Fitbit for Windows Phone updated with Surge Run support, reduced app size and more!

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By Daniel Rubino
last updated

Fitbit for Windows Phone keeps getting better and better. Today, version 1.6 has landed in the Store bringing with it numerous fixes, changes, and improvements. Fitbit was last updated in late December and after some behind the scenes work the next iteration is now ready.

Much of the focus for today's update is enhanced information for Charge HR and Surge users, where heart rate data and GPS tracking is of value. However, even for regular users, there are numerous changes including the app shrinking from 26 to 14 MB installed.

Fitbit 1.6 changelog

  • Surge Run - View maps of your GPS tracked activities. 
  • Friend Finder Improvements - Add friends from Facebook, email 
  • Reduce App Install Size - We've cut the size of our app almost in half! 
  • Custom Heart Rate Zones - You can now create custom Heart Rate zones for your Charge HR and Surge. 
  • Exercise Heart Rate - Heart Rate will now appear for your tracked exercises. 
  • Tooltips - New tooltips to help get you familiar with the app. 
  • Improved Setup Flows 
  • Miscellaneous Bug Fixes and Improvements 

Unfortunately, notification support for Windows Phone owners with the new Charge, Charge HR or Surge is still not there. Tristan Rice, Product Manager for Windows at Fitbit, took to the Fitbit forums to explain the issue a bit, noting it is a technical issue that they are working on:

"The Accessories manager simply provides a way for users to manage the permissions of those apps for which they want the OS to be able to pass notifications for Calls, Texts etc. There is a set of APIs that developers can use to receive these notifications in their app (once the user has given permission in the accessories manager).""The Accessories Manager in no way automatically provides the ability for Bluetooth connected devices to display those notifications. Getting this to work is a combination of app (how is your app processing these notifications), OS Bluetooth support (how are you communicating via Bluetooth, with Classic or Low Energy and much, much more) and device firmware. There are multiple methods in which this is potentially achievable.""We plan to bring Call Notifications to our Windows apps as soon as possible. My 1520 is my daily driver and I'm just as eager to get those working as everyone else."

In other words, stay tuned! For now, head to the Store to grab the latest update and let us know in comments what you think.

QR: fitbit

Daniel Rubino
Daniel Rubino
Editor-in-chief

Daniel Rubino is the Editor-in-chief of Windows Central. He is also the head reviewer, podcast co-host, and analyst. He has been covering Microsoft since 2007, when this site was called WMExperts (and later Windows Phone Central). His interests include Windows, laptops, next-gen computing, and watches. He has been reviewing laptops since 2015 and is particularly fond of 2-in-1 convertibles, ARM processors, new form factors, and thin-and-light PCs. Before all this tech stuff, he worked on a Ph.D. in linguistics, watched people sleep (for medical purposes!), and ran the projectors at movie theaters because it was fun.