Gear Fit Known Issues

pilotnh

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I've had my Gear Fit for 2 days now and although I like it, I don't love it. Most of the reasons are because Samsung didn't work out some very obvious bugs before release date. Here's what I have so far. For those of you who own this, please feel free to add to this list:
(I am using this Gear Fit with a Galaxy S4)

1. The Auto Lock feature is not consistent. Even though the G-Fit is in range of my phone, it sometimes still makes me do the pattern unlock. It was my understanding if my Fit is in range that would automatically unlock the phone.

2. S Health is not updated to the version that will work fully with the Gear Fit.

3. The wake-up gesture of raising my arm to turn on the screen doesn't work consistently. I had the original Gear watch and that seemed way more consistent. I'm hoping a firmware update from Samsung could make this better.

4. The Find My Device feature will locate the phone but only makes it vibrate, not ring which would be better. It also turns on the flash which is useless if your device is lying flash side down.

5. The Find My Device feature only works one direction. If I misplace my G-Fit there is nothing in Gear Fit Manager to make it buzz.

If I am missing something on any of these or doing something wrong let me know.
 
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procol

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Though I don't have the Fit, I read somewhere that if you use the other launchers like Nova or Apex it will not sync. In case you use aforementioned launchers, try with TouchWiz setting. I guess the fix for this would come soon with update anyway if this is due to by glitch.

Posted via Android Central App
 
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schultz84

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The biggest issues for me which I'm sure will hopefully be correct with firmware or app updates.

BIG NEGATIVES

1. I also noticed that S Health is not updated to work 100% with the Gear Fit. It attempts to have you download the Gear manager and not the Gear Fit manager to sync the pedometer.

2. I don't run and I seldom go for walks or hikes so my go to Exercise reason for buying the Gear Fit was the Cycling component. Big time bust as of day 3. I commute by bike and I have attempted to use the exercise function on the gear fit 7 times as of this morning. It has failed to record all 7 of the rides accurately. It generally will shut off and quit recording data 5 to 10 minutes into each ride. Once I restarted it 3 times in a 7 mile 28 min ride giving me 3 sets of partial data with missing time from when I didn't notice it had shut off. This makes it useless for cycling. It pops up a message about inactivity or something and trust me I am moving on down the road when it happens.

3. Pedometer on Gear Fit and S Health are off by a good bit at the end of each date. 11000 vs 15000 steps as an example. I haven't had a chance to go on a long measured distance walk with a hand clicker to see which is more accurate.

4. Heart Rate data seems to be accurate when resting but is not the very accurate while actually exercising.

5. The stopwatch needs tweaked. When using this at a track meet it doesn't report the final lap time. This needs explained. The gun goes off for the mile (4 laps) and the race starts as you hit the start on the stopwatch. As the first, second, and third laps finish you hit the lap button. As they approach the finish you hit the stop button as they finish. Results on the watch show your final time but when you hit the lap results it only shows you laps 1, 2 and 3. You have to take the final time and subtract the total of the 3 laps to get the 4th lap. Seconds plus hundreths times 3 laps subtracted by total time in your head is not a lot of fun. Hitting the lap button a 4th time allows the clock to continue so you get all 4 laps but you then have to total the 4 laps in your head to get a total time. Solution - Firmware the 4th lap into the results when you hit stop button after using the lap button during the timing.


POSITIVES I DIDN'T EXPECT

1. I wasn't even interested in the notification function when I ordered it and it is my favorite thing so far. (Partially because the cycling component is a bust right now.)

2. The sleep function is interesting.

3. Looks and Feel - Love the feel and it looks impressive.

I'm confident it will get corrected as more and more people purchase them and they work out the bugs.
 

pilotnh

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Troytrojan,

I agree with your positives. With regard to the sleep function, I also use the Gear Fit as a "quiet alarm clock" to not wake my wife. I can set up an alarm for the morning and in the specific alarm set, turn the volume of THAT alarm only all the way down to nothing. My Gear Fit is then a standalone alarm on my arm just like my Fitbit Force was. The wife loves that.

I am hoping as early adopters we can get to the updates in the next couple of weeks and have this thing running the way it should.
 

snc0921

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Troytrojan,

I agree with your positives. With regard to the sleep function, I also use the Gear Fit as a "quiet alarm clock" to not wake my wife. I can set up an alarm for the morning and in the specific alarm set, turn the volume of THAT alarm only all the way down to nothing. My Gear Fit is then a standalone alarm on my arm just like my Fitbit Force was. The wife loves that.

I am hoping as early adopters we can get to the updates in the next couple of weeks and have this thing running the way it should.

