Last year I officially gave up on my Fitbit Charge 4. It was great until it wasn’t. Since I’m a glutton for punishment, I got yet another fitness watch. This time, the Amazfit GTR-3 on a recommendation from a co-worker.
The pros and cons? Pros: great battery life, customizable color screen, built-in GPS. My only real complaint is around the face automatically turning on/off. When I look at the face it won’t always automatically turn on, so I’ll go to press the button on the side and a split second before I press the button, the face will self-activate.
What happens is similar to “Layout Shift” on websites. Your finger or cursor is over a button, then bam! Something else loads and moves something (that you didn’t intent to tap) right where you were.
What happens with the watch is it displays the face for a split second, then goes into the menu system because I technically pressed the button while the screen was active 😖
The workaround for me has been to enable the always-on screen functionality, which lessens the battery life from 21-days to 7, but I’m OK with that because it beats charging every day.
GPS
What I really got it for was the GPS. I’ve only used for fitness tracking twice, but I can already tell it’s going to be a better experience. My first ride was on a company retreat in Mexico. There was a resort “Bike Tour” which I use in quotes because we rode bikes from the resort up the road to the adjacent marina town, and then went to the grocery store 🏪
Elapsed Time
Moving Time
Distance
Average Speed
Max Speed
Elevation Gain
Calories Burned
01:04:42
hours
00:19:50
hours
2.32
mi.
7.01
mph
11.24
mph
7.55
ft.
145
kcal
While I was in the grocery store, after a certain amount of time, it warned me about turning the GPS off to save battery while my activity was paused. Then when I unpaused it there were no issues 💪 (unlike my Fitbit). The only real issue was I forgot to press start until halfway to Puerto Morelos 😓
Take 2
Now that I’m home and winter seems to have actually gone away, I tried it with a bike ride here and everything went as planned.
Elapsed Time
Moving Time
Distance
Average Speed
Max Speed
Elevation Gain
Calories Burned
00:30:31
hours
00:23:56
hours
3.40
mi.
8.51
mph
18.82
mph
121.39
ft.
171
kcal
I’m looking forward to seeing how it does out on the water. That was the death-blow for my fitbit. When I’m in the water I don’t want to be fiddling with my phone. So far, so good 🤞
Technology is great and technology sucks. It’s true that it’s the best of times and the worst of times. Technology is great when it works, but it’s terrible (and often unfixable) when it doesn’t.
This may be a farewell to my Fitbit Charge 4, and a warning to fitness tracker developers out there. Rigorously ensure sure it works or people will not just abandon your product, they’ll abandon your platform.
I had some issues with my Fitbit losing GPS signal, but I thought they were fixed. But they’re not…
I brought my new kayak to Lake Minnetonka and planned to paddle around Big Island. I’ve tried both GPS settings on the Fitbit Charge 4: Built-in GPS and Dynamic. Dynamic will use your phone if it’s nearby, then fallback to built-in. That day, I had the watch set to “built-in GPS.” I went down to the dock and hit start on my Fitbit. It was still trying to get GPS signal by the time I had my boat ready.
I went out on the water thinking the clear view of the sky would help it quickly lock on to GPS signal. I sat there for several minutes, then decided to switch to Dynamic since I did have my phone in the boat. After several more minutes of no GPS signal, I got my phone out. Opening the Fitbit app on my phone immediately established GPS signal. So I got underway.
Then as I rounded the first corner of the island, the watch vibrated. The screen displayed “Cannot establish a GPS Connection. Turning GPS off” 😡
You can see how far I had gone when the Fitbit gave up, it’s the untracked distance between the start and finish point.
Elapsed Time
Moving Time
Distance
Average Speed
Max Speed
Elevation Gain
01:19:17
hours
00:52:12
hours
2.27
mi.
2.61
mph
4.87
mph
0.00
ft.
