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We are closing in on a year since the first comment requesting this most basic of features was made, and yet nothing. The fact that we are still requesting a feature that should be out-of-the-box is ridiculous. I've created an account just to echo that this needs to be done. I got a Charge4 for Christmas and asked my wife to give me the receipt so I can exchange it for a simple fitness tracker that, you know, always stays on for its display? Sadly she lost the receipt so I'm stuck with this lemon. As such, does anyone expect we will hear anything but crickets on this matter? Such a sad little product i'm stuck with.
This feature has been requested since the Charge 3 was around. They don't care. I found my own solution: eBay. Got rid of the Charge 4 and Replaced it with a Garmin Forerunner 45. I could not be happier. Goodbye Fitbit.
Maybe now FitBit is owned by Alphabet something will change, but I ran out of patience last year. My lovely wife bought me a Polar Vantage V2 for Christmas, it's just what I wanted: always-on, large display, GPS, sleep monitor, battery lasts three or four days between charges. Highly recommended!
No always on display. No lap count while swimming. I had many products from different manufacturers and FitBit with its Charge 4 is my biggest disappointments by far.
Given the history of this request (the duration and number of times it’s been requested) you’d have to be quite the optimist to believe that Fitbit are going to do anything. Crickets and tumbleweeds, with the occasional “we value your feedback” is how this will likely continue to play out. Such a simple thing to fix, I really don’t get it. Very disappointed with the purchase we made also, but too late to return otherwise we would have, like others did.
@Jav12 I totally agree. Plus they sometimes add "you need more votes" in order for the feature to be considered. Request for lap count while swimming has been put forward almost since the release of Charge 4 and so far - nothing. Such a big problem and such an easy fix but the do not want to do it. There is simply no other explanation
Dear Fitbit, it has been several weeks since you checked in and pretended to be interested in solving what many of your customers believe to be a flaw in your product. A flaw that has been pointed out to you over a long period of time, that is quite clearly costing you sales and customer loyalty. At what point, and after how requests from the Fitbit community, will you take this feedback seriously and provide the OPTION of an always on display? I am happy to drop you a note every day, as I’m sure others will be too, if this is purely a numbers game.
Please provide a genuine response rather than just continuing to pay lip service.
We are getting close to a full year since this feature was requested, can you please tell us if you intend to implement the always on display option for the charge 4 device? A simple yes or no would suffice.
You are most likely correct in that they don't care, if they can string us along for long enough then they can just discontinue the device.
We might as well use this community constructively to discuss what the best replacement device would be from another vendor. The Garmin forerunner series is probably the best bet but what I specifically liked about the charge 4 was the size of the device, nice and small.
Which watches would you guys recommend that have built in GPS and heart rate, bearing in mind the size of the unit? and of course has an always on display.
Garmin Forerunner 45 or any of its variants 45s, 745, 745s, 945, 945s. Depends on how much you want to spend. For me the Forerunner 45 works great. I dumped the Fitbit after less than a year because of the lack of this feature. What good is a watch that does not show the time?
But see there is a loophole, it's not a watch, it's a "fitness tracker"... the watch part is an "extra" feature.
Found a nice site that compares the forerunner devices, the 945 is probably way more watch then I need but those stats are really impressive! 36 hour battery life while using the GPS, I'll need to take up ultra running 😅
The forerunner 45 does look good, ticks all the necessary boxes and i guess the dimensions are only bigger in width so can get used to that:
Fitbit charge: 35.8 x 22.7 x 12.5 mm
Forerunner 45: 42 x 39.5 mm
Thanks for the suggestion, I'm going to start shopping around, no use supporting a company that can't even answer a simple question, never mind follow through on it, just answer a question, communication goes such a long way.
the Fitbit is not a watch either, it is a fitness tracker, as well, just with a lower set of capabilities. They are all wearables. Like I said, for what I need the Forerunner 45 ticks all the boxes for a street price that is very close to the Fitbit.
If I wanted other features, I would spring for one of the higher level versions, but I am just an average joe who likes to know if he's done his daily workout and some details about it.
Sorry I was not knocking the Garmin, I was being sarcastic about the stupid charge 4 that does not show the time as you alluded to in your previous post. The charge 4 doesn't need to show the time because it's a fitness tracker and not a watch. That's how I think Fitbit justifies the lack of a proper implementation. I can just imagine their developers throwing a tantrum "but what these users do not understand is that the charge 4 is intended to be used as a step count tracker and not a watch"
Anyway... the Forerunner 45 does look really good! How does the Garmin app compare to the fitbit app? I would imagine you actually get more data/charts etc. on the Garmin app since it is definitely geared more towards serious athletes?
Yes. you are correct about the robustness of the data.
The Garmin has better sensors and consequently better data that is more detailed. It also is more user friendly. It took no time at all to get used to it and to the app. So far, I like everything and the big screen is a blessing on my crappy eyesight.
This is a fantastic use of the forum since Fitbit have tuned out. Well done. Hopefully others won’t make the same mistake that we have if they come across these comments.
I want to be able to look at my wrist and see the time. I also want to look at my wrist and see my steps. I also want to be able to look at my wrist when I get a buzz notification and have the notification show.
Hi @jswan1989, thanks for explaining why you would like to have the option "Always on Display" for Charge 4. I've moved it into a similar request. I think that a lot of users would like to have this option on their Fitbit devices.You can learn more about how Fitbit decides what suggestions get released in our FAQs.
@ACinVA great for you. I have also replaced my band with Samsung Active 2. Got tired of waiting for Fitbit to do anything regarding lap tracking while swimming and always on display.
@YojanaFitbit I appreciate that you are just a moderator of the community and a middle person between the decision makers and users (as your post history shows since you are just copy pasting the same reply everywhere)
But surely you must understand the frustrations that we have since there is no real interaction happening on this community between fitbit and its users. We have zero visibility on what decisions are being made and for something as simple as this request it would take one person 5 minutes to make the decision yet we have been waiting for any morsel of information for close to a YEAR now.
Very frustrating and if I had found this post before purchasing this device I definitely without fail would not have bought this device and most likely would not even have bought one of fitbits flagship devices
I had a Garmin and was excited to switch over to FitBit. I never imagined this super basic feature would be completely lacking. I like my FitBit in every other way, but maybe I will pull out my old Garmin - it was falling apart after almost four years of use, but at the very least I could see the time and see my notifications when I looked at my wrist! This shouldn't be a difficult feature to add!
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