Lock screen/buttons during exercise for all Fitbit devices

[Sharpypus]

I've seen similar ideas/feedback noted for the Surge/Blaze and I'd love to see the same sort of thing for the Ionic, I also saw an idea to change the 'stop exercise' button to the (left) hand button on the Ionic which would too be good but would very much prefer a lock screen if possible 🙂

When I'm sometimes performing pushups, boxing, burpees or anything that causes my hand to bend, I've sometimes ended up pushing the bottom right hand button to 'pause' the workout and then sometimes ended up pushing multiple buttons during workouts to end it prematurely.

I'd love it if it were possible to disable the buttons during certain workouts or have some kind of lock screen, maybe even a long-button push option to only unlock the screen when holding one of the buttons for a few seconds etc. At the moment, it's just far too easy to accidentally click the right hand buttons which are tied to pausing/ending workouts.

An idea which would be great would be that my old android watch had, I could turn the screen on with a button although in order to interact any further, I would need to manually swipe away a lock screen (or you could set it up with a PIN each time) and then you'd be able to start/end/pause the workout.

Thanks a lot for reading, really hope this could be considered for a future firmware update 

Moderator Edit: Clarified subject and updated label

[ScottyDM]

Yes, Polar does this right. Fitbit would take a lesson if they were wise.
It’s surprising to me they are as popular as they are. Their interfacing
with so many other apps is no doubt part of that.

[Abdulla]

Hello Fitbit community! This is a cry for help to the developers team really😁 i'm extremely happy with my fitbit versa to start with but there is a problem i believe most of people can relate to. I wear my clock on my left hand so when i start the stopwatch the "start" and "pause" buttons point to the right side towards my wrist "green ring on the pic). Now when i work out with weights the wrist bends and sometimes hit the "pause" button. It happenes very often that when you're in the zone you don't notice it. It sometimes happenes you don't see it before you are done and it makes your whole 1 or 2 hour workout "not counted". I personally am very obsessed with the stats to see my emprovement. So what i'm suggesting is basically a "lock screen" option on the watch. Just like on cellphones. For example you start an exercise and the time starts to run, you can press the single button on the left like 5 sec (yellow ring) to lock your screen. And press for 5 sec again to unlock it. This way it wouldn't be frustrating and irritating i believe. 

Thanks in advace

Moderator Edit: Formatting

[LuciaFitbit]

Hi @godet , thanks for taking the time to share your feedback with us. This feature suggestion already exists so I’ve moved your post here. Don't forget to add your vote!

[crunnells]

I would really appreciate this feature, as I've noticed my Fitbit pausing my exercise tracking when the screen gets wet, constantly pausing my activity and losing the data track. A simple "swipe to unlock" or combo button press should be easy to implement.

[Rcary1977]

I am constantly having my activities paused because there is no lock feature. Can’t beleive this isnt being addressed, it makes the device useless. Just remember Fitbit, if u loose the market again there won’t be any coming back like last time. 

[MrBadger]

This has been out there for a LONG time with very little response from
FitBit. I'm a FW developer and know that addressing this problem shouldn't
be that big a deal. It puzzles me and makes me less confident in future
FitBit purchases (this is my 3rd device). Please either tell us that you're
working on it, or tell us why you can't, or tell us that you're simply not
going to do anything about it.

Mark - More-or-less satisfied customer who is getting annoyed

--
Come, my friends, 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world. -- Tennyson

[JJBeck]

Hi. This is the third time this week I get to start to use my fitbit to start my morning walk to work…I swipe, and swipe to get to walk. Hit to connect to my phone….go for my walk, then goto end it and realize its been paused. Im beyond frustrated.

[SunsetRunner]

I completely agree with this - there should be a screen-lock function on the Ionic.  I've gone into pause mode when cycling by brushing the buttons with my jacket cuff or gloves which is so frustrating 😞  

Come on Fitbit listen to us!!!!

[Lyshiiee]

This is absolutely ridiculous. I have only just purchased this fitbit and I can't use it for swimming at all as I lose the workout. Then when I am boxing it pauses halfway through and I only have results from half a workout.

