Inconsistent content on App Notifications on Fitbit Sense (Okta Verify, but probably in others too)

[Bioroid]

I have an application in my phone (Okta Verify) that creates push notifications with two buttons ("Yes, it's me" and "No, it's not me". See screenshot below) and I have my Fitbit Sense setup so the notifications of that app show in the watch.

The notifications are received 100% of the time, the problem is that the buttons are only shown in the watch in 33% of those notifications, the rest of the notifications just contain a generic "Open" button. When this works it is very convenient, but more often than not it is just very annoying, as I look to my watch first, and then I have to my reach to my phone most of the time to actually accept the notification. I have not been able to find the reasons the notification buttons are only shown properly some times, and I suspect this is a bug in the Fitbit software. Can this be fixed?

To reiterate: this is not an issue about not receiving notifications in my fitbit Sense, but about the contents of those notifications being sometimes different than what they are in the phone.

[Bioroid]

Ok, so I have managed to find the pattern that makes it work, but is not a fix at all.

If my phone's screen is on (i.e., it is unlocked), the notification in the watch will show the two buttons above, otherwise I just get the generic "Open" button. This is regardless of the Settings>Apps&notifications>Notifications>Notifications on lock screen setting in my phone.

This is either a software bug or a bad design choice. It basically makes all action buttons in all notifications unusable, which is a shame given that the functionality is basically there.

Is there any chance the Fitbit development team can answer this? Is the behavior intended or is there a bug here?

[Bioroid]

Another update: I enabled "Smart Lock" in my Android phone. That keeps the phone unlocked while connected to my Sense. Unfortunately, even that does not seem to be enough.

Regardless of whether the phone remains unlocked or not, it seems that if the screen is off I will never see the buttons in the watch notification and therefore I can't approve them without reaching to my phone. Again: this makes this type of notifications useless and I believe is because the watch is not communicationg properly with Android to verify whether the phone is unlocked.

Please, fix!

[AKudrys]

I have absolutely no valuable advice but to say the same thing happens to me and drives me nuts. It would be great if it would work. 

[broyo · Accepted solution]

Yaa, I think the only solution is for Fitbit to have a native Okta app. I suspect that's why one doesn't get this behavior on WearOS.  But yes, it drives me crazy as well having switched from a WearOS device where it always worked.  I don't think Okta will fix it on their end because they consider it "insecure" that your sortof-locked phone can ack an Okta push (I think I asked them a year or two ago).  i.e. even without the watch, you can't interact with Okta from the phone lock screen (even the not-really-locked screen) like you can some other apps (e.g. gmail).  Again, I suspect that WearOS works around this by having an actual native okta app on the watch.

Anyway, I think the most likely thing we can hope for is the eventual fitbitOS/WearOS merger such that we'll get a native okta app on the watch.