Tag Archives: Fitbit

Google Announced Hands-Free Photos For The Pixel Family

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Google announced that their latest Feature Drop is here, and it’s jam-packed with helpful tools and updates for your Pixel Phone, Pixel Watch and Fitbit devices. These began rolling out yesterday, and will continue over the next few weeks.

For Pixel Phones

Peace of mind from Google Assistant: Use your voice to ask Google Assistant on your Pixel phone to start emergency sharing or to schedule a safety check for some extra piece of mind. If you’re out for a night run, just say “Hey Google, start a safety check for 30 minutes.” If you don’t respond to your safety check in the set duration, your emergency contacts will be notified and your real-time location will be shared.

Added safety on the road: Car crash detection on Pixels has helped keep drivers safe since launching in 2019, and now it can even keep loved ones in the loop if you’ve been in a severe crash. In addition to contacting emergency services, it can share your real-time location and call status with your emergency contacts.

Stunning videos, down to the smallest detail: Pixel Pro’s Focus is now available for video, so you can have larger-than-life videos of the smallest details, like butterflies fluttering or flowers waving in the wind.

Easier hands-free photos: Pixel 6 and newer phones will now let you take self-timed photos by simply raising your palm to trigger the timer after setting it for 3 or 10 seconds.

Express yourself with wallpapers that wow: Now on Pixel 6 and newer phones, you can bring your favorite memories of friends and family to life with Pixel’s new cinematic wallpapers. Pixel uses AI to transform your 2D wallpaper photos into dynamic 3D scenes for a truly magical look. And with new emoji wallpapers, you can also mix and match over 4,000 emoji with different patterns and colors to create live wallpapers that fit your personality.

Recorder speaker labels are even better: Recorder makes transcribing recordings a breeze with speaker labels. Starting next week, users with Pixel 6 and newer phones will be able to export transcripts into Google Docs, generate speaker-labeled video clips and search for speakers within recordings.

Quick access to smart home controls: Quickly access your favorite home devices right from your Pixel lock screen when using the Google Home app. Use the designated home panel to turn off lights, adjust the temperature, see your cameras and more.

Smarter haptics: For Pixel 6a and Pixel 7a, Pixel’s adaptive haptics can now lower its vibration intensity when it detects that it’s on a hard, flat surface like a desk of table.

Charging that adapts to your habits: Adaptive Charging now uses Google AI to help extend the lifespan of your Pixel battery. When you plug in your phone, it can predict a long charging session based on your previous charging habits, and slowly charge to 100% one hour before it’s expected to be unplugged.

New Google Assistant Voices: Google Assistant now sounds more natural and relatable to even more users with two new options to add to our diverse array of voices, totaling 12 in U.S. English.

In addition, Google has also introduced new features for Pixel Watches. For example, Pixel Watch will now be able to check your oxygen saturation (SpO2) and help you identify the changes in the level of oxygen in your blood while you are sleeping. There are also new features for Fitbit Devices

To me, it sounds like some of these features included in the Pixel family can make life easier for people with certain disabilities. Hands-free photos, an easy way to record speakers, and smart access to home controls are all a great place for Google Pixel to start with.

Fitbit and UPSC Announce Voluntary Recall of Fitbit Ionic

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Fitbit announced, with the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CSPS), a voluntary recall of Fitbit Ionic smartwatches. These were introduced by Fitbit in 2017 and stopped being produced in 2020. According to Fitbit, the battery in the Ionic smartwatch can overheat, posing a burn hazard.

The voluntary recall is specific to Fitbit Ionic devices only. It does not impact any other Fitbit smartwatches or trackers. Fitbit asks those who have a Fitbit Ionic to stop using their devices.

The CPSC provided additional information about the recall:

This recall only involves the Fitbit Ionic Smartwatch. It was sold with a polyurethane band and has a 1.4-inch color LCD screen. The watches were sold in slate blue/burnt orange, charcoal/smoke gray, blue gray/silver gray, and a special edition co-branded with Adidas in ink blue/silver gray. The smartwatch tracks activity, heart rate, and sleep.

Only the following models and colors are included in this recall. For the Ionic device, the model number (FB503) is on the back of the device where the band attaches. Fitbit is printed on the front of the Iconic Smartwatch.

