Open Fitbit To Keep Data Synchronized Notification

[KateFitbit]

Fitbit Update 5/22/2019:

Hey all,

Today we've released the latest Fitbit for iOS app version 2.94. In this new app version, we've temporarily disabled this notification "Open Fitbit to keep your data synchronized." We will continue to assess all the user feedback and work to improve this experience.

Please update the Fitbit app if you haven't yet. I'm now closing this thread from further comments. Thanks again for all your feedback! 

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Fitbit Update 5/13/2019:

Hi Everyone- Based on customer feedback, we are working on an update to the notification and hope to have further information to share soon. We appreciate your patience and thank you for your feedback.

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Fitbit Update 4/18/2019: 

I've merged a few threads together. Receiving the notification "Open Fitbit to keep your data synchronized" after closing out of the Fitbit app is expected behavior. The Fitbit app needs to run in the background in order to enable features like all-day sync and notifications. If you are double tapping the home button, or swiping up into multi-tasking, and then swiping to close the app, you should see this message.

I appreciate your feedback and have passed it on to the team. I hear that you are unhappy with this notification. Our team is aware, but may not be able to provide a fix in the immediate future.

We'll continue to monitor the situation, and keep our team informed of the impact to you and other customers. We understand that this isn't the resolution you're hoping for, but rest assured we're always working to improve our products. We're sorry for any trouble. 

[BucFan26]

The notifications are ridiculous and extremely annoying. I ended up not allowing any FitBit notifications through the settings on my iPhone. Thanks to whoever suggested that. 

[AylaLewis]

Leaning this reply to second everyone else who is super annoyed with this update.

Please for the love of god rollback this update feature. It’s incredibly annoying. 

[Beanie60]

• I’m having same problem on iOS since last Fitbit “cleanup”. Hope your team can figure out what change was made and back it out soon, as this message is totally unnecessary and very annoying. 😡

[Trwarrick]

This update is so annoying. If I could turn it off I would. Every time I see it it makes me think my data didn’t sync all the way but it did. I wish I could turn it off. 

[coecoe85]

Just turn off notifications from Fitbit 

[AylaLewis]

Saying “it is expected behavior” is not a justification, because the app just started doing this. It also feels like FitBit isn’t necessarily respecting users; if you respected us, then you would know that we KNOW that the app has to be open to sync. But that doesn’t mean I want to or should have to keep it open in the background. I force close every single one of my apps immediately when I’m done using it (Fitbit included) — and I simply “pull down” to refresh and start syncing as soon as the app is open again (this is my preference and works just fine). However this update implies that I should leave it open. It also seems a little suspect—for an app to tell me that I have to keep it open, over and over and over and over (like really, for someone who closes apps all the time this was REALLY annoying). To resolve this I’ve blocked all notifications from FitBit. 

And to my point, if “it is an expected behavior,” perhaps you should consider changing that? Especially judging by this negative response from the community. 

Other than that though, thank you. I do enjoy the app and have appreciated the customer service (and app rollbacks/fixes in issues like this in the past). 

[KarmaHunt]

Just please make this stop or give us a reasonable workaround. Thank you.

[MarcoGFitbit]

Hello @Cookie53, @DustoffFrank, @Aubreysmom, @keoneal, @Truenole22, @Maymu, @Taryn74, @CathGeneva, @Gospark45, @SunsetRunner, @kieron6791, @GMars, @malibuerin523, @Trying2BMe, @Ldmedtech, @Thogs, @Masonclark, @Jencantore, @eyassud, @S-Grumme, @SunsetRunner, @pjardin, @SunsetRunner, @jessika859, @messnessa, @AylaLewis, @Beanie60, @Trwarrick, @coecoe85 and @KarmaHunt thanks for joining the conversation, it's great to have you on board the Fitbit Community.

It's great to see you too @CGINME, @Cappyt69, @brbschrm, @Skeeter315, @Monaco, @SunsetRunner, @hazzel, @Daywalker, @KFit789, @rcoolbaugh, @WatsonTr, @countdown60, @BucFan26 and @anabianca_marin, I hope you're doing well. 

First of all, I would like to apologize for the delay in the response. We really appreciate our members's input and feedback and I would like to thank you for yours. Our team is always looking to improve the Fitbit experience and all the feedback you have provided so far will be very useful. I know the message currently showing has been disturbing your experience with the Fitbit app and our team is currently aware of that. Once we have more information to share with you about this situation, we'll make sure to post it here in the official Forums. 

Thanks again for your patience and understanding, if there's anything else we can do for you, please feel free to reply. Please remember to keep the conversation civil and avoid using coarse language. 

