It is incredibly annoying. You wake up, glance at your wrist to see if you can squeeze in another ten minutes of sleep, and realize your watch thinks it is three in the morning when the sun is clearly hitting your face. You try to set time on fitbit devices manually, searching through every tiny menu on the screen, only to find... nothing. There is no "Change Time" button on the watch itself. Honestly, it’s one of those design choices that makes sense to engineers but drives regular people up the wall.
Most of us assume these things work like old-school digital watches. Remember those? You’d hold down a side button until the digits started blinking, then mash another button until the hours matched reality. Fitbit doesn't play that way. Your device is basically a mirror. It just reflects whatever time your phone or computer tells it to show. If the mirror is broken, you don't fix the mirror; you fix the source.
The Sync Secret Nobody Mentions
Your Fitbit lives in a constant state of "checking in" with the Fitbit app via Bluetooth. This is how the magic happens. When you move between time zones or when Daylight Saving Time kicks in, the app notices the change on your smartphone and pushes that data to your tracker. But Bluetooth is finicky. Sometimes the handshake between your phone and your Inspire 3 or Charge 6 just fails.
If the time is wrong, it almost always means your device hasn't synced recently. You might see a "Syncing" notification that never finishes, or perhaps you haven't opened the app in three days. Open the app. Pull down on the main dashboard screen to force a refresh. Usually, the little progress bar finishes, and—boom—the time corrects itself. If it doesn't, you've likely hit a deeper setting snag.
Digging Into the Time Zone Settings
Sometimes syncing doesn't do squat because the app's internal clock settings are mismatched with your phone's actual location. This happens a lot if you travel frequently or if you’ve been messing with your phone’s regional settings to play a game early or access a different app store.
Go into the Fitbit app and tap your profile icon (usually in the top left). Look for "App Settings." There is a toggle there called "Set Automatically." Most experts, including the folks over at the Fitbit Community forums, suggest toggling this off and then back on. It’s the classic "turn it off and on again" move, but for GPS data.
- Step One: Open Fitbit App.
- Tap your Profile Picture.
- Find App Settings.
- Switch Set Automatically to OFF.
- Manually select a random time zone (like London if you’re in New York).
- Sync your tracker.
- Now, switch Set Automatically back to ON and sync again.
This forces the app to re-evaluate where you are on the planet. It’s like giving the software a quick slap to wake it up. If you're using the older web dashboard on a computer—which some people still do for the big charts—you have to change it in the "Personal Info" section of your settings. Don't forget to hit "Submit" at the bottom, or it won't stick.
Why Daylight Saving Time Still Breaks Things
You’d think in 2026 we would have solved the Daylight Saving Time glitch. We haven't. Twice a year, Fitbit users lose their minds because their steps are tracking an hour off. The problem is rarely the hardware. It is the app’s "Time Zone" database being slightly behind the phone’s OS.
If you wake up on Sunday morning and your Fitbit is an hour behind, don't panic. Just sync it. If that fails, the "Automatic Time Zone" toggle mentioned above is your best friend. Sometimes, your phone updates at 2:00 AM, but the Fitbit app doesn't "see" that update until you physically open the app and trigger a sync. It won't always happen in the background while you sleep, especially if your phone is in a deep "Low Power Mode" or "Sleep Mode" that restricts Bluetooth activity.
The "Manual Fix" for Stubborn Trackers
Let's say you've synced five times. You've toggled the settings. You've even restarted your phone. The time is still wrong. This is where things get weird.
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Check your phone's general settings. On an iPhone, go to Settings > General > Date & Time. On Android, it's usually under System > Date & Time. If your phone itself isn't set to "Set Automatically," your Fitbit will never be right. Your phone is the boss. The Fitbit is the employee. If the boss has the wrong schedule, the employee is going to show up late.
Also, consider the "Sleep Mode" or "DND" settings on your Fitbit. While these don't technically change the time, they can make it look like the watch is dead or stuck. Some clock faces (especially third-party ones from the Fitbit Gallery) are buggy. If your time is consistently wrong, try switching back to a "by Fitbit" official clock face. It's boring, sure, but it's stable.
Troubleshooting the "Sync Failed" Nightmare
What if you can't sync at all? This is the root cause of 90% of set time on fitbit issues. If the sync fails, the time stays stuck at the last moment it was connected.
- Check your Bluetooth. Toggle it off and on.
- Kill the app. Swipe it away and reopen it.
- Restart the Fitbit. This is different for every model. For a Charge 5 or 6, you usually plug it into the charger and press the button on the charging cable three times. For a Versa or Sense, hold the side button for 10 seconds until the logo pops up.
- Unpair and Repair. This is the "nuclear" option. Go to your phone's Bluetooth settings and "Forget" the Fitbit. Then go back into the Fitbit app and set it up as a new device. You won't lose your data because that’s stored in the cloud, but it's a hassle.
Sometimes, the Fitbit servers are just down. It happens. If you see people complaining on DownDetector or Twitter, just wait an hour. No amount of button-pressing will fix a server-side outage in Mountain View.
Real-World Example: The Jet Lag Glitch
I remember a trip where I flew from London to Los Angeles. My phone updated the moment we landed and I hit the cellular network. My Fitbit? It stayed on London time for three hours. I was walking around LA at 4:00 PM, but my watch said it was midnight and started cheering because I’d hit my "daily" step goal—even though I hadn't moved since the plane landed.
The issue was my phone's battery saver mode. It had killed all background syncing to save power during the flight. The moment I plugged my phone into a wall outlet and opened the Fitbit app, the watch face whirred for a second and jumped back eight hours. If you're traveling, always do a manual sync the second you get through customs. It saves a lot of confusion.
Clock Faces and Display Issues
Kinda strange, but sometimes the time is "right" but the display is "wrong." Many Fitbit clock faces allow for 12-hour or 24-hour formats. If you think your watch is 12 hours off, you might just have it set to a 24-hour (military) clock.
You change this on the Fitbit.com web dashboard, not in the mobile app. It's a weird legacy thing. Log in to your account on a browser, go to Settings, then Personal Info, and scroll down to "Clock Display Time." Change it to 12-hour, sync your watch, and you're back to normal. It’s honestly ridiculous that this isn't a toggle in the mobile app yet, but that’s the reality of the software ecosystem right now.
Taking Action to Fix Your Device
Stop trying to find a "Time" menu on the watch. It isn't there. Follow these steps in order to get back on track:
- Force a Sync: Open the Fitbit app and drag the home screen down. Wait for the vibrating "success" buzz on your wrist.
- Update the App: Check the App Store or Google Play. An outdated app is the number one reason for sync failures.
- Check Phone Settings: Ensure your smartphone is set to "Set Automatically" for both Date and Time.
- Toggle Time Zones: If it's still wrong, turn off "Automatic Time Zone" in the Fitbit app settings, pick a wrong one, sync, then turn "Automatic" back on and sync again.
- Hardware Reboot: If the screen is frozen or the time hasn't moved in hours, perform a hardware restart using your specific model's button combination.
The most important thing to remember is that your Fitbit is essentially a Bluetooth accessory. It doesn't have an internal "atomic clock" independent of your phone. Keep your app updated and your Bluetooth on, and the time should take care of itself. If it doesn't, the problem is almost always a data mismatch between the app's location services and the phone's system clock. Fix the phone, and the watch will follow.