51-58-27-4E-A2-25-8D-4F-E8-B6-00-00-00
A 16:01:28.443 "(0x) C0-51-58-27-4E-A2-25-8D-4F-E8-B6-00-00-00" received
I 16:01:28.708 Notification received from adabfb01-6e7d-4601-bda2-bffaa68956ba, value: (0x) C0-02
A 16:01:28.708 "(0x) C0-02" received
I 16:01:28.979 Notification received from adabfb01-6e7d-4601-bda2-bffaa68956ba, value: (0x) C0-01
A 16:01:28.979 "(0x) C0-01" received
I 16:01:30.327 Notification received from adabfb01-6e7d-4601-bda2-bffaa68956ba, value: (0x) C0-14-0C-0B-00-00-1E-CE-7D-EB-14-D0-B9-00
A 16:01:30.327 "(0x) C0-14-0C-0B-00-00-1E-CE-7D-EB-14-D0-B9-00" received
I 16:01:31.405 Connection parameters updated (interval: 60.0ms, latency: 0, timeout: 2000ms)
D 16:01:33.421 [Callback] Connection state changed with status: 8 and new state: DISCONNECTED (0)
E 16:01:33.421 Error 8 (0x8): GATT CONN TIMEOUT
I 16:01:33.421 Disconnected
D 16:01:33.450 [Broadcast] Action received: android.bluetooth.device.action.ACL_DISCONNECTED
D 16:02:00.540 [Broadcast] Action received: android.bluetooth.device.action.ACL_CONNECTED
D 16:02:00.540 gatt.close()
D 16:02:00.541 wait(200)
V 16:02:00.744 Connecting to D0:14:EB:7D:CE:1E...
D 16:02:00.744 gatt = device.connectGatt(autoConnect = false, TRANSPORT_LE, preferred PHY = LE 1M)
D 16:02:00.755 [Callback] Connection state changed with status: 0 and new state: CONNECTED (2)
I 16:02:00.755 Connected to D0:14:EB:7D:CE:1E
D 16:02:00.761 wait(1600ms)
W 16:02:00.762 Requested MTU not supported. MTU changed to: 185
V 16:02:02.361 Discovering services...
D 16:02:02.361 gatt.discoverServices()
D 16:02:02.366 [Callback] Services discovered with status: 0
I 16:02:02.385 Services discovered
V 16:02:02.407 Generic Attribute (0x1801)
- Service Changed [I] (0x2A05)
   Client Characteristic Configuration (0x2902)
Generic Access (0x1800)
- Device Name [R W] (0x2A00)
- Appearance [R] (0x2A01)
Unknown Service (adabfb00-6e7d-4601-bda2-bffaa68956ba)
- Unknown Characteristic [N R] (adabfb01-6e7d-4601-bda2-bffaa68956ba)
   Client Characteristic Configuration (0x2902)
- Unknown Characteristic [R W WNR] (adabfb02-6e7d-4601-bda2-bffaa68956ba)
- Unknown Characteristic [N R] (adabfb03-6e7d-4601-bda2-bffaa68956ba)
   Client Characteristic Configuration (0x2902)
- Unknown Characteristic [R] (adabfb04-6e7d-4601-bda2-bffaa68956ba)
- Unknown Characteristic [I] (adabfb05-6e7d-4601-bda2-bffaa68956ba)
   Client Characteristic Configuration (0x2902)
- Unknown Characteristic [N R] (adabfb06-6e7d-4601-bda2-bffaa68956ba)
   Client Characteristic Configuration (0x2902)
Unknown Service (558dfa00-4fa8-4105-9f02-4eaa93e62980)
- Unknown Characteristic [N R] (558dfa01-4fa8-4105-9f02-4eaa93e62980)
   Client Characteristic Configuration (0x2902)
Device Information (0x180A)
- Manufacturer Name String [R] (0x2A29)
- Model Number String [R] (0x2A24)
- Firmware Revision String [R] (0x2A26)
- Software Revision String [R] (0x2A28)
I 16:02:03.306 Notification received from adabfb01-6e7d-4601-bda2-bffaa68956ba, value: (0x) C0-12-05-00-00-08
A 16:02:03.306 "(0x) C0-12-05-00-00-08" received
I 16:02:03.459 Connection parameters updated (interval: 60.0ms, latency: 0, timeout: 2000ms)
I 16:02:05.516 Notification received from adabfb01-6e7d-4601-bda2-bffaa68956ba, value: (0x) C0-02
A 16:02:05.516 "(0x) C0-02" received
I 16:02:05.634 Notification received from adabfb01-6e7d-4601-bda2-bffaa68956ba, value: (0x) C0-01
A 16:02:05.634 "(0x) C0-01" received

[bbarrera]

---

@PeteG-1 wrote:

...