According to CPSC, Fitbit has received at least 115 reports in the United States (and 59 reports internationally) of the battery in the watch overheating with 78 reports of burn injuries in the United States including two reports of third-degree burns and four reports of second-degree burns (and 40 reports of burn injuries internationally).

Those who own a Fitbit Ionic Smartwatch should visit Fitbit’s official recall page https://www.fitbitionic.expertinquiry.com to start the process of finding out if they are eligible for a refund.

Engadget reported that Fitbit stopped selling the product in 2020 before being acquired by Google. Previous to the acquisition, Fitbit sold around a million Ionic smartwatches in the US and 693,000 internationally. Those who still own an Ionic can get a $299 refund for their device. They can also get a 40 percent off discount code for future purchases if they send in their old smartwatches.

It is good that Fitbit and CSPS are alerting consumers that the Fitbit Ionic has caused some people to get serious burns. Most people who use a smartwatch choose to wear it to track metrics like sleep, heart rate, and activity. Nobody should suffer a burn from a device that was intended to help people focus on their health.

Fitbit to be Acquired by Google

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Fitbit announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by Google LLC for $7.35 per share in cash, valuing the company at a fully diluted equity value of approximately $2.1 billion. The transaction is expected to close in 2020, subject to customary closing conditions, including approval by Fitbit’s stockholders.

“More than 12 years ago, we set an audacious company vision – to make everyone in the world healthier. Today, I’m incredibly proud of what we’ve achieved towards reaching that goal.We have built a trusted brand that supports more than 28 million active users around the globe who rely on our products to live a healthier, more active, life,” said James Park, co-founder and CEO of Fitbit.

Consumer trust is paramount to Fitbit. Strong privacy and security guidelines have been part of Fitbit’s DNA since day one, and this will not change. Fitbit will continue to put users in control of their data and will remain transparent about the data it collects and why. The company never sells personal information, and Fitbit health and wellness data will not be used on Google ads.

Google posted on The Keyword about their definitive agreement to acquire Fitbit. The focus in this announcement is about wearables, and how Fitbit’s team of experts “can help spur innovation in wearables and build products to benefit even more people around the world.” Google also mentioned privacy.

But to get this right, privacy and security are paramount. When you use our products, you’re trusting Google with your information. We understand this is a big responsibility and we work hard to protect your information, put you in control and give you transparency about your data. Similar to our other products, with wearables, we will be transparent about the data we collect and why. We will never sell personal information to anyone. Fitbit Health and wellness data will not be used for Google ads. And we will give Fitbit users the choice to review, move, or delete their data.

I’m willing to believe that those who use Fitbit’s products trust the company not to do nefarious things with their health data. But, I’m not certain that those customers also trust Google.

Fitbit Announces New Models and Drops Old Ones

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Fitbit has announced a handful of new wrist-worn trackers; the Versa Lite, the Inspire, the Inspire HR, and finally for kids, the Ace 2.

The Versa Lite is available now for GB£150 with a choice of four different colours – white, lilac, marina blue and magenta – and differs from the more expensive Versa by dropping a few features. Missing from the Lite are floors climbed, swim lap tracking, on-screen workouts and music player functionality. Personally, I’d miss the swim lap tracking but if you’re more of track and field person, the Lite version might save you £50. It’s still water-resistant to 50m, so good for surface swimming, and the Versa Lite will go four days between charges.

The Inspire and Inspire HR slot into the lower end of the Fitbit line-up, replacing both the Alta and Flex product lines. Priced at £70 and £90 respectively, the key difference between the two is that the HR has constant heart rate monitoring. Both devices do activity and sleep tracking, calories burned and connect to your smartphone for notifications, but if you want heart rate measurement and sleep cycle tracking, you’ll need the HR and an extra £20. Battery life is around five days for both devices and they’re water-resistant to 50m.

For children, Fitbit have the Ace 2, which will be coming out later in the year. Building the original Ace, the new version even more child-friendly but still does all the usual activity-tracking stuff with a touchscreen that can be customised with new faces. As with the Ace, the tracker becomes part of a family group so parents can monitor their little darling’s activity. 50m water-resistance and five day battery life. Price hasn’t been announced, but the current Ace is £80 so expect something similar.

Sadly, it looks like the Fitbit Zip has followed the One into obsolescence as neither are now available in the UK store. Mind you, the Zip’s had pretty good run (sorry) for a gadget, originally coming out in 2012.

