I'd love to share my feelings, and feedback on the charge 2. Moderators please don't change my wording for clarity. I am saying exactly what I think. It's offensive to change how someone words things on here, especially when they are upset. To come back and see the 'edited for clarity' written on it just adds more things to be upset about. You don't have to agree with what someone is saying but they don't have to say it just you would, to be clear. I appreciate the volunteers on here, I just do not appreciate that.
I don't understand why Google, which is supposed to be a computer company, has taken a working product and destroyed it. It's difficult for me to understand how Google can scrape our data to sell flawlessly, but to keep a working product seems to be beyond their realm. What's up with that? Rather than focus on making the existing devices work, they keep churning out updates that break current devices so users will buy new products but new devices that aren't even working well from the looks of the reviews I have read on their most recent products. That's not a great business model Google.
It appears to be hit or miss on whether the product is going to work after an update. I am not sure most realize this but google uses it's users to beta test their programming. In fact many computer companies do this. They sure don't test it before they release it. It's quite evident to ANYONE who has ever used the fitbit since google purchased them.
1. Let's start with the inability to do set one's own goals, like mileage. As an example, you want 3 miles a day. If you set it to that you have to go 4.83 miles before your device even recognizes that you met your goal. When you set it to 5 miles, one needs to go 8.05 miles before they get credit for the miles. This is a pet peeve for me and has been since Google purchased fitbit.
2. Additionally, every single user is going to have a different set of Resting Heart Rate (RHR,) and different goals. The numbers that google has randomly chosen as a base for counting stats hasn't worked for me. I have hypothyroidism and the healthier I get, the lower my RHR which can make it nearly impossible for me to get into cardio without running. I injured my knee and will require knee replacement surgery and while I can walk, I can't do stairs, nor can I jog/run anymore (I can remarkably do hills, thankfully.) To the point, rather than using the data that each user generates individually e.g. the RHR as measured by google on the device you use; Google has randomly decided in some complex way of counting your heart rate when you exercise. It's frustrating because I can walk for an hour and not move out of fat burn for an entire day and some days I can't even get into fat-burn. In my opinion, if fitbit used the generated RHR as the base regardless of what it is, to measure a personalized cardio number, not the same one for every person who uses the fitbit app. According to the app I am in excellent cardio health despite the fact that I can't get into cardio easily.
3. Lastly, the most recent update has obliterated auto recognize exercise on the charge 2 for me. Yesterday (Sunday) is the day I start my week and though I walked all day and though it showed my stats; the app would not recognize that I exercised for the whole day or at all under exercise (see image below.) Today (Monday) after trying a number of things, including stopping the app, turning off blue-tooth and turning it back on, still no joy. I rebooted the device, I rebooted my phone. I went to android playstore to see that it was recently updated. Of course there has been an update 4 days ago. I used to beta test software several years ago. I isolated the problem to auto recognize by walking this morning, and although it showed my steps, the charge 2 did not show that I exercised. Next, I manually told fitbit that I was walking by using the exercise shortcut on my device. I walked for 20 minutes and only then showed that I had exercised today. So in an effort to 'upgrade the fitbit user interface' google somehow turned off the auto recognize? I have no idea how. It's software so it's not something I did as a user, but something they did through their programming. Nothing changed on my end. I removed 'Exercise' and 'Hourly Steps' because they aren't working unless I use the manual button. Until they fix it I won't bother having them show on my app.
Conclusion: Rather than trying to make the user interface 'pretty' Google Fitbit, please work on the actually programing which does not seem to be working for a lot of people. I know it's not currently working for me.
Sunday:
Best Answer