While Windows Phone is still growing each day, gaining new apps and services, Fitbit is still a holdout. For those who aren’t familiar with it, Fitbit (fitbit.com) is popular exercise tracking device that you wear to keep abreast of your activities. They have different versions, including the One, Flex and the most recent Force wristband (which we just picked up ourselves—it’s awesome).
What’s missing on Windows Phone is widespread Bluetooth 4.0 LE support. That means that Fitbit devices can’t sync directly with our phones, and instead we have to use the wireless Bluetooth sync of a PC. Truth be told, even Android devices are lagging behind on Low-Energy (LE) support, making only handful of devices eligible. Of course, the iPhone is supported.
Fitbit Tracker is a third party app that syncs to the Fitibit servers, pulling down your info. While it can’t sync directly with your Fitbit device, it’s still incredibly useful for keeping track of things. Plus, it’s a superbly designed app that recently has been getting a lot of updates. Version 0.9.7.0 is now live on the Store and it packs quite a few new features.
Fitbit Tracker version 0.9.7.0
- “Active Minutes" now supported in place of Activity Score
- Toast Notification support for hitting goals, changing rank in leaderboard, and hitting calorie limits for the day
- Registering of donations with mothership to provide access to beta features
- Bug fix for timezone and DST changes causing incorrect times to show
- Better surfacing of errors in the Fitbit API
- Important behind-the-scenes changes to support future addition of error reporting and food logging
- Change to crash logic to support debugging of edge-case app crashes
- The usual bug fixes and performance improvements
The support for Toast notifications is a fairly big addition. In fact, this app for all intents and purposes is exactly like the official app sans the syncing. There’s one other difference though: this looks way better than the official app. Surprised? Of course not, as Windows Phone developers constantly improve on the official offerings all the time.
If you use Fitbit, then you need Fitbit Tracker. It’s free, it’s awesome and is the best solution for Windows Phone owners.
If you do like it, we do suggest you use the ‘Donate’ button and toss the developer, Shane Chism, some cash for his creation. We sent him $5 and we think you folks could spare a little, if you enjoy the app.
In terms of rumors, in case you wanted those too, we have heard Nokia is talking to Fitbit, though we have no other info on progress. Seeing as Windows Phone 8 Update 3 supports Bluetooth LE 4.0 for certain devices, we could imagine a Fitbit app in the future, though there are no guarantees.
Pick up Fitbit Tracker here in the Store. Free. Windows Phone 8 only.
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