Sense won't locate phone

[hrgflores]

My Fitbit sense won't locate my phone or receive notifications.

I have checked it's Bluetooth connected.

Moderator Edit: Clarified subject

[Rich_Laue]

Hi @hrgflores what type of phone are you asking about? 

When you say can't locate, are you asking about the find my phone? 

[hrgflores]

IPHONE
I'm asking about the feature to locate your phone off of your fitbit. "find
my phone".


Thank you,

Moderator Edit: Personal info removed

[Rich_Laue]

I understand this @hrgflores both notifications and the Find phone require the Fitbit app to be running in the background. 

It most likely is that the phone is not sending notifications. 

Once Notifications start working, the find my phone should also work. 

If you where android I could help more. 

Please check the notification setup guide. 

Some things to check or try are. 

Open the Fitbit app. 

Go to settings / Sense / Notification / tap the three dots found in the top right / send test notification. 

Make sure that the Fitbit app is able to run in the background. 

IOS users have also mentioned giving permission to fitbit in their notification center. 

Have someone send a text to you while your Fitbit app is open on the phone. 

[Dj9281]

Im having the same problem with my iPhone. It says it can never find the phone no matter how close I have it to the fitbit watch. 

[Guy_]

@Dj9281- This can be a Fitbit App issue which may be resolved by uninstalling the app and reinstalling it, and redoing any special settings like app notifications or Pay, that's specific to your phone.

[Dj9281]

Thanks but that didn’t fix the issue.

[hilfordjames]

Yes I'm having the same problem with the FIND MY PHONE app feature. 

My phone receives notifications fine, but the find my phone feature from the watch to the phone doesn't work. 

Other forums suggest turning turning phone off and Sense off, but it makes no difference. 

Looks like another FitBit gremlin. 

[Dj9281]

After a very difficult, arduous process, I finally got fitbit to replace the watch over this issue but the problem remains. This is clearly an app/watch design issue. I do notice that if I manually sync the app to the phone, the find phone feature will work immediately afterward. Then as the day goes on, the feature stops completely. 

[Guy_]

@Dj9281  - this would seem to indicate a phone issue, not a watch issue.

Each type of phone has its own peculiarities and work arounds, but the best place to start is with checking the phone battery saving feature isn't closing Bluetooth or the Fitbit App.

Another good test would be to use SimpleCheckUp app on the watch.

You can see when find the phone is not working whether the watch can connect with the phone and if it can then it is not a syncing problem.

[Dj9281]

I have checked everything with the phone (including the battery saving
issue) with a full troubleshooting with Fitbit staff and I have no problems
with the hundreds of other apps I have used on this new phone. I’ve also
tried a factory reset. It’s not the phone. Considering so many other people
have this exact same issue, it’s clearly the app or the way the app
integrates with the watch. Also daily manual syncing of my app to the watch
is always delayed and it gives a message that it’s taking longer than
expected. I had no issues like this with my prior fitbit watch with this
phone. Always synced quickly. This is some sort of a problem with the
watch’s ability to sync and remain synced with the app.

(Interestingly when I first tried to get help from fitbit on this, after
detailed troubleshooting, they said it was an app issue and they weren’t
responsible for third party apps. Then they realized this was a fitbit app
and that’s how I eventually got a replacement watch.)

[Clove6060]

mine worked on my iPhone 6s Plus and works on my 

12 pro max. It must be a setting or maybe the alarm 

does not work on the sense. Really odd to me.

[Dj9281]

Please see attached based on your app. Tried several times. Wouldn’t connect to your app or notify phone. What does this mean?

 

[Guy_]

Hi @Dj9281 -  it means there is a syncing problem.

often if more than one Bluetooth device is used or there is an incorrect setup.

As a first step try restarting both the watch and the phone, this often solves the problem, before looking into other possibilities, which are listed here Why won't my Fitbit device sync? 

[Dj9281]

Oh I’ve done that tons of times. I’ve gone through every troubleshooting
step in that article and extra stuff fitbit asked me to do.

[Guy_]

@Dj9281  - have you tried

• remove the Sense Bluetooth entry from the phone
• logout of the app
• clear the fitbit storage cache
• force stop it
• login
• go to the phone home screen without closing the app
• click on the sync popup
• it should pair and link
• then sync

• if not, click on the profile photo
• click on "Set up a Device"

[Dj9281]

How do I clear fitbit cache? Only thing online I can find about that refers
to clearing safari cache and I only use chrome on my iPhone.

[Guy_]

@Dj9281  - for an iPhone it will be reinstalling the Fitbit App and redoing the Notifications and any special setups - try doing a swipe off of the running Fitbit app and the other steps, it may not be necessary to reinstall the app.

[Dj9281]

Ok that I have tried. I’ll try again though and then I’ll repost when I get
another connection issue. Thanks 😊

[wfsh]

I found you have to have Fitbit app running on your iPhone to make this work. You cannot completely swipe off the app. Once you do that, it stops working.