Meditation and Audio should continue playing while phone is locked

[bradbeech]

Guided meditations and audio should continue playing while your phone is locked.

1. If you lock your phone the audio stops.
2. While playing the phones light is on making sleeping difficult and draining the phones battery.
3. This also means that you need to rise from a relaxed state at night after a meditation to switch your phone off - which is counter productive to the goal of getting to sleep.

Link to original discussion:

https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Fitbit-Premium-Coach/Guided-meditation-and-audio/m-p/4059814

Moderator edit: updated subject for clarity and label

[LizzyFitbit]

Hi @bradbeech. Thanks for taking the time to explain why you'd like your meditation and audio guided programs continue playing while your phone is locked with us! I think that a lot of users will love to have this option. We rely on feedback like yours to help us develop products and features that we know our community wants to see. If your suggestion receives votes from other customers and gains popularity, it will be shared internally with various teams at Fitbit. To learn more about how Fitbit decides which suggestions get developed, visit our FAQs.

Watch this space for status updates! In the meantime, try visiting Health & Wellness to talk with other members about all things health and fitness.

[palmuccim]

This is a necessity! Listening to an app to help guide sleep is inefficient if it requires action after the episode has finished. Why should I have to be awake upon completion of the episode to close my screen when its done. This obviates the ability to relax and settle into the guidance, partially due to worrying my phone will die overnight because the screen remains open with the battery draining. Many of us use our phones as our alarms too, so a dead phone/missed alarm undoes the purpose of mindfulness! Other meditation apps work on lock screen.

[AmyNZ]

Hi, 

Yep, totally agree. I use the meditations to sleep and would like to turn the screen off to cut down the light. 

[lexa000]

Agreed.

I first tried the mindfulness meditation for trying to improve my sleep a few days ago. But after finding I needed to leave my phone unlocked in order to listen and the phone screen would remain active during this time, I have not used it since due to the interruption of then having to interact with my phone at the end.

[TomMaj]

This needs to be implemented .

Charging $100 with this missing feature makes zero sense and is completely counter productive.  

[TomMaj]

This really shouldn’t depend on “votes”.  

Does a feature make sense to implement? Yes? Let’s do it.

It’s asinine that this needs to be held to a popularity contest.  

I work for an app company and this is the equivalent to saying “No, we will wait till people to vote for Touch ID to sign in” when EVERY OTHER APP in the same field allows for it.

I don’t get it. You literally want me to goto sleep, in the dark, with my phone next to me, screen completely on.  Explain how ANY of that is logical.  Should I turn on the lights in my backyard with curtains open too to add to the ambience? Maybe leave the bathroom light on as well? 

Come on. Also doesn’t make sense how you can’t stream this to Google Home...when Google bought out Fitbit.  At least that would be an added sale to the company and a work around to this issue possibly.  

Want me to spend $110+ or whatever it is for the year after my 90 days? Implement this obvious feature.  Otherwise I am definitely cancelling before the 90 days is up.

[Bill_Fit]

This would be really great! Otherwise, it makes using the sleep meditations a little problematic. 😔

[Canzosis]

It's absolutely atrocious and ridiculous that they made meditations video files. The whole point is to relax (of which sleep is the ultimate form, but your phone stays awake after you fall asleep at the end of the meditation because your phone can't shut off its screen. How the heck did they program it this way?!

[TomMaj]

Yeah, I’ll be cancelling the premium service.

If any idea like this will only get implemented based on Likes, then it is
not a practice I can support. Great product, lousy implementation of what
should be STANDARD ‘features’

I ask the CEO or lead developer/programmer use this function by placing
phone next to them on night table facing up (sorry, but placing phone
downwards is not acceptable solution as I and many others charge my phone
on a stand) after they turn off the lights and try to sleep.

[Jkay23]

Totally agree with all other comments.  Absolutely hate that my phone stays on and will likely unsubscribe because of it.