And by pure coincidence, I’ve been notified today by my Fitbit app that I’ve got the Earth badge, which is equivalent to 12,713 lifetime kilometres.

Replacing the Strap on a Fitbit ChargeHR

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Heart rate monitoring is a standard feature for wrist-worn devices today, but this first came to Fitbit’s product line with the ChargeHR in 2016. I’ve had mine for over two years now, and time hasn’t been kind to it. The strap’s bubbled up and the plastic’s degraded and cracked. The electronics still work fine but the ChargeHR was designed as an integrated unit and there isn’t an easy way of replacing the strap….at least not officially. Fortunately, third parties offer replacements for not very much money. I purchased a metal one with a Milanese bracelet for GB£10 via a seller on Amazon and I’m really pleased with the outcome. Here’s how to replace the strap on a Fitbit ChargeHR. Warning – this procedure is carried at your own risk.

Having learned from my experience, my first suggestion would be cut away the strap about an inch above and below the central electronics. It’s much easier to do the repair without the broken strap flapping around. Get the replacement kit out – there should be the case+strap, a tiny screwdriver, replacement screws and a spudger.

Next, turn the ChargeHR so that the display is downwards and you are looking at the back with the charge port and the pulse sensor. Look for four small screws in the corners of the unit. Use the supplier screwdriver to carefully undo all four screws and remove them from the ChargeHR. Put the screws to one side but you’re probably not going to be using them again.

The electronics unit is held in the case by a couple of plastic clips on each side. Use the spudger to push down the left and right sides between the unit and the case. It’s quite fiddly just to get the spudger in the slot.

At this point the electronics unit will come free and can be taken out of the old case. Left behind is a small NFC-style sticker which needs to be peeled off and stuck inside the new case. You’ll need fingernails to do this, but once you’ve unpeeled, it simply stick it into the new case in the same position and orientation. Here you can see the sticker in the new case. Try and line it up just below the screen.

Once the stickers in place, give the inside of the new case a quick clean, getting dust and smudges off the inside of the display window. Now just push the ChargeHR electronics into the case. It should clip-in positively.

Finally, put the screws back in and use the screwdriver to tighten them up. Use the new screws that came with the replacement kit.

And that’s it. Press the side button and toggle through the display elements, checking that everything still works. I replaced mine about two weeks ago now and I’ve had no issues. Syncing still works fine, though the vibrating alarms are a bit more rattly. I suspect that’s more to do with the metal case than anything else.

If you want to see more, then I’ve a complementary video on YouTube.

 

 

Thumbs Up for Fitbit

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Fitbit LogoAll too often we hear stories of poor customer service so I want to give some props to Fitbit who replaced my Flex with no fuss or special blogger treatment. Here’s how it went down….

Faulty Fitbit FlexI’ve had a Fitbit Flex for nearly two years and it’s one of my favourites as it’s waterproof and I wear it while swimming. A couple of months ago the middle LED stopped working and last week another one seemed to stop. All other functions worked fine, so the Flex was still counting steps and syncing to my Fitbit app. In reality the fault was largely cosmetic.

Still, I decided to contact Fitbit’s customer services via email. I paraphrase each message.

2016-11-03-16-22-56Me: I’m having trouble with the LEDs on my Flex dying one by one. See photo.
Fitbit: Ok. I see that. Could you try resetting the Flex followed by a full charge.
Me: I’ve done that and yes, one of the LEDs is now working but the middle one still isn’t. See new photo.
Fitbit: Ok, I see that it’s still not working. When and where did you get the Flex?
Me: I got it in November 2014 and here are the details.
Fitbit: No problem, that’s fine. We’re going to send a replacement. What’s your address?
Me: Thanks. Here’s my address.
Fitbit: The replacement Flex is on its way.
Me: Thanks again.

And sure enough, the replacement Fitbit Flex arrived in the post yesterday. All the LEDs work fine.

Reviewing the email exchange, it really couldn’t have been sorted it out in anything less. A big thumbs up to Fitbit for sorting it out easily and painlessly.

Fitbit ChargeHR Review

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On review here is Fitbit’s ChargeHR activity tracker, one of its most popular models which provides heart rate monitoring in addition to steps taken, calories burnt and eyes shut. Designed for “active fitness”, it’s aimed at those people who take control of their fitness level rather than simply walking 10,000 steps. That’s me then. On a good day. Let’s take a look.

