The Fitbit Community is a gathering place for real people who wish to exchange ideas, solutions, tips, techniques, and insight about the Fitbit products and services they love. By joining our Community, you agree to uphold these guidelines, so please take a moment to look them over.
Join an existing conversation, or start a new thread to ask your question. Creating your account is completely free, and takes about a minute.
We are experiencing extremely high contact volume right now and estimated wait times will be higher than normal. We appreciate your patience and understanding as we work to provide support as quickly as possible. In the meantime, please visit our Help Center for troubleshooting articles and our Community Forums.
As a nurse this is a critical need, why do the cheaper $25.00 + Amazon fitness trackers have this capability and Fitbit doesn't? Time and time again as I read these forums, medical professionals want to use your product, but end up having to use something else or a competitor brand.
Your development and design team seems to consistently stub their toes on features that have been put into or added to other products of the past, why not going forward is this not a standard baseline?
I guess I will return this to Kohls and get my money back and find a solution that allows me to wear one watch, do my job and take care of myself too. Very disappointed.
Having always on display is essential. The hand gesture of bringing the watch to your face does not trigger the display reliably. Tapping the screen is also hit an miss. In winter is 100% miss if you are wearing gloves.
Always on display is essential to the Charge 4. Please turn on that feature!
Hi @ACinVA, thanks for explaining why you would like to have the option to see "Always on Display" option for Charge 4. 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.
I'd much, much prefer a 3-day battery life with Always on Display, rather than having 7 days of flicking my wrist like a maniac just to see the time. Especially during a workout! At least give us the CHOICE.
I see posts saying that you can extend the on time of the display via settings but my new charge 4 does not have this option. Where do I find it? driving me nuts lol
My fitbit charge 4 hasn't even arrived yet and I'm slightly peeved. I'm just... not happy.😐
I have signed up to this community forum to specifically request this "feature". I shouldn't even BE a feature!
I'm a product designer so I don't say this lightly:
Dear fitbit programmers/developers. Don't make yourselves hard to love. Right?
The design (shape) is good but the user interface/experience needs attention. How do I know this already?
I don't want to press buttons in order to see the time (because that requires me to do something extra which isn't needed with other watches). I don't want some special wake function (that reacts too late). I don't even want to move my wrist with some fancy "quick view" (that's yet another feature). I don't want to even have to google "fitbit always on display". Do you know how long it took me to figure this out? 5 or 10 minutes. Imagine that times 10 million. That's millions of wasted minutes. If you're interested, I have a screenshot.
I want the display to be there all throughout the day. Something that I can rely on. Is that such a big ask? I don't think it is. Look at all watches (mechanical and otherwise). They ALL show the time. Even half a million dollar watches. Right? Forget the other information like heart rate or steps for a minute. I just want to see the time! At the very least, that's what a smart watch should be able to do, show you the time. Because it's a watch. That's why it's called "smart watch". Something that shows a clockface. I SHOWED YOU THE MONEY. NOW HOW ABOUT YOU "SHOW ME THE TIME!" hahaha
That's one reason, the primary reason, to wear any sort of watch in the first place. In fact the default clockface should be "always on", and the battery saving, screen-saving feature should be quick view or press a button or whatever.
Having said all that, I do feel slightly better for getting a few things off my chest here with you all. What annoys me more is that when I signed up, I see you are seriously considering "water reminders".🙄 This may break the forum rules, but quite frankly I don't care. I think that's is a nonsense/useless feature. If I knew the time, if I could just glance at the time without even moving my wrist, then I could drink water on the hour, say. Or the half hour. Or every 15 minutes. Or every five minutes. Or every five seconds. And the same applies to whatever other "reminders" that people may need throughout the day.
One "feature" is more important than the other. Try to guess which one it is!
And so before I even have my fitbit, I know it's at risk of suffering from something called "feature creep". *sigh*
Yes maybe a few reminders is good, but not for everything. Then what's next? Remembering to pee? Remembering to scrape the bottom of my heels? Remembering to trim my nose hairs? I don't want to spend the time learning how to turn useless features off. That's a waste of my precious time, time that I can NEVER get back again.
You as the developers should know that just because more people ask for something, doesn't mean it's going to be good for everyone as a whole. And so it has 3593 votes. And the "always on" clockface has 115 votes. So what? That doesn't mean that water reminders need 30 times the attention as the previously requested always-on display. Does it? Anyone can get votes. But do they matter? Who voted? Often millenials don't know what's good for them. With age, time that is, comes experience. Just because something has been thought of (and voted for a thousand times) doesn't mean it's going to be good. And letting the everyday Joe Blogs design something isn't always the best idea. Just watch the episode of The Simpsons where Homer designs a car to do everything that he wants. The result is so hideous, no one buys the car. There's a reason why people study design and UI/UX at university. Because some people care more about making well-designed technology.
