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I think you should be able to sync with your phone and then upload data at a later date. Let us store data locally so that an internet connection is not required to see current stats.
I travel a lot and often go for extended periods of time without wifi. Currently in order to get a silent alarm I have to turn data roaming on on my iPhone which can incur significant costs - obviously not reasonable. Even if all we can have is alarm syncing (though I'd appreciate offline sync to the paired device which can be uploaded later) then that would be a massive help!
I am in the Navy and spend a lot of time at sea without a network connection on my phone. Currently the app doesn't allow syncing of any kind without a network connection. This means I can't upload data to the app. I can't even adjust the silent alarms on my Charge without a network connection. Updating the app to allow for network free syncing would be great. The data could be stored in the phone until the network connection is restored. This would be great for many situations, not just for a deployed service member.
If I'm interpreting all of your comments correctly, all of my information kept within the Fitbit app is stored in the Cloud... somewhere in the Internet. Personally, I'd prefer it that way because I have another app that monitors my sleep cycles as well as records audio while I'm sleeping. That app does store the information on my phone, or locally, and it doesn't take long at all before my storage is full and it becomes impossible to even take a picture. I do only have 16gb though. If I'm intrepreting this wrong at all... let me know:)
Totally agree, not being able to sync to what is essentially a mobile device without the internet is a real negative for me. I can't see any reason why the information cannot be stored in the phones memory and then updated to the server when an internet connection becomes available. This should be an easy thing to do with a simple update to the app. Please do this Fitbit as it would make a lot of sense and a lot of people happy 🙂
I totally agree that the choice should be there. I would prefer to store my data on my mac. As the fit bit app is run from the net it must be readable by browsers and should not be that difficult to make usable without the net.
Added to simply having the choice some people can't get the net and some have to pay outrageous prices for uploads as well as downloads and also any information stored anywhere on the net is NOT completely secure no matter how much effort is put into making it so.
So please an offline program for those who want it.
I completely agree with everyone above. One of the selling points of this device for me was the silent alarms. Without internet I can't do that, and I work in places with zero internet connection quite often. Please fix this feature.
I emailed fitbit directly and their 'really excellent support via email' replied with some weird response trying to explain to me that you do indeed need to be online as you're using the dashboard to do it. Well, yeah, of course you are but I wanted to know WHY. Still waiting for a decent response.
This should be available without question... It mentions nowhere that the device is literally useless without an internet connection!!!!
This is unacceptable!!... I paid a lot of money for the charge HR and have really enjoyed using it, I work in the merchant navy and as such believe it or not can go for upto 3 months without an internet connection of any kind rendering this equipment (as good as it is) useless!!
Where does it tell me this is the case??
We are about to sail... might aswell throw it in the ocean for all the use it is now!!
@MattSando_ I see that you have an iPad ... are you saying that even though the iOs Fitbit app has options for setting alarms and setting an HR monitoring preference, their activations would only work if an internet connection was available between iPhone (in my case) and the Fitbit website?
Yes. For some inexplicable reason, you must have an active internet connection to turn alarms on/off. Try it. Turn your phone onto Aeroplane mode and then try and turn alarms on/off. It can't be done.
@MattSando_ wrote: Yes. For some inexplicable reason, you must have an active internet connection to turn alarms on/off. Try it. Turn your phone onto Aeroplane mode and then try and turn alarms on/off. It can't be done.
I just did. That is indeed strange. I agree, these functions should just be direct comm between my tracker and my device (phone or tablet).
It is suspicious and counter-intuitive not to have local access to this data. This data is created locally and at present I need to upload it to fitbit's servers before I can re-download it to use it in whatever way I see fit.
Fitbit's data export page says "your data belongs to you" - well, it doesn't if I have no option to access the raw data other than uploading it to fitbit's servers first. You're basically saying "you only get a copy of your data if we can have a copy, too."
I paid for the fitbit device, not for an ongoing fitbit service. If the price of the device is being subsidized by fitbit selling (or mining or whatever) my (anonymized) usage data - I wish that were more obvious up-front.
The way I see it, local access to the data that the fitbit devices collect should be a minimum. A given. If fitbit wants access to that data (to monetize it anonymously or whatever) that'd be fine with me as long as there was enough of a benefit to me, the user, to want to upload that data to their servers.
Personally, I think there's already enough of a benefit to make that sacrifice - the point is that I don't even have the choice. That's wrong.
I would like everything as described in the parent post, but if it needs to be incrementally rolled out due to difficulty, the ability to at least adjust the silent alarms without the network connection would be great.
I am in the Marines and sometimes that takes me away from internet access weeks and months at a time. Create a downloadable software that allows a PC to store all data locally until Im able to access the internet again.
Even if our phones could just sync and hold the data until we have network access and can then upload it to your servers! Ridiculus that you have to try and find a network access for your phone within 7 days or lose all your tracking.
I would like for the moderator to comment specifically about this. I'm inclined to NOT recommend this product for those in the military because anytime we are away from the internet longer than 7 days you will lose your data. Does Fitbit realize how often military Men and Women go without internet access? That's not acceptable especially from a $250 device.
Internet connections are not always available, sometimes not even for many days (think about trekking in remote regions for example).It would be nice to be able to sync the Charge on Bluetooth and let the data be stored on the phone, where one can see some stats and graphs. When Internet is available a full sync would then be made from the phone to your servers. I understand there could be some issues with data consistency if a user has synced the charge with several units (a phone, a tablet, etc.) and added manual logs of activities, weight, etc... I'm sure this could be taken care of by establishing some rules to define which data have a priority... one could also add an option in settings "allow sync when not connected to the internet" warning the user about the risk of problems in keeping data consistency, so at the end it's the user responsability not to fool with his/her data :-)
I have made my first recommendations to several Marines and Sailors that were curious about the Fitbit Surge and Fitbit products in general. I definitely did not recommend this product to them due to the lack of mobile and PC offline software. It wasnt hard to sell once I told the interested parties that they wouldnt even be able to change their time or alarms once we deployed. It didnt take much to convince them that this juice isnt worth the squeeze. My recommendations will remain the same until software improvements are made.
I requested that Fitbit Software Engineers create an offline dashboard for PC/MAC or Smartphone App. Something is extremely wierd as to why they would not allow their product to be functional without the internet.
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