Feedback about Versa 4

[Cchip]

I've had a Versa 2 for the past couple years and it's been great. Rock solid reliable and the battery still lasts for about a whole week. I've been thinking the past few days about upgrading to Versa 4 for the GPS and voice calling ability. But after coming here and reading about all the issues and problems with it, I'm not so sure. Is anybody here having good luck with it?

Moderator Edit: Clarified subject

[Guy_]

Hi @HarperLee5 - as mentioned earlier, did you know if you are in the window, Fitbit have a 45 day refund policy if bought direct from them or from an authorised shop perhaps, and some stores offer a 14 to 30 day one.

[dave19148]

The versa 4 doesn't work except for steps! 

[SerenityV]

Can confirm it has nothing to do with hair. I'm a pale-skinned fine-haired woman and it won't record my sleep data half the time. 

Sometimes it says I am asleep while I am watching TV though, which is weird because I am a fidgety person.

Your Google Maps works?

[GhettoAstronaut]

Mines working. Everything works now that they've deleted the glitchy skin temp widget.

[dave19148]

Phone answer doesn't work on mine. It did but stopped. Wallet does not work either. Notifications work fine and mic for replies does as well. Weather app also does not work. Get something else.

[mlas101]

I just purchased my Versa 4 and finished setting it up. Was so looking forward to having the weather at my fingertips BUT the weather doesn't update unless you sync the phone. In order to have the weather be current, you must use the All Day Sync setting - THEY REMOVED THAT SETTING! I'm so mad! What's the point in having the weather on my watch if it's only correct when I manually sync my app? Guess I'll just go back to looking out the window.

I hope I can return this and go back to by Aria. I've owned a Fitbit since they debuted...now, it's time to reconsider sticking with them.

[SartedFBin2016]

I’m really glad to hear you say this. I’ve had a Charge 2 since 2016. I’ve finally got a good job and making good money and decided to splurge a little on myself by getting a better watch. I bought the Versa 4 and I hate it. The band sticks to my wrist constantly. The app keeps freezing during syncing and lemme tell ya, it takes like a full 2 minutes for it to sync now. I still can’t get the calls and notifications to work, and Fitbit makes it incredibly difficult to notify them that there’s an issue.

[victbtm]

I see you said yours was working back in February.  I'm wondering if it's still working or should I say if you're getting all the benefits from it that you're supposed to?  Mine is garbage....

[Biceboca]

I've had mine for about a week and it seems most problems are due to the Android app as opposed to the watch, because I'm most likely to fix an issue by restarting the phone. This morning when I woke up, I opened the app to sync sleep and all looked good on the phone, but the watch did not show sleep and the weather temperature was from the night before. I kept syncing but it was only one-way. My watch would not update from the info on the phone. But when I restarted the phone, the watch was okay, and showed my sleep and weather correctly. So some background piece of the android app crashes or stops and the phone needs to be rebooted (it is not enough to re-launch the Fitbit app, probably because it has multiple "components" and some restart only with a phone boot). Then again if people are saying Versa 2 is giving less trouble, it is hard to know which piece of the system is most at fault.

The only other issue I have is, the phone app refuses to connect my watch to Alexa. I asked support for help and was told to wait for the newest Android app, which is not yet being offered to my up-to-date Android 12 phone on the Play Store for some reason. But to answer the original question (belatedly but this probably helps others), I am not sorry I got this watch, at least after a few days of of some struggle, because overall I like it a lot and I am willing to wait for fixes, some of which need to be made on the phone app. So I'm not (yet) blaming the watch. I did get to try out Alexa which was working and was cool and fun to have, otherwise I may not be so positive. But it stopped working (watch said phone is not connected to the internet, but it was!), and after a factory reset, re-update I could not connect/activate Alexa, even though Amazon shows the watch as having been added (so issue is probably reconnecting a reset watch to the android app). It is disappointing that things are not smooth but at least Fitbit is still alive and hopefully they are working to fix things (hopefully not focusing solely on the Pixel watch which is not an option for me). The other thing is, I think they discontinued 3rd party app support to reduce the number of issues and burden on customer support, which I guess is okay but too bad. Support for music is the only thing that does not make sense. They could just stick a first-party mp3 player app and let us stick our own files on the phone, which seems like a very low-tech, low demand thing in 2023. Really that's the only thing that has me scratching my head, and asking "why?".

[Guy_]

Hi @Biceboca  - thanks for your useful post.

There may be an app issue on Android 12 needing a phone reboot, there may even be some system services not enabled to run in background in addition to Bluetooth itself in that version of Android.

Did you try to logoff Amazon and the Fitbit App and login again to reconnect and activate Alexa?

Fitbit has dropped onboard music across all watches so are moving out of that part of the market, presumably to cut development and support costs in the new watches. Quite how they hope to attract/retain customers is a mystery.

[dave19148]

The sleep app still doesn't work on watch except once in awhile. The weather app no good. And google wallet nope. But everything else works ok.  The android app will capture sleep good and the watch answer works now after an update from android on my phone. Not really pleased with the versa 4 but it is ok.