Have a great day. 

[Stoz]

Could this be why my Fitbit as all

of a sudden started draining it battery? 

[lcynicl]

Perhaps,   The all day sync setting is a bit of a drain on the battery

Moderator Edit: Format.

[Stoz]

I’ve removed all day sync setting. 

[MarkH86]

I’m seeing this too, and battery drains rapidly. Is this related?

[Sdesjardins]

Please keep us updated this notification is really annoying.

Thanks  

[acook227]

I just did what was suggested by anabianca_marin and chose “deliver quietly” because I didn’t want to turn all notifications off, I think the “off” option is for all fitbit notifications. Tried reopening the app and closing again and the notification didn’t pop up this time. Will see if I get other fitbit notifications over the next 24 hours...

This is the dumbest update, really hoping the fitbit team takes all feedback into consideration and rolls then notification back or makes some kind of clear option to disable it. 

[JulieVW]

Appreciate your response and the clarification. These notifications are very irritating. This should have been a one time question or toggle of “do you want to have all day sync”. I definitely do not want to have any of the apps on my phone running all the time. Nothing like an insistence on keeping the app open to make me suspicious and want to delete the app all together. Thank you for your time.  

[acook227]

Agreed!  Quick update, the way I have the notifications set up I still get fitbit notifications on my lock screen but with no vibrate/ring tone and they don't seem to pop up when I'm on my phone.  I don't know if I'm getting my notifications about taking 250 steps every hour yet though.

Ok with that for now but hoping fitbit fixes this notification as a long term solution as I like getting the other push notifications of encouragement and updating me on my challenges with friends.  

[tmarchetta]

I'm wearing both my apple watch and fitbit tracking different metrics for a challenge at work.  Fitbit always ends the day with about 2000+ more steps than the apple watch (I don't wear it to sleep or shower) Since this notification issue popping up my Apple watch tracks 1500-2000+ more steps than my FitBit, even while wearing it many hours less.  Are metrics possibly being affected as well somehow?

[defdog99]

If they are making the gui stay open to sync, then they should remove the "All Day Syncr" toggle.

Just having the app open implies it does all-day-sync -- pending you leave the gui open all day long.

My guess is fitbit didnt like paying to handle the non-stop traffic to their servers.

So now that they force people to open the app, it only hits the servers once or twice a day per person versus all-day long.

An Awesome business manager type decision to save nickles and lose customers.

And these canned responses from the Fitbit helpdesk are just as annoying as the alerts.  lol.

[SunsetRunner]

is Fitbit not going to address this issue anymore? Clearly your customers are unhappy with how this issue was very poorly "resolved". The issue is still happening and we are given the run around from Fitbit.........extremely disappointed, as I'm sure many others are as well, and would really appreciate a realy response with a real solution.

[Hlkleinberg]

defdog99 makes a great point. If all day syncing requires constantly running the app in the background, then having the toggle for "All day sync" really makes no sense. If the app is running, then, it syncs. If it's not, then it doesn't.

I got to this discussion by way of a google search because I had finally had enough of this notification after at least a week of it popping up literally every time I manually closed the app, because, as others pointed out, I try to limit the number of apps my phone is running to save battery life. I was hoping for a setting to turn the notification off, but instead I found... uh, this morass of disgruntlement. 

I'm very disappointed to find that Fitbit spent so much time telling people this is "expected behavior." I work in software support. I talk to end users all day long who swear to me a certain pop-up or requirement had "never happened before" that has been coded into the system for the past 9 years-- I know what this verbiage means. 

I read through the entire 8 pages (!!!) of responses here, and not once have the Fitbit responses addressed the fact that this feature/bug WASN'T happening previously. Saying it is "expected behavior" does nothing to address the fact that this is a new experience since the recent update. The people commenting, like myself, are not new users. This pop up is new. 

If this pop up is supposed to be happening every time you manually shut down the app, then either:

1. It's a new feature that was rolled out in the update.
2. OR, it was supposed to be happening this whole time but was broken, and the update included a fix to resolve that. 

In either case, can't someone at Fitbit at least admit which is which? Saying that it is "expected behavior" is really bordering on gas lighting your customers at this point. "Expected" by whom? All the people who have been using your app for years and loving it until now? Certainly not. Also, just because software behavior is expected doesn't mean it's good behavior, as evidenced by all the complaints AND basic design principles.

I hate this pop up. I hate having it in my notifications! I don't care how quiet it is, if it's in my notifications screen it's going to drive me batty. I LOVE my Fitbit, but this is SUPER annoying. I know it's not syncing when I close it. That was the point.