Fitbit time weirdness
 

I just got my Fitbit One in the mail today (I ordered one as a late b-day gift to me! YAY!) and I was all excited to get it all set up. Everything went fine except...it's showing the wrong time. My timezone is showing correctly in my user settings, but it looks to me like it hasn't taken DST into account (the time on the readout is behind an hour.) I've tried syncing it several times, but that doesn't fix it, and I even tried doing a firmware update in case that was the problem...but nope, the time's still wrong. Right now I have it plugged into my laptop to charge and I'm hoping that when it's fully charged the time will magically fix itself...but I'm kind of bummed. I made a post to the Fitbit community, but I figure that a lot of folks here have the Fitbit and might have some suggestions.

Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? ;)

Sorry you're having this little glitch right out of the box... I had a few little problems with mine during the set up and I was really annoyed at first.... But FitBit has been pretty good with getting back to me right away via email to try to fix the little bugs that I encountered... Did you send them an email about the problem yet? Anytime I've had a problem it was usually taken care of within 24hrs or less...

I'm thinking about getting one of these, made a post about it but nobody ever got back to me. How are you liking it?

I can't really say much about it either way yet; I only got it yesterday afternoon so I haven't actually worn it. And then this time thing happened and I can't figure it out, so that's annoying me (although to be fair, I do live within a "odd" time zone -- Newfoundland Time -- so that may be what's causing it.) Anyway, once I get this issue sorted (I emailed Fitbit Customer Service this morning) I'll give it a try and see what I think. I'll keep you posted!

I emailed Customer Service about it this morning. Hopefully they'll have some ideas, because to be honest, if something as simple as the correct time is beyond this thing, I'm not going to be impressed. I do think it has something to do with the time zone I'm in, because I tried changing my time zone in the settings on the website, and every time I do that, the time appears correctly on the display (it matches what the time *would* be if I were in that particular time zone). It just doesn't work when I change it to the time zone I'm actually in. :/

That's really strange that it's adjusting correctly to every other time zone except for yours. If it were me, I'd probably double check that I was clicking the correct time zone? (Once I was so excited to set up my new computer that I forgot what time zone I lived in -- total ditz moment.)

WannaBeSkinny: I have the older fitbit -- The Ultra -- and I like it a lot. I like seeing how active (or inactive) I am that day. I like that it tracks my steps as well as how many flights of stairs I've climbed.

cons: I hate having to plug in the USB port every time I want to sync it. This was fixed with The One because of bluetooth.
A couple of times, it's nearly unclipped itself from my pocket. With The One, they have a different grip system, so that's been fixed too.

I also like earning badges. Don't use the community features much though. I haven't added any friends or anything, though I can see how it would be fun to compete against your friends for steps.

Did you try a search for "FitBit" here on 3fc? I know that the FitBit thread over in the WW forum had several pages of posts... I have the FitBit one and I really like it... I also have a Nike FuelBand which also is a lot of fun... And they both have motivated me to be more "active" during the course of my day on top of my actual training... I'm getting ready to run another marathon... and I swim and bike as well... Although I have no plans to do another Ironman anytime soon...

I'll probably try out the Flex as soon as I can get my hands on one... They've been very hard to come by so far... Although I'll miss the "floors climbed" feature that the FitBit One has... I did 115 flights of stairs in my building one day just to get the 100 "floors climbed" badge in one day and I decided to try and go for the 125 badge, but I couldn't quite make it... But I'm going to make another attempt soon... and I working towards 25,000 steps in a day badge now too...

The Flex doesn't have a display like the One, but I guess if you're carrying your phone with you it's not a problem since it would just sync and you can see where you're at...

So far I'm pretty happy with FitBit and I like how it syncs with other apps like MFP, LoseIt, etc... And I also went ahead an bought the FitBit Aria scale, so my weight syncs with it as well... And so far I have found that if I track my calories accurately on MFP it syncs with FitBit and I can see exactly where I'm at as far as how many calories I can have at that meal and still stay on target for the day... or if my calories are over where they should be at that point in the day it tells me how many more calories I need to burn to get back in the range I need for my daily calorie deficit for the day... So that's been pretty helpful "real time" info that it provides... And if I stick to the calories targets that it gives me I lose weight with pretty consistently...