This is the reason we bought this watch, because we want to know our stats and we can't even do that. 

This has completely put me off Fitbit and I will not be purchasing anything else of these unless they fix this issue ASAP. Absolutely ridiculous. 

[ScottyDM]

It IS ridiculous, and yet Fitbit’s latest official word is that they have
no plans to fix it.

[MissMaven]

when did they say that they had no plans to fix it? And why are they
ignoring us - what fix feature is more important? I wish we had more
transparency...

[JJBeck]

Given the fact they just posted a not so great biz report on earnings…I think it would make better sense to try and KEEP their remaining customers. They aren’t the only one on the block to do what they do.

[godet]

Well, we have to face it: more than a year after requesting a BASIC feature
for such a device, that totally fall under common sense, that has been
requested by MANY customer, that is REALLY easy to create from a dev point
of view and that (that s the most frustrating thing) existed on some of
their previous device, it is clear that Fitbit had no interest nor
commitment into their existing customers. I have bought 3 devices in the
last 2 years, and I m now dping my best to be sure that any people in my
private or professional circle are aware of the crappy experience I m
having with thode devices.

[ScottKilbo]

I've been saying this for years about Fitbit.  I've seen many reasonable requests that seem to get support from the general community.  Things that would be a no-brainer from both the development and the consumer need perspectives.  Yet they consistently ignore any good ideas.

There's going to come a day when this company does serious damage to itself with its complete disregard for consumer needs.  There are more players in this market each year and eventually someone is going to come along that puts this company in serious trouble.  When my Ionic dies, I'll be moving on.  I'm betting that there are lots of others as well.

[Perez85]

Looks like we may have our answer via the new Versa announced today. The 2 buttons on the right have been removed. I wonder what the start/pause feature is like .... too bad I just bought my Versa last month. 

[MarioJ]

What about the Ionic? We need a software patch!

Sent from my iPad

[JJBeck]

If they aren’t going to address the UI and button problems of their remaining products (like my charge 3) then they will loose customers. I can’t fathom how they aren’t at least going to address this at all. Makes me wonder if they only care about getting new customers rather then keep existing ones.

[Richie967]

Yet another run lost, @Fitbit, please add some sort of lock when doing activity feature! With the lack of this and Spotify support i'm considering moving to the Samsung Gear Watch. 

[JJBeck]

I’m now getting really pissed because now not only is my Fitbit pausing my workouts now it’s starting them without me noticing. This morning I had a nice run from home into the city meanwhile I was on the subway. I’m getting really frustrated with this.

[astokes]

PLEASE add the lock feature.  I've lost so many workouts.  

[harvey911]

Waited for a year and still have no fix on this simple feature? Should i switch to Apple Watch instead?

[Tkd_Link]

Came back to check on this. My versa broke recently, thankfully it's being replaced, but it was the first time I was using it after months with a Ticwatch Pro, and, of course, it didn't even record the full workout anyway. The Ticwatch is a bit big and Wear OS is only okay, but at least I can record workouts! 

I mainly do marital arts and kickboxing where I'm wearing hand wraps and gloves. The versa is essentially useless for me. I only ever use it to log steps or when cycling. That's why I gave up and bought a not as good tracker because a crappy tracker that actually records a full workout is a million times better than the best tracker that always fails! 

If you're not going to fix this, or don't have the resources, open up the option for devs to create solutions. Otherwise this versa replacement is my last Fitbit product and I've been with you since the very beginning! 

[Horcus]

After a year this is still not added! Charge 3 is useless for tracking my exercises as it stops by accidentally pushing the side button and screen during workouts and boxing. I have had no single exercise without missing data.

[dougbwyatt]

Yep. They're after the casual fitness market, tracking the low level, low
impact exercises like the programmers do when they might occasionally work
out. If one of the developers ever did the kind of challenging, functional
workouts we do this would've been fixed from the start.

[EricRSRCP]

Yes, this is a feature that is long overdue.