Unable to turn on location services

[AJS_Philly]

I have a new Charge 3 and want local weather enabled. However the instructions don’t work for my iPhone. When I open the fitbit app in my iPhone settings, there is no option to turn on location services. Also when I go to Location Services through Settings, Privacy, the Fitbit app isn’t listed at all. Any help?

Moderator edit: Subject for clarity 

[RicardoFitbit]

Hi @AJS_Philly, welcome to the Community Forums! Sorry for the delayed reply.

Thanks for bringing this to my attention and for the details that were shared in your post, seems odd that you're unable to turn on the location services for the Fitbit app. To better assist you with this, can you please let me know which iPhone are you using? When was the first time you experienced this? If you haven't already done so, please try the following steps:

1. Force quit the Fitbit app.
2. Uninstall the app from your mobile device.
3. Make sure that the iOS version is up to date.
4. Reboot your mobile device.
5. Reinstall the Fitbit app.
6. Login using your account credentials.
7. Try again.

Keep me posted. 

[AJS_Philly]

Thanks, Ricardo. Unfortunately this hasn’t helped. I followed the steps and the Fitbit app still does not show up (under settings, privacy, location services) as one of the apps using location services. I don’t know how to fix this, and the weather app still isn’t showing a current location (only the 2 programmed locations). 

I have an iPhone 8 and the latest iOS (13.3). 

[LZeeW · Accepted solution]

@AJS_Philly   I have a "back door" way to try and fix this.  It has worked for others and I hope it works for you.  Tap on your Exercise tile, then tap on the stopwatch icon.  When the top toggle is on Track, you should get a pop up asking you to enable your location services.

I am not a software engineer, but I know a lot about how this stuff works.  For the life of me, I don't know how this problem happens to some users.

Also, since you are new to Fitbit, this "stopwatch" is a feature known as MobileRun.  It is Fitbit's first GPS tracking feature and it only tracks walk, run and hike.  Some users like MobileRun for walking and running because it has Voice Cues.  Your Charge 3 has the Exercise app that lets you track many other activities, but it doesn't have Voice Cues.

[AJS_Philly]

@LZeeW - thank you! That basically did it!

Just in case anyone comes across this and wants to repeat it, the steps were slightly different than outlined – I actually did a fake run for about 10 seconds, which prompted my phone to ask me to turn on location services – finally! The stopwatch option wasn’t available under exercise for me, but a fake run worked 🙂 I now have my current location showing up for weather. 

[LZeeW]

@AJS_Philly   I'm glad you got it to work!  Re-reading my answer, I realize that I left out a part.  You have to tap the start arrow and THEN you get the popup asking you to enable location services.  Oooops.  My bad.

I  thought that trying to start an exercise with the Exercise app would do the same thing.  I wasn't sure how or if you would get notified or if you would just get an endless loop of your tracker trying to connect to your phone.  And, you can use the Exercise app with the GPS off (then you get a steps x stride length distance for walking and running). I use this feature from time to time.  A trail goes through a tunnel where GPS doesn't track properly.

Next time I'll include screenshots.

[cDawg3973]

Thank you SO SO SO much for posting this. I spent an hour and a half on the phone with the professionals at FitBit and still they could not figure out the issue. They ended up telling me to sync my cell phone and try another workout but I highly suspected it wouldn't work. Took me about two minutes to find this and it has saved me such a headache. 

[AJS_Philly]

Glad to hear it! 🙂