The stack drivers are typically MUCH better on things like the Windows Phone, or the 6P, or the OnePlus, because they do minimal, if any, modifications to stock, and as such, they get the Microsoft  or Google (well tested) drivers, immediately. 

---

and for completeness, I'll add that iOS devices tend to be much better on things like BLE and BT. About three months ago Microsoft announced that Windows phone is dead for all practical purposes, and in any case it never had a complete BLE stack.

I've been working in the open-source software world for 10+ years, mostly embedded Linux, and own/use OSX/Windows/Android/Linux devices every day of the week. Personally I've seen fewer problems on OSX than on Windows, Android, and Linux. Some people have a weird religious-like bias against Apple, I like to use stuff that works well and I can buy 2nd hand and still have it covered by warranty.

[dwizum]

Pete, I'm glad to know the 5T works, that's one of the phones I am considering. Or the Essential PH-1.

Can't a bluetooth device force (or at least suggest) connection parameters, ie bandwidth, timeout, etc.? If so, couldn't the Ionic request really generous parameters in order to get around buggy implementations on the phone/tablet/PC side? And then if/when things work, the parameters drop down to the lower-energy levels desired? Isn't that how BLE is supposed to work? Leaves me wondering if there is still something Fitbit can do, even if the problem is on the "other" side.

[PeteG-1]

@dwizum Yeah, it's struggling to figure out the MTU, and is selecting a really small one to start (although maybe that's typical for BLE, I haven't reviewed the whole spec).

Even when it established a good connection, you can see where it spent a lot of time trying to parse the "unknown" parameters, before it finally got some "real data".  If this happens every time, and the MTU is small like that, it's going to struggle to move much of the data you care about.

If you search for those services (the GUIDs) in your registry, you can get a better idea of what it's "missing" at some of those junctures, you should be able to find most of them.

But if you find that it's failing to return some random buffer-size parameter and the like (likely a buggy stack driver, or similar), what's to be done, eh?

It could be though, that Fitbit needs to refine some of these, there are ways to exclude some of those in queries.  It's tricky for the developers though, say they test it on a "stock" Android phone, and know it's solid and ignores these parameters as designed, but then some carrier(s) tweak the radio settings, to work with *their* wearables, things can (and often do) go south, fast.

[PeteG-1]

---

@dwizum wrote:

Pete, I'm glad to know the 5T works, that's one of the phones I am considering. Or the Essential PH-1.

Can't a bluetooth device force (or at least suggest) connection parameters, ie bandwidth, timeout, etc.? If so, couldn't the Ionic request really generous parameters in order to get around buggy implementations on the phone/tablet/PC side? And then if/when things work, the parameters drop down to the lower-energy levels desired? Isn't that how BLE is supposed to work? Leaves me wondering if there is still something Fitbit can do, even if the problem is on the "other" side.

---

Sort of.  I admit I haven't really read much on BLE 5.0.  On 4.0, there were a lot of optional parameters though, and if the app can't identify them, it's sort of "bound" to query the set again, by default.

Say if some data object has several optional buffers, added by a carrier to make their wearables sync really well, but are likely un-recognized by most apps, and the dated stack-drivers (or BLE radio).
This is where the PC setup really shines, since you can get close to known-good for both.

I'd be willing to bet that the Essential is good here too, they're running very close to stock Android, and they did a great job of selecting components.  I'd read up first though, try to see how many issues are out there.  I was considering the Essential too, as well as the Razer, and the LG V30, all pretty solid in this regard.  If the LG had managed to release their unlocked variant sooner, I'd probably have that, but my 6P battery was waning, so I ended up with the 5T (which I'm pretty pleased with).

[Daybee8]

You all have lost me.  I just want this thing to work.  It actually was working pretty much all day (except I had to turn the bluetooth off a couple times and then it would work) but now I can't get it to sync to save my life.

I just bought a Samsung Galaxy S7 - I can't believe this thing would not have the BLE you are all talking about.  I have two other things connected to my bluetooth.  I may try unpairing them to see if it will start working.  However, I use the other two things that are connected daily so not sure that will be of any help.

How can FB not know this is happening?