Yeah, I thought about that...and no, that's not it. I mean, it might have been the issue the first time. But I've tested every single time zone and every time, my One syncs and shows the correct time for that timezone...then when I click back to my own time zone, bam! Wrong time. It's sooo odd...because it's like the One is picking up the time zone, but just isn't taking DST into account. Like, for example, right now the local time here is 10:11 PM. My Fitbit? Says 9:11 PM. So it's got the time zone right (my time zone is GMT +3:30, GMT +2:30 in DST.) So it's picking up the half hour offset, just not the DST (or that's what it seems like.)

I AM SO CONFUSED. :?:

I just checked in the "settings" section of my FitBit dashboard and when I scrolled through the time zones I found GMT +2:30 Newfoundland... Is that the one you are selecting and still getting the wrong time?

Yes. That's my time zone, and that's the one I'm choosing. It's just not reflecting correctly. It's showing as an hour earlier than it should be. So if we were still in Standard Time, that'd be great...but we're in DST now, so it's an hour off.

I'm sorry you're having this problem... And this probably isn't going to make you feel any better... But I just changed the time setting on mine to your time zone and I got the wrong time too... Same as you... So all I can think of is the people at FitBit didn't somehow account for DST for your time zone in settings on their website... Hopefully they'll have and answer for this... I mean I can't believe that they wouldn't be able to have some sort of fix for this... even if as you say it's an "odd" time zone...

I hope you hear back from them soon... And let us know what happens...

Thanks. I hope they can come up with a way to help, because this is so freakin' annoying. I know in the grand scheme of things it's not a HUGE deal, but it does mean that everything resets an hour ahead of schedule...and I can't really use the silent alarm unless I set it for the wrong time....the more I think about it, the more it pisses me off. *L* I don't know if it would convince me to return it, but...it IS annoying. I know we're in a weird time zone, but still, we exist! And for our timezone to be the only one that seems to be affected....well. Not impressed.

Thanks. I did a search and made a post in one of those threads but I don't think anyone's seen it. Anyway I'm just confused between the One, the Flex, the Ultra, all the fitbits are a little different so I don't know which would suit my needs better.

I just saw your post over on the FitBit thread over in the WW forums... and it looks like there were some new posts over there that I hadn't seen...

From reading your post over there... If you really want a wristband than the Flex is the only one the fits that bill... So the trade off would be no display like on the One, but if you've got your iPhone with you than you can just check it that way... Also the Flex doesn't keep track of floors "climbed" so I'm not sure if that matters too much to you... and the Flex is water "resistant" but not waterproof, so supposedly you can take a shower with it on, but I don't think you can wear it while you're swimming...

I will say that the FitBit One can be easy to lose... I've heard of lots of people having them slip out of their pocket or becoming unclipped somehow without even realizing it... I actually lost my first one and ran right out and bought another one... and then I found the one I lost a few days later... lol... But it was no big deal, I gave it to friend who loves it... And from what I've heard as long as you have the receipt FitBit is pretty good about replacing it if it has slipped off and gotten lost... I never had to worry aboutmy NikeFuelBand getting lost like that... So I'm sure the Flex is the same and that you won't have to worry about losing it like that...

As far as pace... None of them do that... If you want to keep track of your pace for walking or running you're going to need a HRM with GPS or foot pod sensor to do that... and one of those would give more accurate calories burned as well... But I've found the FitBit to be pretty useful as far as what it says I'm burning based on how "active" I'm being throughout the day...

Oh thank you! I think I might try the ultra. I want something I can wear all day long. For the actual "workout" i'm pretty happy with my iSmoothRun app as it uses gps to track route/distance/pace/hills/calories. I'm so torn!