Responding by voice to texts is so broken

[westsidekilla1]

Anytime I try to respond to a text with my voice it doesn't work. It'll either say there was an error in transcription or after I respond with my voice it'll take me back to the "start, language" buttons. I use Google Assistant not Alexa. And my phone is Pixel 4 XL. My wife also has the Sense set up exactly like mine and she uses a Pixel 3 XL and it hardly ever works for her either. I mean why even have text to speech if it won't work? God the Sense is the buggiest smart watch I've ever used. What are y'all doing Fitbit?  I wanna be able to respond to texts with my voice ya know, a feature that's supposed to work. It would also be nice if there was a contacts app that could be installed on the Fitbit to initiate a text to someone and make a phone call to someone. I mean yeah, Google Assistant has been added but like most things about this watch, it's been added half a**ed.

[westsidekilla1]

So I just looked and it says the Fitbit app must be open and running in the background in order to use voice text replies. Are you kidding me with this? This watch is a joke. This is a watch that should've been released in 2021 towards the end of it because it's definitely not ready for prime time. Embarrassing for FitBit for sure. Hey, it's Fitbit, buy our new Flagship $300 watch! Why? Well, because nothing works right on it. Lol What a waste of money.

[Rich_Laue]

@westsidekilla1 yes the Fitbit app needs to be running in the background for the tracker to sync, notifications and voice response to work. 

Your phone receives a text message and sends it to the phones screen and to the Fitbit app, then forwarded to the tracker. 

When a user chooses to respond by Voice, for me this worked before setting up Alexa. Your voice gets recorded to a file, sent to your Fitbit app, passed on to an Internet server. Decided then sent back to the Fitbit app and back to the sense. 

Basically without the Fitbit app running.. Your tracker will never receive any notifications. 

I as well as many have not had any issues with this watch. 

Have your phones been tested. 

[westsidekilla1]

I just tried voice responding to a text with my voice with the Fitbit app open and on my Pixel 4 XL screen and a bunch of little dots popped up and returned me to this screen like it does every time. I know how to use a smart watch but using a buggy one is a little different. Plus, just adding, tapping the language button does nothing.

 

[RandyRx8]

Same here on my Pixel 4 XL.  Maddening.

[westsidekilla1]

Yeah it was working better yesterday on my Pixel 4 XL but today it kept saying something wasn't right or transcription error. My wife's Pixel 3 XL doesn't work any better. Basically a useless feature at this point. Buggy as you know what. Speech to text is broken Fitbit! Are you seeing this?

[RandyRx8]

Yeah yesterday I got  a notification on my watch, answered it, it transcribed correctly and asked me to send it. I tapped send.  He never got it.  I went to my phone, and the messages app doesn't show it was ever sent either.  No error, but no success.

[westsidekilla1]

I've had that happen to me once too @RandyRx8 

But unless you're in near silence that feature is useless at this point. Either doesn't send or transcription error. So I don't even use it but maybe a couple times a week. 

[Rich_Laue]

I find that when driving I have to hold the mike closer to my mouth and pause the audio file on the phone. 

One time the response perfectly transcribed 30 seconds of a podcast. 

[Rich_Laue]

Hi @westsidekilla1 while I'm speaking I see a wavy line of dots. Then a circle of dots while the app contacts the server. Then everything works or I get a message of can't contact phone or something went wrong. 

Followed by a try again. 

You could try shutting down the Sense. 

[Violyn]

I literally had the Fitbit app open on my phone and it still didn't work. I never had this problem with my Versa 2. I'm thinking about returning it. The Sense isn't making Sense as far as the extra expense. Not worth it imo.

[KDDC]

Same exact issue here on a pixel 4xl and pixel 2xl. My friends doesn't work on the latest galaxy.

I have tried all the support recommendations from 10+ threads on this forum and even turned off battery optimization to see if the app would stay open for longer in the background. Nothing makes this feature work reliably. 

The voice response feature flat out doesn't work as advertised. Not sure why fitbit hasn't done anything about it or communicated to users about it for over 5 months.

Fitbit, what is the status and can you please give us an update? The voice response feature was the number one reason I upgraded to this watch from the original versa. 

[Rich_Laue]

Through the galaxy S8 I use the voice to text response almost everyday. I will also use Bixby to respond to incoming text messages. 

I'm not sure if you get any errors. One thing I a noticed is that after a phone restart. This feature works even before opening the Fitbit app.