Versa 3 water sensibility issues

[Yohansan]

Everytime i take a shower or even sometime when I was my hands, the warm water triggers all kind of thing on my watch. Most of the time, its ends ups frozing and the watch restart itself. 

Quick chat in with fitbit didnt help me resolved the issue. suggesting to use do not disturb mode every time i might be in contact with water. It didnt even work. 

Am i the only one in this situation? Thinking about returning the watch at the moment... 

[evilneoprincess]

It is a touchscreen. This also happens on my OG  Versa.

[Marleyfan61]

You're not alone.  I stated a thread about this too.  Fitbit seems reluctant to acknowledge the issue.

[Marleyfan61]

It has nothing to do with the touch screen.  Water triggers the long button press on mine which is not touch screen related.

[Marleyfan61]

So I've been in touch with Fitbit over this issue.  They claim that it is an "expected behavior."  Not sure how a watch which has swim tracking as one of its advertised functions is expected to function as a swim tracker when water triggers button presses.  I truly believe this is a design flaw that Fitbit is choosing to not address.  What other waterproof watch reacts with water to produce button presses?

[Yohansan]

Clearly a design flaw for a "sport watch". I didn't had this issue at all with my charge2...

I decided not to wait for support since they are still denying the issue and ended up returning my watch to the store.

[MarreFitbit]

Hi there @Yohansan, @evilneoprincess, and @Marleyfan61. We're sorry to hear that the button of your Versa 3 smartwatches are very sensitive to water. We acknowledge the limitation we have on our part particularly on what you have experienced. We‘re taking into consideration your comments and sentiments with regards to our products and Customer Service.

As it has been happening, note that you might unintentionally press the button on your watch when you bend your wrist. This may happen during activities such as a workout that require you to move your wrist a lot. That being said, please try wearing your watch higher on your wrist to avoid hitting the button. For tips on how to wear your watch, see How do I wear my Fitbit device?

Also, please check: Can I swim or shower with my Fitbit device? 

Let us know how it goes. 

[t.parker]

This is an issue with all the sports watches using this kind of touch screen. Charge 2 was a little bit different in that matter (and not water-resistant so I don't think many people would risk showering with it). I had the same problem with Ionic. During shower after the gym, it just opened the Exercise app and start tracking a new activity - all by itself, just because of water). My experience with other brands says the same - touch screen and water don't play along. However, there are UX solutions that allow for solving this issue. One of them is the screen lock that requires pressing/holding a physical button to unlock. This is the solution used by Suunto, Garmin and Polar. Smartwatches use it, too (Apple Watch has a few ways to lock the device from unwanted input). Usually, the method is to hold a button to lock the touchscreen (and other buttons) and hold it again to unlock. Not sure whether the capacitive button in Versa 3/Sense could be used like that (as it responds to water, too). However, the screen lock probably could use a gesture recognition (which would be hard to reproduce by running water) or long button press (let's say 5sec). Water impact is very random and by focusing on the input patterns some sort of screen lock could be implemented. I don't really know why Fitbit for so many years have been avoiding this feature and even when they introduced a screen lock for Swim activity... why only for the swim, not for all of them? Nobody knows, probably even Fitbit engineers have no idea.

[PebbleRocker]

You would think there would be a shortcut to a  Water lock button??  This would be a very easy feature to add maybe set it on a timer? For example press the waterlogue button and it asked do you want indefinitely 30 minutes an hour etc. 

[Rich_Laue]

Put some water on your phones face, then try to use the phone. What you are experiencing is common to touch screens. Since your fitbit really is not designed to receive the force of a shower,,, 

[t.parker]

@Rich_Laue my Suunto watch had a touch lock to prevent such unwanted behavior so it's not like it's impossible to prevent it. Very useful when swimming or even during rain. The rain also interacts with Versa 3 and Sense. Does this mean these watches are not designed to be used in rain? It's even worse because the "button" responds to moisture, too (with Ionic there was an issue of random screen touches but at least it had a physical button that couldn't be trigger by water). 

[Swellybob]

This is definitely nit the issue it literally triggers an exercise every time I go near warming water be it getting in the shower, washing my little girl in the bath or in the shower. What’s annoying on top of this is that their isn’t a delete exercise button only resume or end( I have the Versa 3) so I have to keep going into Strava and Fitbit app to delete the “non-exercise”

[Scrody]

If it's a known issue and a manual water lock with out having to trigger a swim exercise is needed then why has fitbit not done something about it?

[Rich_Laue]

It is a known issue with the users, we as users do not know how the developers think or if they consider it an issue. 

Have you added your vote? With only 500+ votes over 4 years, it doesn't seem to be much of an issue and why nothing has been done yet. 

Lock screen/buttons during exercise for all Fitbit..

[TommyIzzo]

@Rich_Laue This thread is about getting it wet. Your link is vote for exercise lock?

[lisadeparts]

I beg to differ as a Versa 2 wearer for years using it swimming and showering, I fact I rarely took off -- it never ever had an issue. But it reached it's end of life and purchased a Versa 3 and have had this annoying issue with everytime is gets wet it trigger find my phone app making my phone go into alarm. It's incredibly frustrating, and having had a previous model with no such issue I can say unequivocally that they can in fact design a Versa that does not do this. It's obvious they've done something to the newer Versa that leads to this triggering of apps.

[lisadeparts]

OMG, I've been searching for an answer to this as well. It's maddening, for me it always triggers the "Find My Phone" app, be it shower or simply washing dishes. The crazy thing is I had a Versa 2 and it was brilliant, never an issue and I used it swimming 3x a week -- but it sadly reached it's end of life and I bought the Versa 3, and for months no issues, then recently the water triggering my phone alarm started. Am guessing this is a software issue on the Versa 3 -- maddening.

[lisadeparts]

I realize this is old thread but I have the same issue on my Versa 3, never had the issue with my Versa 2, which I swam 3x a week in. Now even just washing dishes with my Versa 3 can trigger the loud find my phone app, very disappointed, especially knowing the previous version worked so well.

[Rich_Laue]

Water plays havoc on most touch screens.