Fitbit

Raised as a usability problem by 28 people on Hacker News over 13 years (2013–2025), in 22 threads.

People raised many different problems with Fitbit, but no single problem has yet been raised by 3 people in 3 different months and threads.

Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.

The newest 30 complaints

Inconsistent sync and notifications with iPhone2025-08-20
Fitbit app's interface is poorly designed and hard to use2024-05-05
Most important metric, weekly sleep score, is hidden and needs many taps2024-05-05
Firmware update left devices essentially unusable, with no replacement or fix offered2023-12-12
Removing social features means friends no longer compete or motivate each other through step comparisons2023-09-11
Screen too dim to read outdoors even at maximum brightness after update2023-06-29
Text and UI elements are so large that little information fits on screen, and menus are too deep2022-11-04
Fiddling with small touch screen is hard; can't see screen in bright light2022-05-25
Smartwatch apps have monstrous installation and permissions setups2022-04-12
Spotify offline playback unsupported on Fitbit and Android Wear, so alternatives are a hassle2022-02-15
Cannot initialize the device without syncing to a phone app2021-04-09
Occasional serious lag when swiping on the watch face2021-01-15
Steps show 0 then jump; food quantity resets repeatedly after edits; sleep data appears slowly or not at all2021-01-15
Watch lagged badly on every touch, button press and gesture2021-01-14
Fitbit app is confusing to navigate2020-12-01
Can't view synced data on phone without an internet connection2020-09-30
UI is a mess to use; configuring watch faces on the watch is hard2019-10-29
Fitbit smartwatch UX is horrible for everyday use2019-10-28
Configuration part of the companion app is frustrating to use2019-10-28
Switching watch faces requires digging through multiple app screens and a 30+ second sync2019-10-28
Accounts registered to an email are nearly impossible to delete2017-12-22
Needs a separate extra app run every few days to sync data to iPhone Health2016-12-15
Battery running out forces a full reset and reinstall; syncing keeps failing2016-12-01
Back button on subscreens exits the app instead of returning to main screen2016-10-05
Sleep tracking requires manually tapping the device to log sleep and wake times2015-05-08
Pausing a run does not stop data recording, so stats and maps are wrong2015-05-07
Hard to get your own data out of Fitbit's servers2015-05-07
Food logging repeatedly changed and became harder to use over time2015-05-07
Custom controls stopped working well after iOS 7 and remain unfixed2014-10-27
Redirected to German site with no way to reach English version2013-01-03