[Helzipop]

100% agree - there's one meditation record that I absolutely love and sends me to sleep so quick even when I'm really anxious, but in order to listen to it I have to plug my phone in overnight and keep it in a drawer so I can't see the light. Even then though I can hear the slight ringing of the charger which I'm sure can't be good for a restful sleep, so most of the time I listen to meditations from a different app. So annoying given how much I pay for Fitbit Premium.

[Chantelly-Lace]

Glad I'm not alone and others have the same issue. I ended up downloading the Calm app but I would rather be able to use Fitbit to sleep without it making a bright light. Then it would be easy to track the impact.  

[Eric--]

IOS and Android customers should have the same user experience.

This is a function need by IOS user why not Android user? 

My iPhone with IOS 12.4.7 allows me to turn off the screen with audio continues to play.

But not in my Android 10. If this not fix before my premium service ends I will terminate the service.

Very disappointed with Fitbit no action after 5 months from the first post.

[Dark-hamster]

As everyone else here is saying...WHY does the audio stop when the phone or iPad is closed?? Its so illogical. I use both IOS and Android, & the audio stops with both. Absolutely can't sleep with screen glaring at me - most people can't!

I am a premium user, I love Fitbit, but this seems a huge oversight. At the very least, make it available to cast! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE fix this!

[Specimen]

In order to preserve phone battery, and because meditations only need audio, can't the fitbit app just act like an audio player and turn off the screen?

[YojanaFitbit]

Hi @Specimen, thanks for explaining why you would like to have the option to see continue playing meditation and audios while phone is locked . Thanks for sharing your feedback. I've moved it into a similar request.  A lot of users are asking for this option, I hope we receive updates soon.

[TomMaj]

Yeah, I cancelled my premium long ago. It’s such a basic and simple
request.

[PhantomPtII]

This is very much needed and I'm surprised it's not a default feature. We started using this this week and it's ended up with the phone empty in the morning (it wasn't on charge) because the app just stayed open all night.

[Kristen8989]

This is ridiculous. It's supposed to help me fall asleep but then my phone screen is on, drains the battery, and says my session was 400+ minutes when I wake up in the middle of the night and have to turn it off? That's insane for a meditation app that has a section about sleep.  

[HYinSG]

I wasted a good 15min on the chat with Fitbit support about this issue. They know about all the complaints regarding this simple issue (they expect all our phones to have screens turned  permanently on) and choose to do nothing. They keep replying with stock one-liners. Then they say that they will look into it and asked me to wait for their email. Judging by the fact that people are still giving feedback on this issue, and this is a basic function with any audio app - i.e. to play audio with screen off - Fitbit has chosen to do nothing. I regret signing up for the premium service. 

[LMFit22]

I completely agree with the comments and request regarding this.  It is counter intuitive to have to wake from a meditated sleep to turn the phone off and not drain the battery and having the light stay o now a nuscence if need to sleep try to sleep in a dark room. These are a missing links I an otherwise good app that you are pay a premium for a meditation and sleep app. 

[AliceWFit]

Hi, I just got a Fitbit Versa 3 and immediately ran into this problem. I wanted to listen to a sleep story to help me fall asleep, but was disappointed the audio paused after I locked my phone. There’s no way I can fall asleep with the screen of my phone still glowing in the dark, not to mention being drained of battery through the night. This is quite a design flaw! I really hope it’s addressed—for now I get 3 months of Premium for free and was considering re-subscribing after, but I will not if this issue is not fixed. 

[rogerbond]

Totally agree. How to sleep when phone screen has to be on? This is impossible to me! 

[Bookneeah]

I'm using the Premium features as much as possible durng my free-trial and would entertain the idea of paying for it, however, this is a complete show-stopper for me. This is a standard requirement, not a feature. Without the ability to turn my screen off and continue with the mindfullness sessions, I will not be using it or paying for Premium. Again, this should not be considered a feature...look at all of the other apps that have been able to do this for years...this is a requirement, full-stop.

[AliceWFit]

It's ridiculous that this thread has been around for months and still no update from the @Fitbit team. Clearly, their priority is not for users' optimal experience but rather for sucking as much money out of us as possible.