I have been a very loyal Fitbit customer for many years now; I started with a Charge HR in 2014, and now own an Ionic. I've developed my own watch faces. Based on my experiences, we also bought Versa watches for my wife, my daughter, and my handicapped brother-in-law. But based on this continuing set of buggy 4.x updates, and Fitbit’s tone-deaf response to devices bricked and damaged by a recommended update, I’m now shopping for a new smartwatch company.
My daughter came to me a couple weeks ago with her 2-year-old Versa, complaining that the heart rate tracking was dead. She said that it stopped working (along with battery life problems) when she finally gave up and clicked the ever-present “You need to update your tracker” notification in the Fitbit app, which she opens every day to check her sleep patterns. We feel betrayed that she was nagged into installing a known-buggy update.
Based on many, many comments in these forums, for both Versa and Ionic, I’m certain that Fitbit representatives will not agree to replace her watch because it’s a couple years old.
But that’s a very poor response from a company that has knowingly continued to aggressively push a firmware update on its customers, even when they know that device-killing problems are commonplace.
If there are ANY questions about the firmware update, even for one in a thousand customers, Fitbit should immediately remove the update recommendation from the Fitbit app, pull the buggy firmware (yes, all the way back to the last known stable update, even if it removes some features), and instantly agree to fix or replace any device that started having problems when a customer followed Fitbit’s own advice to update their device. Yes, some customers will scam them, and yes, they’ll lose money on replacing devices.
But that’s what it takes to retain a loyal customer base.
Furthermore, every bit of software developer time should be spent figuring out the problem. I’m sure they have a number of bricked watches that have been returned by customers. Diagnostics and troubleshooting should be the first priority. Feature improvements should be on complete hold until this problem is identified with absolute certainty, and fixed and verified with a robust test program and then a slow rollout to select customers.
Fitbit’s failure to take such customer-friendly, common-sense actions is losing them customers. I’m one of them. I’ve spent many hundreds of dollars on buying six or seven Fitbit smartwatch devices over six years. Based on hundreds of comments in these forums, their customer base is rapidly losing trust in the company, and that is far more damaging than any cost to repair or replace devices.
I’ve been waiting since fall 2019 to see this problem clearly fixed. But at this point, even if I DO see a new firmware update that supposedly fixes the specific bricking issue, I would be extremely hesitant to update my watch. And I’m very hesitant to do any more business with Fitbit, because they’ve demonstrated that they cannot be trusted.
I just wish there were another watch with the combination of battery life, GPS tracking, and sleep quality tracking that I have enjoyed with my Ionic and Versa watches for years. But I’m willing to give some of that up to work with a company that shows that it actually cares about its customers.
