- The GPS is really inaccurate (wildly so on occasion). Way worse than competitor fitness tracker devices such as Garmin and Fitbit’s excuses when you ask them are ludicrous (e.g. “are there lots of trees where you’re running?” stupid garbage). This is a fundamental issue for any serious exerciser.
- The tracker randomly loses data when you sync it, including steps, distance, heart rate data points, and calories burnt. This happens often. It is EXTREMELY annoying when you are working hard and not being credited with recorded data for those intense workout sessions.
- The ‘resolution’ to this from Fitbit’s customer services is to basically laugh it all off in the stupid jovial tone of voice they all use, which makes them appear almost as programmed bots rather than human beings. At best, they don’t take customer concerns seriously at all.
- They think that manually adding in steps is a solution to the above. Get real! I’ve paid for automation. I shouldn’t have to be constantly checking my device because I’m worried that it’s going to **** up all the time. I have lost telemetry countless times and you can’t get back HR info on a granular scale once it’s gone.
- When I have manually added steps to replace lost steps it ends up resetting other steps elsewhere and the overall total starts jumping all over the place when I resync so this ‘solution’ is more hassle than it’s worth.
- The other so-called ‘fix’ that customer services almost recommend is to restart the device over and over again. Tried it and it doesn’t work! Is that the best that Fitbit can come up with? “Have you tried turning it off and on again?”….it’s pathetic.
- On several occasions I’ve also woken up to find 1,200 steps have been logged overnight even though I know, categorically, that I didn’t move from my bed. I can accept 30-50 steps from turning over in my sleep but 1,200?!! Then you have to go through the rigmarole of logging into the dashboard online and removing the erroneous steps using the ‘driving’ activity setting to override the steps. Why can’t you do this on the Android app? Because the functionality doesn’t allow it.
- Linked to the above, the Fitbit dashboard is buggy as hell. When you are forced to log manual activities because the tracker has failed miserably, you will get server errors if you use certain versions of Chrome, Firefox, or IE!!! Fitbit don’t like to make things easy for you.
- A final glitch concerns running activities. I manually entered an accurate stride length for step recording purposes in the dashboard but when I run, although the GPS might show 4 miles as having been run, the steps recorded might only be 4,000. There is no way that my running stride length is double that of my walking stride length. Therefore, something is awry in Fitbit’s hardware/software.
- With all of the above considered, there are serious defects in the Fitbit Surge’s hardware and software full stop. They obviously haven’t tested their equipment extensively enough. It’s almost like we’re all using beta versions of their technology as part of some sort of guinea pig trial. It’s unacceptable given the cost of Fitbit’s products.
As an aside, I love this watch, when it’s working. Unfortunately, the reliability is woeful and when you can’t trust a fitness tracker to accurately log activities, you have a big problem and it’s incredibly frustrating for the user.
Care to offer one of your saccharine cheery responses Fitbit?
