I lost my Fitbit today. It fell off my trousers when I was out for a long walk while the kids rode their bikes, and I didn’t notice. Boo. 🙁
But I found it. Yay! 🙂
A few thoughts for Fitbit about this:
Belt clips
I don’t like the Fitbit One‘s belt clip as much as the Ultra‘s belt holster. It’s stronger, and less likely to snap (which is what happened to my Ultra and why I ended up having to get the One). But it’s not as effective. It’s hard to attach it to many of my clothes, which was never the case with the Ultra. And it falls off. This isn’t the first time it’s fallen off, although it’s the first time it’s happened without me noticing.
Design-wise, I think it needs reconsidering.
Knowing when I lost it
We’d been out for hours. I had no idea when it had gone missing.
But the Fitbit app on my Nexus 4 background syncs with my Fitbit. I checked my phone.
Last synced: 40 minutes ago.
That was a big clue. I knew where we’d been and could retrace my steps. Knowing how fast we’d been going and that my phone had last seen the Fitbit 40 minutes before gave me a rough idea of where it might be.
But Fitbit, if your app stored a location with each sync, and could show me a map, that would’ve been so much better! I guess you need to think about the battery implications for my phone, but even a rough large-radius location estimate would’ve been appreciated.
Using my phone as a fitbit-detector
When I tried to manually get the app to sync with the Fitbit, it threw a “Tracker not found” error.
I retraced my steps, repeatedly hitting the sync button. My idea was that once I was within Bluetooth range (What is Bluetooth’s range outside? A dozen metres?) my phone would sync, and I’d know I was close.
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