You can watch the unboxing and setup video above, though what you don’t see is that I completely destroyed the box getting the tracker and accessories out because you’re supposed to open the bottom not the top. Doh! Fitbit, you need “Open other end” printed on the top. Inside the box is the Fitbit ChargeHR, a Bluetooth dongle, a charging cable and small instruction booklet that directs you to the Fitbit site for more information. The dongle is only required for syncing to a PC.

Fitbit Charge HR box

 

The ChargeHR is available in six colours; black, blue, teal, plum, tangerine and pink. As you’ll see from the pictures, I had the teal one, which was fine when I was exercising but I did feel a little self-conscious wearing it with a suit at work. Unlike the Alta and Flex range, Fitbit Charge HR stepsthere’s no switching round of bands, so buy a colour you’re comfortable with. The ChargeHR band comes in three sizes, small, large and extra large, though the XL size can only be bought through fitbit.com. Small is 13.7 cm–15.7 cm, large is 15.7 cm–19.3 cm and extra-large is19.3 cm–22.1 cm. Fitbit provide a handy sizing chart here. The ChargeHR has a proper watch-style buckle for the band, rather than the push through style of the Flex.

Getting started is easy. Charge the ChargeHR with the supplied cable, install the app on a smartphone or tablet, register if you aren’t already with Fitbit, follow the pairing instructions and job done. Now all you have to do is some exercise!

The ChargeHR is a extremely easy to use as there’s only one button which is situated on the left side of the unit. Pressing the button cycles through time, steps, heart rate, distance, calories, stories climbed and next alarm. For each statistics, there’s a little graphic followed by the number – footprints for steps, a heart for pulse and so on.

The main differentiator of the ChargeHR is the heart rate tracking. I don’t know much about the science but it appears to use a couple of greenish LEDs on the back of device to measure the pulse. The ChargeHR measures the pulse every second under normal circumstances, but when it detects exercise, it ups the data rate for real-time information so you can keep your pulse in the zone.

The charging port is visible on the back in the picture. Charging typically takes less than hour for a couple of days wear.

Fitbit Charge HR sensors

Clever as the ChargeHR is, it’s only once you start looking at the data generated that you really start to get benefit from the tracker. The Fitbit app can provide graphs and charts for most metrics. Here are a few showing steps, resting heart rate and sleep. I didn’t wear the ChargeHR every night, hence why there’s some missing data. Activity can be reviewed, giving heart rate zones – peak, cardio, fat burning – exercise duration and max heart rate. There’s lots of useful info.

Fitbit Steps Fitbit HR Fitbit Sleep

If you’re using a PC rather than a smartphone or tablet, Fitbit provide a web-based portal that provides similar information and analysis. For the really serious fitness fans, $50 per annum gets Premium privileges and extra analysis (which I didn’t investigate).

The ChargeHR does vibrating alarms too which is very handy if you need to get up without your bedside alarm waking your significant other. The alarm is set via the app and then sync’d to the tracker. I like this, though it’s not exclusive to the ChargeHR.

As expected in this day and age, there’s a social element too. You can add friends who also have Fitbits (of whatever variety) and see a leaderboard of steps taken each week. You can also earn badges for steps taken per day and lifetime achievements – I’ve a Nile badge for 6,649 lifetime kilometres.

I’ve had the ChargeHR for a couple of weeks now and I’ve been wearing it as much as I can. Sometimes I have to wear my Fitbit Zip on my belt when a teal bracelet wouldn’t be appropriate. Fortunately the Fitbit app (at least on Android) allows cross-syncing, so if you do 1,000 steps on one device and 1,000 on another, both will show 2,000 after a sync (or two). I like that feature as it lets me wear the Fitbit that suits my day.

Overall, I feel Fitbit have slightly stolen my thunder here, as the ChargeHR is being phased out and replaced by the Charge 2, but this could be an opportunity to get an excellent tracker for less money. Although officially priced at a penny under GB£120, it’s widely available for £89.99, even in shops such as PC World. The Charge 2 is currently £129.99, so there’s an effective saving of £40.

Thanks to Fitbit for supplying the ChargeHR for review.