Is the Vibration motor stronger on the Charge 3?

[Harry]

Is the Vibration motor stronger on the Charge 3?

Boy the Charge 2 is weak and I have to set two alarms to get woke up.

Is the motor larger/stronger?

Can anyone out there on the Beta test team or someone in Fitbit company respond on this question?

[pilv13]

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@LuizNoccioli wrote:

If you saw we have more than 700 views in this post!!! Why? You can just read the previous posts to get your answer

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I read every and each one of the previous posts. After reading them it was not obvious to me why the vibration is an essential feature. That's why I asked.

If you went through the trouble of answering to my post, don't you think you might have just taken the extra effort and explained it to me?

I have never owned a Fitbit device before. I pre-ordered this one because it seemed interesting. It is not obvious to me why vibration - specifically strong vibration - is an important feature. But I would very much like to know.

[LuizNoccioli]

Ok..its a problem of interpretation.

If the vibration doesnt work properly. YOU WILL NOT WAKE UP!

[pilv13]

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@LuizNoccioli wrote:

Ok..its a problem of interpretation.

If the vibration doesnt work properly. YOU WILL NOT WAKE UP!

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So, you can use the vibration as an alarm clock? Ok, I can understand that. Interesting feature.

[Harry]

Yes, many Fitbit users use it as an alarm clock and in the past it worked great! (Charge HR). They change the motor and now it the vibration is weak. The question Fitbit fails to answer is "is the motor/vibration improved " on the new Charge 3. I will just have to order one and then return it if it continues to be a weak vibration. I got that with my Charge 2.

[PattyRain]

I don't use it to wake up like others do,  but I love the idea of it reminding you to walk a mininum number of steps. It is used to let you know when you have messages - this was not essential to me when I got the charge 2, in fact I really didn't care about it,  but I find it so convenient, especially while exercising, when I can't hear my phone and I get a message about my daughter meeting me at the train or my son, on his lunch break, asking me something before he goes back to class. I've found that it is now a feature I would want in a device like this.  Also, it is essential for interval training.

The problem is I feel it about 25% of the time and extremely rarely while exercising. If I am in the middle of something where I am concentrating on something else I will rarely notice.

[semarla1]

(a) A vibration "alarm" to wake one up should be strong enough to ... wake
one up. Currently (no pun intended), it has all the power and intensity of
a gnat.

(b) It's suppose to notify my of bedtime wind down. Half the time I don't
feel a thing, and I blast right through that alarm.

(c) Ditto for the "Reminders To Move" "feature" which uses vibration as its
notification.

(d) I paid for the feature. The feature should be effective.

[ORANGEinINDY]

 I agree I was excited to hear about the message/email alarms and reminder alarms but they are of no use to me.

 Until someone tells me they’re at or near the level of the charge HR I will not buy one 

[jbender68]

to me it's also important as I would like to be able to have the phone on silent and use the watch to tell me I got a text message or alert, ect.... part of being a smart watch is notifying you of something, with no way of notifying you it makes it less of a smart watch

there is also notifications to move.. to drink water, ect....

[pilv13]

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@jbender68 wrote:

to me it's also important as I would like to be able to have the phone on silent and use the watch to tell me I got a text message or alert, ect.... part of being a smart watch is notifying you of something, with no way of notifying you it makes it less of a smart watch

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It's not really a smart watch, though.

Was the vibration motor in the other models that bad? It's hard to imagine not being able to feel a vibration going off on your wrist no matter how slight.

[jbender68]

I agree it hard to imagine a watch passing testing for release without the notification buzz working properly, but sadly it's happened on the last few releases of their new watches, I own the Iconic and it's one of it's biggest flaws

[pilv13]

It's kind of annoying that manufacturers don't provide enough information about the components. It's not like it would cost them anything extra to have a proper data sheet with some specifics.

If I were in the business of manufacturing something I would want to provide as much information as possible about my products to make it easier for the customers to determine whether it's something they want or not.

And as a bonus it would get everyone off their **ahem** asking about this and that.

[jbender68]

it is also annoying that they have a test notification option to test that it's working in the android app and that works much better... but the actual notifications do not use that same buzz that the test uses and no options to use it

", 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"

[pilv13]

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@jbender68 wrote:
it is also annoying that they have a test notification option to test that it's working in the android app and that works much better... but the actual notifications do not use that same buzz that the test uses and no options to use it

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If that's the case it would be a simple matter of updating couple of lines of code to make the vibration intensity adjustable.

[jbender68]

exactly, that is what makes it so annoying

this was Fitbit's response to that sugestion

"We do not currently have plans to release this feature."

https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Feature-Suggestions/Customizable-Vibration-for-Notifications/idc-p/2...

[pilv13]

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@jbender68 wrote:

exactly, that is what makes it so annoying

this was Fitbit's response to that sugestion

"We do not currently have plans to release this feature."

https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Feature-Suggestions/Customizable-Vibration-for-Notifications/idc-p/2...

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Well, duh? How would they otherwise sell new models?

I dunno. Seems like a bad approach. Someone should make open source software OS for the Fitbit devices.

[jbender68]

which brings us back to the question in this thread, will the new watch fix this flaw or will this be another watch that includes the same old flaw and it will maybe be addressed in the next model 

[PattyRain]

I don't know anything about the other models.  It really is that bad in this model.  

[pilv13]

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@PattyRain wrote:

I don't know anything about the other models.  It really is that bad in this model.  

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It's possible that they had problems in testing with components coming loose and failing with stronger vibration setting. That's the only rational thing I can think of why they would systematically refuse to adjust it.

[jbender68]

that could be it, but if so they should upgrade the hardware in future watches, at least go back to what they used a couple watches ago that did work, I can not imagine they are saving enough money with the cheaper parts to justify disappointing so many customers

[SantiR]

Hello everyone! Thanks for your continuous participation on this thread regarding the vibration on the Charge 3. Thanks for your interest in this new tracker, also thanks for sharing all of your different experiences and feedback regarding this topic.

Charge 3 includes two different vibration adjustments; normal and strong. Yes, vibration is stronger on this device and you should feel a difference once worn. 

Hope this helps. Keep me posted!