Sense Controls will Cease Functioning if You Turn On Wi-Fi Calling on Android v11

[Pharmagenie]

Notable observations after two days of user testing:

I note that many, many people have been having persistent trouble with the Sense and on-wrist calls.  I also was having trouble where the call would show up on the Sense screen, but after hitting the green phone icon on the Sense screen, the call would connect, and there would be no sound coming from the Sense.  The only way to listen to the caller would be to pick up my phone and hit the speaker button.  Else the caller would hear nothing and eventually hang up.

After a great deal of work, which ultimately involved factory resetting the Sense, I discovered the following strange properties:

1. When you first set up the Sense after a factory reset and successfully go through the set-up process on the phone, the Sense Controls in your phone bluetooth settings will be successfully linked to your Sense.  If you go into the Bluetooth settings on your phone, and subsequently look at the settings within the Sense Controls, there will be two toggles that will be turned on (green): "Calls" and "Input device."

2. If you now go to your Wi-Fi settings and turn on Wi-Fi calling, and then return to the Sense Controls bluetooth settings, you will see that the "Calls" toggle has been turned off.  If you attempt to toggle the Calls setting toggle to "on,"  the setting will become greyed out for a second and then the toggle will flip back to the "off" position.  It will not be possible to turn this on.

3. If you Go back to Wi-Fi settings on your phone and turn Wi-Fi calling off, this WILL NOT FIX THE PROBLEM.  THE "CALLS" SETTING IN SENSE CONTROLS SETTINGS IS PERMANENTLY DISABLED.

4. The only way to fix this, is to TURN Wi-Fi Calling off on your phone, factory reset your Sense, and then go back through the entire set-up WITH WI-FI CALLING OFF.

Phone: Samsung Note 10 (SM-N970OU1)

Android OS: v11  Security Patch Level : April 1, 2021

One UI: v3.1

Build No: RP1A.200720.012.N970OU1UEU6FUCD

Carrier: Verizon Wireless USA

[Pharmagenie]

Adding a note here in in case it was not totally obvious:  This means it is simply not possible to facilitate on-wrist calls AND have the ability to do WI-FI calling on your phone.  As everyone is going to want to do WI-FI calling to mitigate carrier user data costs.  Because of this, and because this turning Wi-Fi Calling does not re-enable on-wrist calling to function properly, people will simply choose Wi-Fi Calling over on-wrist calling ... meaning that having on-wrist calling is effectively a pointless feature to have on the Sense.

This is a colossally stupid QC/UIT oversight on the part of Fitbit.  Seriously.

[MotherMel]

Well said sir. I’m beyond dissatisfied with this overpriced toy. It’s so basic. Not much difference than the Versa.Gonna go get me an Apple Watch and chuck this thing

[Johansdotter]

Sry to say, but have to admit that I am starting to agree, even after just a week with it.

Its rather disappointing to realise that after all the research I did before deciding to buy the sense-watch, realising its more or less as lame as using my phone to get more accurate readings then with a watch for 3k... Then ofc disregarding the sleep-app, who is rather good, but not worth 3k, tbh.