Do you think 10 million fitbit users really need reminding when to drink water? We are adults. We need to know the time. This society, this civilisation, runs to a time schedule. It doesn't run to a "drinking water schedule" or a "frequently peeing schedule" or a "nose hair plucking schedule". And I bet you there are 1 million fitbit users (nurses) who'd agree with me (except they don't have the time to write such a detailed response as this).
The worst part is, it looks like you still haven't implemented the always on display for the charge 3:
Do you know what would be nice? It would be nice to get a response from someone who works at fitbit by the end of the day. Do you know what would be even nicer? It would be nice to get a firmware update before my Charge 4 arrives some time mid-next week. Can you do it? I challenge you. Technically it's possible. But can you as a company respond and get it done in time? That's what I want to know.
Count me in as one that would like to see this feature added to the Charge 4! You added the option for GPS to phone tethering so I am sure your engineers can add a AOD to the Charge 4! I would be more than happing to turn off internal GPS and use the saved battery power for a small AOD or a dimmed AOD that gets brighter when you lift your wrist. I do not have my Charge 4 yet but I placed the order today since it is on-sale. Lets see if your engineers/programmers can get to work on this ASAP!
Agree that this feature would be a huge help. Often when I'm working out my charge 4 vibrates to notify me of something but when I look down the screen is black. It usually takes a couple flicks of the wrist to get it to display. It would be a lot more motivating if I could just look down and see what it was trying to tell me (i.e. usually that I'm in fat burn or cardio or whatever) without the extra hassle. I've taken to just ignoring it entirely while working out, which kind-of defeats the purpose.
Just got my new Charge 4, which I chose after seeing the display of the clock face in the ads. I was attracted to this model thinking that I could use my fitbit, rather than the clock on the computer in the exam room (inconvenient), when I need to take a pulse (fortunately, not often)! I am a nurse and it would be helpful to have the option of leaving the clock face display on. I need at least 15 seconds to take a patient's pulse, this display doesn't even stay on that long! I have barely enough time to read the date, time and my own HR, the screen is busy! Misleading.
The same as many above posters. It looked in the store like the display could be always on. I bought it and brought it home now to find that it does not have an always on mode. How incredibly disappointing. Seriously, whoever is in charge of design that left this out, or worse, actively decided that it was not to be a feature needs fired. Today. Replaced by someone who has a clue of what your consumers actually want and use.
Same thing as whatever everyone else has said. Surely it would take someone a few minutes to provide the AOD option for those that want to use it. Disappointed with our recent purchase now as trying to activate the display during exercise is both unreliable and distracting. Would absolutely forego battery life for the sake of activating AOD during exercise or while the stopwatch is active. Curious to know how many people need to request this before someone actually does something about it.
Just bought the Charge 4 and returning it promptly. Beyond disappointed it lacks always on display like my previous MIO Fuze (actually a great product but discontinued). I just want HR and Always On for spin and cycling. Who are your product developers?
I gave the watch to my wife for Christmas. She do not want to use it do to the lack of allways on function. I totally agree with earlier comments about this issue. Why make things difficult instead of easy?
Be able to see the clock at all times and stats when active.(not safe when cycling etc & trying to view) Just purchased charge 4 to replaceTomTom Forerunner I didn’t expect it to match up as a ‘sports’watch but expected to have features requested. Disappointed & frustrated. Any impact on battery charge-users choice.Can a software update enable?
Hi @JoMog, thanks for explaining why you would like to have the option to see "Always on Display" option for Charge 4. 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.
1000% yes. Please add this as a feature. Working in the medical field it’s helpful to have the face open for at least 15 seconds to get heart rates, respiratory rates, etc. on patients.
FitBit staff has obviously just stopped replying the same way as did with the "feature sugestion" regarding lap count while swimming. Both are something that should have been included since the release of the Charge 4.
Thank you for responding what we really need now is action, Fitbit are seriously in danger of losing many sales from regular exercisers who understand and know what they want and those who Fitbit are trying to encourage who will soon realise their purchase is a gimmick rather than a practical aid on their fitness journey. People will lose faith and purchase elsewhere. What attracted me to buying a Fitbit was I fed up wearing a clunky big sports watch and wanted something more aesthetically pleasing which is unusual for me I’m not a style over substance girl! I’m disappointed with my research into Fitbit before purchase, however I’m also not the sort of person to give up and not use something I have purchased ,so please push hard to make the required updates asap they are long overdue, then I and others will happily recommend to others making a Fitbit purchase x I work in the fitness health and wellbeing industry and would like to be able to signpost clients to Fitbit but can’t for now. It would be environmentally and ethically wrong for Fitbit to bring out another watch correcting the failings of Charge 4, and expect owners to ditch it and purchase I think people will urchase elsewhere. Thanking you, Jo
Join us on the Community Forums!
Community Guidelines
Learn the Basics
Join the Community!
Not finding your answer on the Community Forums?
Go to the Help Site
Contact Support