Support DD/MM date format on Charge 5

[correctthedate]

The new Charge 5 only has an American date format when set to an English speaking country, despite having an English date format for many non-English speaking countries. Please change the date format for the UK to DD/MM.

Moderator Edit: Clarified subject

[iamian16]

FitBit has been fobbing of their critics for over a year by directing them to this community forum.

It’s quite clear that no-one from Fitbit reads this forum and are intent on ignoring the problem.
They’re clearly only interested in a US customer base. After all few Americans ever leave the USA and it appears that applies to Fitbit’s marketing team.

Best regards

Ian

Sent from my iPhone

[shark928]

I do not understand why there has not been a fix by Fitbit to ensure that all their devices support either mm/dd and importantly dd/mm date formats! It is absurd that the more globally standardised format of dd/mm is not supported on the Charge 5 tracker. Any simple check by the development team would show that the US is pretty much alone in using mm/dd so why do you still after all these years and so many requests still not support your global customers, this is not a feature but a bug plain and simple.

Here is a link to Wikipedia which will give you a clue as to what you should be paying attention to, as clearly you have not bothered to look yourself.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_format_by_country

[DarkArtsTactics]

Just adding an up vote - pretty obvious feature to support non US users

[AndreTheHunter]

+1 from Australia

[iamian16]

Yesterday my Charge 5 took 22 minutes to download and install the latest firmware update.

Did it include a DD/MM option for non-US countries that make up 95.32% of the planet? Of course not. 

fitbit has absolutely no intention of supporting DD/MM despite using that very format to promote advertising outside the USA.

It is dishonest. 

fitbit is a US company that is too blinkered to see beyond its borders.    

[RoverP4man]

Just to support the other comments made, the lack of ddmm format is unexcusable in an international market place.

[Pommie]

Yup. Just done that. I've lost patience on this issue now. Fitbit support is a joke.

[SunsetRunner]

My next watch will not be a Fitbit. I may even go back to a mechanical analogue one, at least these don't share your details around.

[DrQuesh]

Over a year since @LizzyFitbit said they were responsive to feedback, and yet it still isn't possible to change date format. Will be contacting retailer as well to advise image used in marketing material is misleading representation of functionality in UK. 

[KazBitfit]

I wish that I had known this before purchasing 😞      I came on looking for instructions on how to change the date settings only to see that it can't be done.   I will be returning the fitbit

[Babsbaby]

I got a Charge 5 for Christmas. I am very disappointed that I can't correct the date format. I am in UK and just can't get on with American dates. Please consider doing something sooner rather than later. 

[K66666666]

I wouldn’t hold your breath. I got mine for Christmas 2021, over twelve
months later they still haven’t bothered to fix this bug and I would
suggest they have no intention of doing so. I returned mine just before the
warranty ran out and after three generations of Fitbits will never buy
another.

[Peter-C]

I first visited this page over 15 months ago. This “community” is a waste of time. Breathed out long long ago…

[Squiffy2022]

Not only do Fitbit not listen about the date format but they even state in their Terms and Conditions they accept no obligation to read our comments (let alone act upon them!). Just as they never listened about offering a replaceable battery (as Apple do). Also on Charge 5 they have removed the really useful altimeter (staircases climbed) that has been on every previous model. 

[diru]

There's a product manager somewhere making the developers look like idiots.

[Spanners]

I don't always think that they don't care about the rest of the world.

That is money and all commercial organisations like that stuff.

I have come across people from the USA who, deep down, have not really assimilated that the rest of the world really exists.  You can talk to them but the 95% of earth that is not USA is in the same part of their consciousness as leprechauns, elves and Klingons - stories they all know about but they are for books, films and stories!  The "real" world is not here.

This may be why I heard one say that "he is your president too!"

[purple_jellie]

Well it is 29/01/2023 and I have just put on my new Charge 5 to discover the date is in US format, despite my location being Australia, and I cannot change that it seems. Overall I've found the whole Charge 5 interface difficult to navitgate. Probably going to go back to my Charge and sell this one, as new. It seems like such a simple thing to be annoyed with but I'm already dyslexic. I cannot easily look st the US format & figure it out  

[purple_jellie]

Guys I don't know if this will work for you. I literally just posted my comment and told my son the date can't be changed and he held up his Charge 5 to show me his screen....🙄🙃 I didn't scroll back through all msgs so apologies if this has been mentioned and tried already, although not sure why it wouldn't work for everyone else. You got into your Fitbit app. Go to your profile ie your little head thing. Select your Charge 5. In there you go into gallery, then clocks....and there should be 25 interfaces there, and ALL of them were set up with the date to match the settings of the Aussie (all of the world not US) format. Install your choice, it's pretty 

Hope this helps and not sure why Fitbit wouldn't just tell you how to use the app.

[SunsetRunner]

To answer your question, the faces of the clocks have been USA format for ages. It now shows a mixture of dd/mm and mm/dd so it's a bit of a choice between the clock layout and date format.

In another thread is a discussion about the face styles and colours, so I will not mention those in this post.

[RobertThurlow]

Thank you so much, this is the most helpful response I have had and has
worked for me. Why could Fitbit themselves not give me this answer?

[iamian16]

I do understand this but the default is Continuum which is only available in US date format (mm/dd).

Some others are available as MMM/dd which is less confusing but still US.

It is a couple of lines of code to allow mm/dd or dd/mm on all Gallery options but Fitbit refuses to do it.

Best regards

Ian

Sent from my iPhone

[Pommie]

Yup - I just tried changing to Continuum which is the only other face apart from Target whose design doesn't make me want to stick pins in my eyes and it shows 01/29 as the date.

Target shows "Sun Jan 29" which is OK(ish).

I still can't believe a company valued at $2 billion doesn't care about it's customers outside the USA.

I thought for a moment reading purple_jellie's post that they'd finally done something about this but it seems not.

The combo of this, the weird graphic design for the faces, and the gouging for PLUS means I am unlikely ever to buy Fitbit again,

[purple_jellie]

I mean I also struggled to find a design I like but I dont understand that the offering to everyone is so different...Continuum was my default face and it is literally the only one on offer, to me, that has the US date format, except for those that dont have a date in the design at all. I mean I didnt download them all to see what their other screens looked like, but for me all the ones that have a date on that first screen it is DD/MM except for Continuum. 

Anyway glad someone has found this useful. I'm making it work for me. I agree it should be standard to change the date format, and I dont know why Fitbit wouldnt bother to tell you this themselves. I still find the interface overall difficult to navigate but at least I was woken in the middle of the night by a vibration telling me to get moving at 2am, which often happened with my charge 2, even though the notifications were turned off....

[purple_jellie]

You are welcome!

[Piccalilli]

100% agree with all the other comments on the lack of DD-MM format. Currently I'm charging my Charge 5 and it's telling me it's 2/8 and I *know* for a fact it's not the 2nd of August. The numerical dates are the worst, at least with the Feb 02 you can see at a glance which is the day and which is the month, but if this doesn't get fixed, I'm saying goodbye to Fitbit. Such a basic thing but months on from it being flagged, nothing's been done about it.