I'm not quite following your quiet alarm... I assume it vibrates. Is the vibration strong enough to wake you reliably?
 

pilotnh

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I'm not quite following your quiet alarm... I assume it vibrates. Is the vibration strong enough to wake you reliably?

Yes. It is for me. Your mileage may vary. Try it out and see if the vibration will wake you.

For the Galaxy S4 I go in to add an alarm: I set the alarm type to melody. Pick any alarm tone. Set the slider below that to mute (all the way to the left). Turn off location alarm. Turn on Snooze with your preferences. Turn off smart alarm.
 

pilotnh

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Oh. And for those of you who think there's any chance of support from Samsung- here's part of the script from a Live Chat I did this morning:

"I am sorry to inform you that we at this live chat are not trained on your device,I request you to contact your device place of purchase or concern country support team to get assistance on your device,I apologize for the inconvenience caused."

I happen to be blessed with a Samsung rep at my local BestBuy who is less than knowledgeable about their products as well.
 

sean2021

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A few things i've noticed which I wouldn't really call bugs more just annoyances,

1) When scrolling through each of the home screens why does the wallpaper move? I think it should be kept in place as there's no point in scrolling the wallpaper 10 times.

2) The little dots at the bottom on the home screen showing you which page you are on, I think they should stay in the same place also not move across with each page.

3) keep notifications on the screen so if you don't check them when they first come through pressing the power button will show you them.

4) It also would be nice if you could make the font smaller, the small font for me is still too big.

(I know none of these are bugs, but I just thought i'd see if other people feel the same) :)
 

jay_212

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Very disappointed with the device at the moment, call it a gear "fit" but it is hopeless at the "fit" part.

Always shuts off randomly during workouts, mostly I do cycling at have done about 10 rides now and every time it has failed to record the entire time.

GPS is good (clear site to sky), and I am moving, but it tells me "no movement detected" workout stopped!

I acknowledge the message and continue and it looks fine... but.

After the workout, reviewing the data on the S-Health app, it has only recorded that last couple of km or so of my ride on the map view.

But... it still says total km's traveled is close accurate, so something is definitely not right there.

Pedometer is also pretty useless, very inaccurate, definitely over sensitive.

Heart rate monitor also seems to be pretty hit and miss.

Overall, very disappointed, feels very rushed, almost like nothing was tested!

Surely I can't be the only one having this much trouble!

Only good thing it has going for it at the moment is the notifications.

Pray for a firmware update soon, I am hoping these issues can be fixed with firmware update, or some integration with some 3rd party apps such as Endomondo.
 

holestwo

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I to am very disappointed, the more I try and use the worse it gets.

I have the Gear Fit with a Samsung Note 3, What I have found wrong are these problems.

1) The pedometer does not seem to work most of the time and does not sync (more on sync later)

2) Heart rate seems to work ok when stationary but readings are way out when exercising, mainly tested when using walking exercise.

3) Sleep function sometimes turns itself off during the night so no data the following morning, although when it works its good.

4) Wake up gesture is intermittent at best, does not work often enough so need to press the button to wake up a lot of the time.

5) Exercise function same as sleep it sometimes turns off part way through a session so no data recorded.

6) Does not connect at all to the S Health app instead needs to use the Fitness with Gear app.

7) Pedometer and Exercise do not sync to the Fitness with Gear nearly all the time for Exercise and all the time for Pedometer.

8) Getting the Heart Rate and Sleep to sync is again awkward at best, it seems to need a manual sync by going into settings in the Fitness for Gear app, select account then do a manual sync, even then that sometimes does not sync the data.

9) Fitness with Gear app just isn't good enough, the interface just does not work it is not intuitive at all and when looking at the bit of data that does get through its confusing as to what it means.

10) As with some of the others that have commented the data it collects seems to be inaccurate.

The good.

1) Interface on the watch is really good, nice and clear easy to use.

2) Notifications work really well.

3) Stopwatch and Timer seem to work as they should.

4) Media controller does what is should do and its good to be able to control the music player.

5) Heart rate monitor seems ok when still.

6) Home screen styler is good and simple to use.

7) Gear Fit connects to the phone without any issues.
 

holestwo

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Went for bike ride today and I set the cycling exercise on the the Gear Fit but after 5 miles it just stopped but I didnt know this till I got back home so it was a bit of a waste of time. Samsung really do need to get this sorted. I am beginning to lose patience and faith with it.
 

pilotnh

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Yup. Took a walk today with the wife. >Exercise>Walking>Start Lasted about 36 minutes even though the walk was almost an hour.

