Charge 3 update is slow

[sirdurable]

I just got my Charge 3 today, and when I hooked it up via my phone & app, it said there was an update. So it started applying the update....and it's progressing about a percentage per minute. How long is this update supposed to take? Surely Fitbit has figured out how to transfer data faster than this, right? This isn't gigs and gigs worth of an update is it?

Sure, patience isn't my strongest characteristic....but I'm interested in using this thing today sometime. 😛

Moderator edit: subject for clarity

[AlejandraFitbit]

Welcome to the Community @sirdurable.

I would like to know if you keep having issues updating your tracker? If so, I recommend taking a look at the help article Why can't I update my Fitbit device? and follow the instructions provide there. It might take some time to successfully update your Charge 3.

Let me know the outcome. 

[sirdurable]

It took about 2 hours to update my Charge 3. As my first user experience with the product, it was pretty bad.

I suggest giving feedback to the team(s) along the lines of "making updates download and install faster to devices". 

[Prizo]

2 Hours?   

Wow... Fitbit needs to learn some lessons on expectation management. 

I mean 2 hours is a long time, but it's a lot more bearable if I'm told ahead of time that its gonna take that long. Also, tons of people are going to start giving up after 30 min - hence a lot of disappointment being thrown on the internet that FItbit could've avoided with a little expectation management.   

Not a great job, folks. 

[AlejandraFitbit]

Thanks for the information @sirdurable and for the input @Prizo.

I appreciate all the feedback provided about this, it's great to know that you got to update your tracker and that is working properly now. If there is anything else we can help you with, do not hesitate to post it.

Keep the stepping up! 

[sirdurable]

Yah, I agree with @Prizo here. As long as expectations are set, a user can wait it out, knowing that the update period can take some time.

[Kmcnulty]

Same, said Hold tight… this can take over 30 minutes. Please keep this page open until complete... Yeah no kidding here I am at almost 70 minutes think WTH, at least it's past the download part that was painful

[Langolier]

This isn't really addressing the question. We are not asking for our individual update to work, we are asking for these suggested improvements to be escalated to someone in engineering that can actually fix the problem for everyone.  Nothing in your answer indicates this is happening.

[CatamaranSailor]

It has been more than an hour and the update is still not finished and the Fitbit itself is displaying a horizontal line with about 20% bold and the rest faint for a progress bar. The app is displaying a progress bar but it looks like it stalled at 75% then continued... nearly 90% now. It is still saying "Hold tight... this can take over 30 minutes..." Yes, considerably over. The Fitbit's progress bar, if that's what it is, hasn't moved in many minutes, despite changes in the app's progress bar. Kind of alarming, I'd like to get to sleep.

[sunnysideoflife]

I too just got a Fitbit Charge 3. Setting up was easy and quick, but updating hasn't worked.

When the Fitbit iPhone app showed "update available", I started updating per the instructions (connecting to power etc). For several times the apps reported that there was an error with the update. I restarted the app, even restarted my iPhone. Didn't work. Then I was alerted to update my Fitbit app (just updated recently). So I did that. I also rebooted my tracker. Then tried updating my Fitbit again but failed again. The update proceeded for a while with the tracker showing a slow crawling progress bar, after about 20 minutes, the update just ended without displaying any error or other indication of success or failure. I deduced that the update failed because the Fitbit still shows "update available".

I've tried six times updating my tracker without success, and I am giving up now. Not sure I would keep my tracker if it gives me so much trouble. I truly home Fitbit will fix this problem (updating a small firmware shouldn't take this long with today's technology....)

[SurakOfVulcan]

Sorry about reopening an old thread, but this really does not compute. Charge 3 uses Cypress CY8C68237FM-BLE as the MCU (https://www.techinsights.com/blog/fitbit-charge-3-teardown), which has 1 MB of flash. I am guessing that only half is used for the actual firmware, the other half is for receiving the update. If the update takes 30 minutes as indicated by the phone application (in my case over an hour real update time), we are updating at about 291 Bytes per second - smoke signals sort of speed. Brief googling shows that, over Bluetooth LE 4.2, 2 KB/s should be pretty realistic, possibly even more (https://stackoverflow.com/questions/33849964/how-do-i-optimize-ble-transfer-speed-on-android). Even if half of the bandwidth is overhead, the update time should less than 10 minutes, I would consider that time acceptable. Does this not raise red flags with the development team? I am using Ch3 with Samsung J5 (2017) and the most recent Android available for this phone.

[kjain]

so so agree! this is super frustrating!

[kjain]

Please have your dev team and your CEO open a brand new fitbit charge 3 and go through this super frustrating, extremely long and tedious update process. Add this as a topmost hi pri item for your product backlog. This is an epic quality fail by Fitbit. Very disappointed at more than 2 hour long update process that still has not ended! Get the CEO and Engineering VP to come to this forum and read this and post their personal pledge to improve this customer experience!

[ATurnbull]

I got my Charge 3 today, been using the charge 2. When I updated my charge 2 a few years ago it took around 15mins or so.

My charge 3 has been updating for the last hour and a half, its on 25% so far.... this is madness in this day and age. I have had ot keep using my charge 2 now because its taking so long, done a few thousand steps since! Why is this taking so long?

I work in I.T and this is the slowest bluetooth connection ever or the update is huge, yet you dont show an ETA, any data amonuts etc... whats happened?

[DeividasJo]

"It can take over 30 min"... Currently 2 hours in and still not even 30 %... Great first impressions!!

[Sefl]

Am waiting 7 hours now and it still only appears to have gone 25%??? What is going on, will it eventually update. (my brand new FB charge 3)

[bressedtokill]

Same issue. Replaced my Charge 2 with the Charge 3 and the update has stalled multiple times. I restarted and it stalled again. This process has now take three hours so far and it's not even close to completion. I'm about ready to return the Charge 3 and just get an Apple Watch.

[Michael987]

Just got my Fitbit Charge 3. Sadly, this is the first post I'm led to by my initial experience. Can it really take this long to update such a small device? Can it really be almost a year this post has sat here unanswered (not fixed at all)?

My phone is an Android device, and the lack of feedback is completely disheartening. The Fitbit shows a status bar with little progress, and then the phone's app stuck to a blank white screen.  Restart the app, now it's saying Make sure the tracker is nearby, yet the Fitbit shows a progress bar.  Complete mismatch. How many times do I need to restart these things?  I hope it's not a brick to be returned.

[EllenM81]

I got my Charge 3 2 days ago and only today was I able to start the update after a webchat with FitBit support. It is now updating over 2 and half hours and is still about 20%. I am at work so If I disconnect to go home at 5pm I will most likely loose what was updated. So that's another day lost using the Charge 3. I am tempted to take it back to the shop for a refund

[Healthymum]

Same here - it was updating for about 40 min when I left my phone and charge 3 together and went to bed.  Woke up to absolutely no progress.  Have restarted it three times this morning.  It’s one hour later and nada.  Maybe Apple Watch is for me...