Green light keeps flickering on the back of FitBit Inspire

[Brenlovin]

Hi there,

I have been reading your help fourms and I see that the blinking green light is a issue with a few fitbit products. 

The green light on the back of the device keeps flickering, I would like the option to turn this off, its a bit distracting knowing it is there. 

Some help suggests to turn off the heart rate monitoring. 

1. I cant find that setting in my App, where is it?

2. I believe toggling this off doesnt turn it off? Based on other forums.

This should be an accessible setting please.

I look forward to the feedback from FitBit. Thanks!

[SteveH]

The flickering green light is what is used to measure your heart rate.

There is a setting to turn off heart rate tracking but in the manual it says:

"Note that the green LED on the back of Inspire HR continues to flash even if you
turn off heart-rate tracking." 

https://staticcs.fitbit.com/content/assets/help/manuals/manual_inspire_hr_en_US.pdf

So, I'm afraid you can't turn the light off. If it is an issue for you then is it too late to return your Inspire HR for a standard Inspire where you won't have the issue?

[Brenlovin]

Yup, too late to send back unfortunately.   

Just doesn't make much sense. If the light is used to help measure my heart rate and I turn the heart rate monitor off, the light should go off?

For the longest time lights has served as indicators, letting us know information. Why is this one different? This lil light just goes and goes regardless of any function assigned to it haha it's a bad design

[SteveH]

I think the fitbit uses the heartrate detection as a way of knowing if you take off / put on the fitbit which is why it continues to flash even with heart rate monitoring turned off.

[Brenlovin]

Thanks Steve. 

And yes, we can guess that is why.

I tested it now: if you take the fitbit off and place it down, the light flickers for a few seconds then turns off. When you move it again the light wakes up and flickers again.  

So it would seem the light is triggered by motion. This is why it is always on when we wear it, we always move.  

My suggestion to fitbit (and maybe its hard to program) is, if the heart rate monitor is set to "off", the fitbit already knows not to measure heart rate. Why can't it also know not to turn the light on based off that setting? 

If you ask me it seems possible, if they change the order of events, right now the order appears to be:

1. If fitbit moves turn on Heart Monitor light
2. Record heart beat if Monitor Heart beat setting is true
3. Sync with app
Note that this current scenario, the light turns on whenever we move, regardless of the heart beat monitor setting

Alternate suggestion on order of events:

1. If fitbit moves, check  to see if the Heart beat setting is true
2.  If true, light turns on to start measuring/recording 
3. Sync with app

This way we first check the setting before turning on the lights. And because the heart rate setting is stored in the device, it should be easy to access?

Anyway, that is my 2 cents. I can live with the blinking light haha just found it odd and distracting. 

Thanks for your feedback. 

[avher]

I agree this is an odd feature and left me wondering as well if something was wrong with my new inspire 2 fitbit.  Thanks for finding the answer.

[Sarah_0516]

I, for one, would LOVE to be able to turn off the bright green light while I am switching bands. It's challenging enough to hold the band and push the pin back, even harder to have to also hold a thumb over the green light, or don't and get blinded.

[LiliyaFitbit]

Welcome to the Fitbit Community, @Sarah_0516.

Thank you for joining the thread and sharing your feedback. I understand how you are feeling, our team is always working on improving our devices and user experiences, and we take every feedback as a learning and improvement opportunity for our products.

Additionally, I recommend checking if your Fitbit app is updated to the latest version as updates come with new features and bug fixes: How do I update the Fitbit app? 

See you around.

[Zawar94]

Old message but I found this post while looking for why my hear rate monitor (and green light) stopped working. 

Turned out I had changed it from 'wrist' mode settings to 'clip' mode which turned off the HR function and green light. So if you don't need the HR monitor (or other wrist features maybe?) this solves it