The Strava app proved to also have (different) problems than my Fitbit
Strava App
I already had my phone out of my dry bag, which I didn’t want to do, because I’m in the water 🌊 But here I was, so I fired up the Strava app and hit record. Before got into the channel I got out my fish finder just to see if there were any lively spots that we should hit later on the pontoon. 🎣
But while getting out the fish finder, the Strava app decided to engage “auto-pause.” Auto pause seems like a good idea until it doesn’t auto un-pause. I was on the other side of the island before I noticed it was paused. While on the water I had to figure out how to unpause. I went into the settings and turned off auto-pause. Auto Pause settings are accessible by using the gear icon from the record activity screen. Not the main screen gear icon. ⚙️
Strava Auto-Pause Settings
But it was still paused! The only way to forcibly un-pause the activity was to click “Finish” which brought me to a confirmation screen, then I was able to choose “Resume” which un-paused the activity. It’s not clear that there will be a confirmation after clicking finish, so I’m showing an example here:
Strava Finish Confirmation (use to un-pause)
You can see the line that goes through the island on my activity. Clearly I didn’t do that, but that’s how it will be recorded “because technology.” Now imagine if this was your first experience with either of these devices and services. I wanted to throw both my watch and phone in the lake! 💦
But since I’m a glutton for punishment, I’ll be trying something else to replace these failed experiments. Currently looking at the Amazfit GTR series watches because battery life looks good. Recommendations welcome – please comment with your suggestions!
All seemed great, until it wasn’t. I did a ride with a friend in April and it inexplicably dropped GPS signal after 5 miles.
Elapsed Time
Moving Time
Distance
Average Speed
Max Speed
Elevation Gain
Calories Burned
02:53:01
hours
00:29:05
hours
4.90
mi.
10.10
mph
21.03
mph
73.16
ft.
1,304
kcal
My Fitbit stopped recording for some reason (said it lost GPS signal 😖). Actually went 16 miles, see https://www.strava.com/activities/5186103344
We went down Chicago to 38th. Continued south on Chicago then east on 46th to Sift. Then took the creek trail back to the river, then back the way we came.
Then it happened again, and again, and again. I found myself having to use my phone to record the remainder of the ride. That is, if I even noticed that my fitbit had conked out.
I could be riding outside in perfectly clear weather and then BAM, I’d get the dreaded “Cannot establish a GPS Connection. Turning GPS off” message 😡 WTF? No option to retry or anything. My fitbit would say “we’re done here” and give up. Very frustrating.
I opened a support chat with Fitbit to see what’s up. They had me go through the usual paces of making sure it had a full charge, disabling/removing unnecessary apps, make sure the firmware was updated, double-checking the GPS settings. Then they put a “watch” on my account to see what the tracker was logging.
Charge 4 RMA
They saw the same problems I was having, and then they told me to send my unit in for a replacement. Curiously they didn’t tell me what they were doing – presumably they knew what the problem was and they had a newer hardware version of the Charge 4 that would remedy the problem. But I can’t tell what has changed since there’s no indication of hardware version without opening it up to look at the circuit board.
I did some testing and noticed a new behavior when doing activities that use GPS. When you go into a building, or tunnel, or someplace where GPS signal is lost, it doesn’t turn the GPS off, it starts looking for a signal – indicated by a dim arrow icon in the upper left.
To confirm that it’s truly fixed, I went to my piano lesson (which is in a basement) and left the GPS running the whole time – 30 minutes indoors. It never turned the GPS off and I was able to record my full ride home.
Elapsed Time
Moving Time
Distance
Average Speed
Max Speed
Elevation Gain
Calories Burned
01:27:29
hours
00:59:04
hours
8.98
mi.
9.12
mph
20.36
mph
208.66
ft.
514
kcal
More Fitbit Charge 4 GPS testing
I wouldn’t recommend doing this normally – searching for GPS signal is likely a very power hungry operation. If you’re stopping somewhere, best to hit the pause button and then resume when you leave.
Get it replaced
I’m not the only one having this issue, as indicated by this thread in the Fitbit community forum. If you have one of these, you should contact support to get it replaced. With the issue fixed, it’s great and I no longer worry about losing my riding log.
At my work we have a thing about giving tacos (🌮) to people when they help you out, do something great or funny – as a show of support. The tacos can be redeemed for prizes or gift cards – and one of those prizes is a Fitbit. I wanted a model upgrade from the ones our company was offering. In November 2020, Costco had a Fitbit Charge 4 bundle for $90.
I brokered a deal with my wife. I’d redeem a $100 Amazon gift card with my tacos and give it to her, and then buy the model I want from Costco.
The reason I got the Charge 4 is because it has a built-in GPS. I don’t like using my phone to record my activities as it drains the battery very quickly. Also my handheld Garmin eTrex Vista GPS is starting to act weird – it randomly turns off sometimes when I’m riding.
