My second Fitbit just bit the dust.
The first one lasted about 8 months, I got it replaced under warranty because the (non-removable, stupid) band was failing, though the electronics seemed fine. The second one just died with no warning, also after about 8 months. Sigh.
It died temporarily every once in a while anyway, so it was hard to be sure that this was different. One of the chronic problems I’ve had with it (the “Charge HR”) is that there is NO battery charge gauge on the band itself. To even see what the charge level is you have to log onto “your” Fitbit website, and/or you can ask the system to send you and email when the charge got low. I’ve done that, sometimes the email comes and sometimes it doesn’t. The only way that Fitbit or “the website” knows what your charge is, of course is by reading it during the sync process, which would make the whole thing a gigantic pain if the sync process were still manual, but I long ago set up a couple of Raspberry Pi’s to sync automatically whenever I enter certain rooms, that helped the situation somewhat… but it’s not the sort of hack you can expect most consumers to pull off.
Just this morning I noticed that it was dead. Nothing comes up on-screen, the green LEDs that monitor blood in the wrist don’t come on. I didn’t think I could have let the charge go that low without noticing, but as I say it’s hard to be sure. I put it on a USB charger, no immediate response, so I put a little USB volt/ammeter in series with it, and it showed 5.01 volts and .05 amps. Seemed like a good sign, at least it was taking a charge… but after a while the amps dropped to zero, usually indicating a full charge, and the wristband is still very dead.
It got some water splashed on it yesterday (working on plumbing), but it’s never been immersed, and it’s an exercise tracker, surely they must expect some sweat and occasional rain.
I feel naked. It’s hard to convey how addictive these things are. I’ve relied on it (them, really) heavily for about 20 months now, tracking my exercise levels, mileage, calories, number of times up and down stairs (inaccurate), sleep times and (mostly) heartrate, both average and during my regular run/walks. I wore them night and day without fail. I depended on it to track changes in mileage when I had to make changes to my regular course, and watched the changes in my heartrate when exercising through the seasons, higher in the cold, lower in warmer times, slowly getting lower as my fitness increased. Having it die is hugely frustrating.
So, the “new” version of this is the Fitbit Charge 2, at $130 street, but of course Amazon is out of them, but expects more soon enough that it doesn’t make sense to order from someone else who may have it in stock but ships more slowly… which, let’s face it, practically everyone does. It has a bunch of new features and a higher satisfaction rating. Hopefully it will last longer.
In the meantime, I guess it’s back to the old Fitbit with the failing band. So, I’ll have to put that back on my account, then change yet again when and if the new one arrives.
Changing the band that’s linked to my account is a huge hassle, because I have the audacity not to use any Apple, Windows or Android devices in my normal life. There is an official Fitbit application for the Kindle, which I do use, but it won’t do the initial setup- of course. There is no official Fitbit support for Linux at all, and the only Linux software for it so far seems to be Galileo, which will do routine synchronization but also won’t do the setup process. So, I have to either borrow an iPhone or fire up an old hand-me-down Android phone I was given but don’t use. A royal pain.
This really shouldn’t be this hard.
– Robert the Wombat