Connected GPS not showing full route in app.

[Rachel-Fit]

I posted earlier that my bike ride this morning is only showing 3km out of 5 and the fitbit app has the end of my route marked just over halfway. As as a result of this a presumed that it had just stopped tracking half way through, either due to lost connection or something to do with auto pause. 

I wasn’t aware that I’d set up fitbit to automatically sync my recorded activities with Strava. The weird thing is Strava is showing the full route and all 5km using the data imported from fitbit. 

Clearly fitbit hold the full route from my gps activity as it was the only thing tracking this morning, but why would it only use just over half of it and ignore the rest in the app? 

[mikecyprus]

Strava runs on your phone thats why it doesnt lose connection. Versa is connected gps take the location throught bluetooth and thats why problems occure with disconnections.

[Rachel-Fit]

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@mikecyprus wrote:

Strava runs on your phone thats why it doesnt lose connection. Versa is connected gps take the location throught bluetooth and thats why problems occure with disconnections.

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Though I didn’t have strava running on my phone. Strava has the exercise details as it syncs with fitbit. 

My versa with connected gps was the only thing recording. 

[mikecyprus]

Really. Hmm. We need some debugging here.

[kcronin]

@Rachel-Fit  I just did a walk this afternoon and ran Strava as well as tracking my 3.5 mile walk from my Versa.  I had the same issue.  However, my map is complete with odd squiggles and jumps wherever my Versa lost connection with my phone.  The two milages don't agree.  Off by about 20%.  You don't say but, if you track from your phone in Fitbit, there is a known bug that if you pause, you'll lose the rest of the data even tho' it will look like it's tracking fine.  I did pause on my Versa today to test this and it resumed ok.  It just keeps losing the connection as evidenced by the "connecting" message that keeps popping up.

I know you've been reading about this on other threads.  There seems to be a problem either with the app or the Versa firmware but no one at Fitbit is fessing up yet.

I do think it's really odd that Strava tracked your exercise without starting it on your phone.  The little Strava app on the Versa only displays your Strava tracked exercise.  That app won't permit starting or stopping within the Versa Strava app.  I'm no Strava expert and I only have a free membership but, is t possible that your account is set up to auto-track in Strava?  Not even sure this is an option.

[Rachel-Fit]

@kcronin

Hi Kathy, the pause was the auto pause from the versa when I stopped at the side of the road to fix a flat. Though the point where the fitbit map stops my ride is quite a bit later. 

I know the watch was still connected to gps and tracking as I had to stop it manually when I ended my ride, at this point it was showing the correct total time. After syncing 5 minutes and 2km were missing.

I also know that Strava wasn’t tracking gps at all I made sure that all apps other than fitbit were closed before I went out to try keep the connection as stable as possible. It only has my map and heart rate as they were exported from fitbit to Strava automatically at the end of my ride. 

This definately seems like a problem with the fitbit app and the way it’s using the information recorded. 

[kcronin]

@Rachel-Fit  You say the Versa shows the correct total time.  EXACTLY!!  This is the problem.  The timer continues to run but during the ride you probably got the "connecting" message showing up intermittently.  If you don't check the Versa repeatedly, you can miss it.  And, if we're staring at our watches we aren't watching where we are going!  Every time it loses connection the timer keeps running but the distance stops measuring.  Then it re-connects but the distance just starts from where it left off.

Your Versa probably lost connection mid-point in your ride and never re-connected properly.  The timer kept running and so, at the end, your distance was wrong, pace was wrong and, possibly, calories burned were wrong (if distance is part of the equation for calories burned while biking).

The whole thing is really frustrating.  Keep your fingers crossed that this CAN be resolved with an update of some sort because, if it's a defect within the hardware, that would require a new device.

[Rachel-Fit]

@mikecyprus

Yeah I know it’s really strange. I wouldn’t care if it had dropped connection and recorded inaccurately as a result.

It’s the fact that it seems to have recorded fine with the fitbit app/dashboard reporting it wrong. For example the exercise start and end times don’t match the duration. The missing 10 minutes would account for the last 2 km.  

[Rachel-Fit]

@kcronin I think you’re probably right, though it’s frustrating that the map showing in the fitbit app and the map exported from fitbit have 2 completely different end points. You’d think if it failed to connect and record the end of the ride that the detail exported to Strava wouldn’t have that detail either. 

[BamIAm]

Just had my first dropped GPS connection yesterday with my Versa, after using it for over a week.

One difference between the Versa and my old Blaze is that the Blaze would buzz when this happens, but if the Versa did, I didn't feel it.  I had just glanced at it and noticed the disconnect.

Stopped my activity, put the Versa on "pause" until it reconnected.  It was a short break, the map, step-count, and time / distance were fine when I finished.  Makes me nervous to use it, though, but we'll see.

[kcronin]

I found this article interesting and helped me to have a clearer understanding of how Bluetooth works. My takeaway is that there are many factors to a Bluetooth connection that would be outside of what we can control through our Versa/Phone settings. I also believe that there is lots of room for the FitBit Developers to modify programming that would strengthen the BT connection from the Versa to Phone.

https://electronics.howstuffworks.com/bluetooth.htm