Hooking it up to Strava was simple, I did it through the https://strava.fitbit.com/ website. Here’s an article that goes into detail about connecting the two. When you finish an activity, Fitbit automatically transfers the information via the app (including GPS track) to Strava. As a bonus now my heart rate information is sent for more accurate effort calculation.
Battery Life
Since I considered GPS to be a requirement, this is the 2nd best feature. It would be a folly to call it charge if the battery life sucked. Without GPS use, I can easily go a week before putting it on the charger. With GPS use, I’ve found it takes about 10% of the battery for every hour you’re recording activity. By that marker, I’d guess you could use the GPS for 9+ hours before it conked out.
Sleep Tracking
All fitness trackers can track sleep. Along with a great battery life, the Charge 4 charges quickly. Putting it on the charger while I take a shower is enough to keep it topped up. I don’t ever have to take it off for a night to get a full charge.
Water Resistant 50 Meters
I always would put my phone in a ziplock bag while kayaking and still worry that it will make it’s way to the bottom of the lake. Fitbit says you can wear your tracker or smartwatch in the shower, pool and beyond. That should be just fine for kayaking – it will get wet, but it will survive.
Those are the good things, now onto some of the annoyances…
UI Issues
The swipe functions don’t always work as expected, partly because the screen is small, partly because the screen is very tall and skinny.
The most common issue is when I swipe down from the top to get the notification list (to inevitably clear it out). The Charge often thinks I’m swiping to the side because I didn’t swipe perfectly vertical top to bottom.
Another thing I do occasionally is leave the home screen on the weather. It will stay here until you press the watch button – so the next time you wake the screen you can see the weather. You’ll still get notifications on these secondary screens, but once they go away you cannot swipe down to see them again – you must go back to the home screen (clock) and swipe down from there.
Multiple Activities
I realize this is probably an edge case, but I imagine I’m not the only one experiencing this issue. The Charge 4 currently can’t pause one activity and start another. Here’s the scenario: I put studded tires on my bike and rode to the local nature center:
Elapsed Time
Moving Time
Distance
Average Speed
Max Speed
Elevation Gain
Calories Burned
01:13:37
hours
00:10:20
hours
1.04
mi.
6.04
mph
8.72
mph
61.35
ft.
118
kcal
Put the studded tires on and rode to a trail nearby for some snowshoeing
I brought my snowshoes with me, and when I got to the trail, I walked around the park. On the Charge 4 you can pause and resume your activity. This is great if I bike somewhere like the library, I can pause my ride when I arrive, and resume once I head home – then it records as a single activity.
But you can’t start another GPS activity until you finish the first one. Rather than my activity showing up as three (ride out, hike, ride back) I want them to appear simply as two: bike & snowshoe.
So I used my trusty(?) Garmin for the hike and hoped it didn’t turn off on me while I was out.
Elapsed Time
Moving Time
Distance
Average Speed
Max Speed
Elevation Gain
Calories Burned
00:57:56
hours
00:13:30
hours
0.43
mi.
31:07
min/mile
12:46
min/mile
27.23
ft.
29
kcal
Went to Innsbruck Nature Center… Honestly didn't need snowshoes – the trail was already hard-packed from hikers. Was good to venture off of the trail however.
Tested out my SCX24 RC Crawler 😎
Verdict?
I looked at getting the cheapish Apple Watch for around $150 and also looked at the new Fitbit Versa 3. While they both have built-in GPS, neither of them were going to match the battery life of the Charge. If it goes on sale again for < $100 I would easily recommend it to anyone looking at a fitness watch – especially for tracking bike rides.
In 2014 I had a personalban on Strava. Not because Strava has prompted some people to do stupid things (it has), but because they shut down a perfectly working API and left all of their users (and 3rd party developers such as myself) hanging while they developed their “Version 3” API.
I did enjoy using Strava not so much for the competitive-ness, but as a general recording keeping spot for all of my miles. While I understand that competition is the main selling point, it’s ancillary to me. I just like that I can see what my cycling friends are also doing.
Garmin Connect?