[dave19148]

The sleep app still doesn't work on watch except once in awhile. The weather app no good. And google wallet nope. But everything else works ok.  The android app will capture sleep good and the watch answer works now after an update from android on my phone. Not really pleased with the versa 4 but it is ok. Alexa works well.

[Fitskytizen]

NOT AT ALL..

I got a Versa 4 as a Father's day gift and the strap is too long... they sent BOTH straps in the LONG size. When I reported the problem, the customer service rep said "you can go to a store and get new strap"!!!

This company is owned by Google... they have more cash than GOD and they cannot correct a mistake?

[Fitskytizen]

You are lucky... Fitbit products usually stop working magically after 366 days.. The Face plate on THREE of my versas came off and predictably, with "sorry, its out of warranty" excuse.

[Biceboca]

@Guy_ , thanks for the reply. I have a separate thread on the Alexa issue, but you are probably right that the issue is my version of Android 12 set up in combo with a Fitbit App bug. I did make sure continuous background run is enabled for Fitbit. As for the one-way sync issue, this morning, the same thing happened -- I synced my watch and the sleep was processed and showed up properly on the Android, but syncing was again one-way. It would not show up on my watch after repeated successful-looking syncs (android app showed sync was working). But this time instead of rebooting my phone, I instead rebooted the watch, and that fixed it too! It is weird that either a watch reboot or phone reboot (but not Fitbit app relaunch) seems to fix issue! (I assume it is the same issue = one way sync only after an overnight pause.)

I activate sleep mode and do not disturb mode when I go to bed, but first thing I do when I get up is deactivate those settings on my watch. But those modes would create a one-way communication issue, so maybe they don't get deactivated properly. (Probably I should transfer the issue to a new thread....).

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@dave19148, probably you know this already but just in case: the watch does not have updated sleep info without sync to the phone. This is because the phone needs to send the data to Fitbit servers to process it. Then is should be synced back to the watch, eventually, if all goes well. Sync from phone to watch is also needed to keep weather up to date. This does not go smoothly for me after an overnight break from continuous syncing but after a reboot of either watch or phone, it seems to work the rest of the day.

Perhaps you are experiencing the same issue as I am (mentioned in this thread). If I have to reboot the watch every morning (after syncing to phone, so I don't lose its overnight data), then I'm okay with that. It is a trivial amount of hassle to reconnect the 2-way syncing.

At least you got Alexa to work! That's really my #1 problem at this point.

[SerenityV]

Mine seems to have gotten better. The Alexa setting works now. I really had to explore the phones settings to make sure everything was properly set up since upgrading to a Google Pixel. Still having to regularly sync to get weather and sleep updates that aren't always there. Still no Google Maps though.

[heatherysmith]

I've had mine for a couple of months, after my trusty versa 2 stopped working (I'd had it a few years so no drama there). I shopped around a bit looking at other smart watch brands, but in the end decided to stick with fitbit and went with the versa 4 as the top things on my wishlist were Smart Wake, Connected GPS and Exercise Tracking.

I've had numerous issues with the alarm and Smart Wake. I think I've managed to figure it out now, but it basically doesn't like it if you have two alarms set for the same day (even if they're at different times) and it acts differently depending on whether you set an alarm as a one-off or 'every Monday', for example. I now always set my phone alarm alongside my fitbit, which defeats the purpose a bit!

Connected GPS is on the whole fine, although it does lose signal sometimes. This could be due to my location, however.

Exercise tracking, again this is generally fine, but it does pause workouts on occasion so I tend to keep checking throughout. I don't like the way it starts tracking walking after 5 / 6 / /7 minutes but I think that's personal preference.

My new issue is the battery life - since changing the clock face (I have now switched back) my battery drains super quickly which is incredibly frustrating.

On the whole I'm not sure if I'd recommend or re-buy - the things I bought it for don't work perfectly, but I couldn't find a different smart watch at the same price point that offered them...

[Smooth-n-EZ]

NO, have had the worst experience with Versa 4 than the ol' cheap $99 band.   No matter what i did (opened cases, researched posts, watched youtubes) the DISTANCE was always 40% to 60% over the actual distance -  both miles and steps.  So it consistently (and I mean every time) measured way over what i had walked/run.   Second issue was heart beat errors:  Versa 4 seemed to always undermeasure my heartbeat, no matter how tight I put it on my wrist.  Third issue was battery life:  a month after I got it, the battery started to quit FAST.  One day it had 80% battery, next day TOTALLY DEAD.  

Bottom line:  STAY AWAY from the Versa 4, it is a defective product out of the gate.  I cannot believe Google let this out into the market because they've lost me and my family as customers FOR YEARS - i doubt will ever buy a FitBit device again.  

[Rozzles]

Terrible product. SO slow to sync if it even does sync. Stops tracking mid run. Constantly going into app to try to resolve issues. Don’t buy this model. 

[racheldewitt]

I left fitbit after being a loyal customer for years because the versa 4 is a joke. I got the galaxy watch 4 and love it. It doesn't have a great battery life, but I'm willing to sacrifice that because it's incredibly useful, versatile, and durable. Love it!