***Samsung*** Some smart attorney is going to smell a class action lawsuit if you don't get these issues fixed.
 
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doohsun

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I'm fine quite similar issues as you are in fact I notice that i can't set up any emergency calls to a list of people as suggested on the manual :( it's missing that feature. Using S4 with mine.


I've had my Gear Fit for 2 days now and although I like it, I don't love it. Most of the reasons are because Samsung didn't work out some very obvious bugs before release date. Here's what I have so far. For those of you who own this, please feel free to add to this list:
(I am using this Gear Fit with a Galaxy S4)

1. The Auto Lock feature is not consistent. Even though the G-Fit is in range of my phone, it sometimes still makes me do the pattern unlock. It was my understanding if my Fit is in range that would automatically unlock the phone.

2. S Health is not updated to the version that will work fully with the Gear Fit.

3. The wake-up gesture of raising my arm to turn on the screen doesn't work consistently. I had the original Gear watch and that seemed way more consistent. I'm hoping a firmware update from Samsung could make this better.

4. The Find My Device feature will locate the phone but only makes it vibrate, not ring which would be better. It also turns on the flash which is useless if your device is lying flash side down.

5. The Find My Device feature only works one direction. If I misplace my G-Fit there is nothing in Gear Fit Manager to make it buzz.

If I am missing something on any of these or doing something wrong let me know.
 
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hls811

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I just switched from a Neo can't couldn't be more pleased... I only had the Neo 2 days but could tell right away it wasn't what I was looking for; I wanted a fitness band which does notifications, not a smart watch which does everything and the Fit seems to be it..

I'm not sue if my comments/concerns are known issues or more of a wishlist for the next update.

1) Better sync deletion between devices.. If I delete a text or email from my GS5, it would be nice to also remove the same message from the Fit so I don't need to delete in multiple spots.

2) More consistency and flexibility w/ Horizontal/Vertical modes. If the Fit is in Vertical mode, theres a little circle arrow in the corner of most screens allowing you to flip the screen to read better, its a temporary fit for one screen at a time. If the fit is in Horizontal mode the option isn't there. I like the clock being in horizontal mode, its easier to read at a quick glance, and settings and quick notifications are fine in Horizontal but certain times I find myself twisting my wrist awkwardly to read something - if there was that circle arrow option to switch the screen it would be nice.

3) This has been brought up many times before in many different places - but the pedometer is definitely off. I was a Fitbit wearer before, and the GS5 pedometer was fairly close to the Fitbit - not exact, but close though where I didn't think anything of it. I think I did 11,586 steps on the FB yesterday and the GS5 had me around 11,039. I didn't have the Fit all day yesterday to compare but I put it on around 4:00 and still ended up with 8606 steps for the day. This morning, I'm at 1480 on the GS5 and 2301 for the Fit (I left the FB at home). Thats about 30% higher, which seems off but I'll have a better idea at the end of the day. I'm not concerned with it being high as I can self-calibrate it. If my daily goal with the Fitbit and GS5 was 10,000 steps and on the same day I do 15,000 on the Fit then I know that's my new goal.

4) The heart rate monitors between the GS5 and Fit seem to line up.. I did a few tests yesterday and each were within 2 BPM of each other. Thats close enough for me.

5) This is definitely a wish-list thing, not a known issue - but I would absolutely love more flexibility with notifications and the ability to set time frames to them.. For example, text notifications I don't need on my wrist after 5:00; being able to say only send texts between 8-5 would be great... I use a 3rd part email (Touchdown) for my Corporate mail, I'd love to be able to have that calendar display notifications... It works with Touchdown email just fine, just not the calendar. Its a good start and I really like the Fit more than the Neo, but just being able to tweak it a bit more would be so ideal.
 

schultz84

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Does your version of S Health on your S5 work properly? I have the S4 and the old versionof s health would not sync with the gear fit. Finally after two weeks was able to back door the new version onto my phone. Works great but crashes every 15 minutes so it's useless.

Posted via Android Central App
 

DiveVision

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The Gear Fit does not work for fitness or motivation which is the whole point of wearable health technology.

1. Gear Fit does not measure exercise properly - I did an 8km run yesterday and apparently I only used 121 calories. Must be superman!

2. Why can't you connect with friends? This seems like the most simple of functions that will motivate people and also get more Gear Fit(s) sold. FitBit does this and I bought my whole family one to motivate everyone.

3. Why can't you pause in the middle of doing some exercise and then carry on rather than having to stop it and then start a new session?

4. S Health is not a good app compared to all the apps out there and Gear Fit does not work with my Galaxy 4 rugged.

In reality I am now just waiting for the new FitBit that will replace the old Force which was brilliant. Samsung have failed to win me as a customer and some drastic changes would have to happen to change my opinion.