In the wake of the API shutdown, I perused the other options out there. Since I had a Garmin GPS, I thought I’d check out their prospects to see if they “get it.” They supposedly had an API for Garmin Connect so I inquired with this email:
I was looking for details about the Garmin Connect Web Services API. All it says is “coming soon” and the developer forum seems to be unmoderated spam:https://forums.garmin.com/forumdisplay.php?54-Garmin-Developer-Information I am an author of the Strava plugin for WordPress – as you may know Strava recently changed it’s API access so many apps and plugins no longer function. Now is the time for disruption! Publishing the Garmin Connect API would be a great way to get some momentum behind the project and get users who are fed up with Strava to come over to Garmin Connect.
In the meanwhile, I tried out Garmin Connect by uploading a track. One of the niceties about Strava (besides the fact that people are actually using it) is that they remove the non-moving time. Whether I’m at a stoplight or grabbing lunch, I can view a ride as just the moving portion. Garmin awkwardly leaves it in, which can dishearten you when you look at the average speed:
Also, they seem to be heavily invested in relying on Garmin devices (see the watch icon near the question marks above) – and only the latest ones. Lastly, Strava can calculate the calories burned based on my weight and my bike’s weight (part of my profile), measured against the speed and profile of the GPS track.
* Side-note: the latest Garmin Connect dashboard menu looks a lot like the latest WordPress Admin menu, dontcha think?
Garmin Connect – Dead on Arrival
After the less-than-stellar first-time user experience, I heard back from Garmin Support:
After looking in to this issue further it appears that the Web Services API is not yet available. Unfortunately I do not have any information on when the API will become available. Unfortunately the only thing I can suggest is to create a post on the forum asking for more information. I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.
In the forum, I also got a response from another user who put it bluntly:
Many are those who have contacted Garmin and have not responded.
That project is dead.
Strangely, Garmin is still pushing their connect service hard, along with their hardware of course:
Garmin Ad in May 2015 Bicycling
The Return of the Strava API
Once the V3 API became available, support tickets regarding WP-Strava started coming in. I didn’t even know that the API had gone public. If there was some sort of communication effort on Strava’s behalf, they failed because I missed it. But now work has slowly come back to life with the WP-Strava project. And now I’m slowly filling in all my rides from 2014 that I recorded with my GPS, but never uploaded to Strava.
MapSource out, QLandkarte In
I used to use MapSource (an old unsupported Windows program by Garmin) to capture my GPS tracks and save them as GPX files for Strava. The state of support for my Garmin Vista HCx was changing in Linux itself. The old garmin_gps driver which acted as an old school serial (COM) port worked with Wine/MapSource, but not with the newer direct USB driver. It was time to find something new, preferably native to Ubuntu.
QLandkarte GT is a somewhat clunky, but usable solution. Actually, when you go to the QLandkarte GT website there’s an announcement about a successor program called QMapShack, but the latest version included in Ubuntu 15.04 wasn’t very full featured – so it will have to wait. I’ve learned to use QLandkarte quickly despite its clunkiness, so I thought I’d share my workflow.
Saving Tracks in QLandkarte GT
I won’t cover downloading tracks from the Garmin, as it was all very easy. Just remember to install the qlandkartegt-garmin package in Ubuntu to get Garmin support in QLandkarte GT.
As you can see QLandkarte GT’s color scheme doesn’t exactly jive with Ubuntu’s default color scheme. In the upper left there’s a persistent context menu which may be useful, but the only thing that’s really visible are the icons. The only ones I use regularly are from the Tracks section of the application: the “Join” action (green plus icon) and the “Download” action (blue down arrow icon).
Switch to the tracks tab and then download tracks from the GPS. Then you can edit individual tracks by right clicking and choosing “Edit…”:
Once the track edit screen is open you can change the name of the track, and remove (hide) any points from your track that may be erroneous:
Typically I also need to join tracks, especially if I turned off the GPS at a stop or if the GPS lost signal at any point. Joining tracks is also clunky. You don’t select the tracks and then choose “Join Tracks”, you choose “Join Tracks” which brings up a dialog where you can specify which tracks you want to join, and what new track to save them as:
Now that I’ve got my track organized, I want to save it as a GPX file. This took me a while to find, but you need to select File -> Export Geo Data. Then after you select a filename, you’re prompted to select what GPS elements you want to save:
Use the “All” checkbox at the bottom left to un-check all elements, and then you can select just the track(s) you want to export.
Then I can upload them to Strava using their easy-to-find file uploader. Here’s how it looks in a post using WP-Strava:
