XBox Fitness Still Not Ready for Primetime

Much as I love the concept of this app, I still find XBox Fitness is not a finished article.

Happy as I was to see the Great Lost Punchcard debacle of March 2014 get fixed relatively quickly, some of the long-standing issues remain:

• low bandwidth reports, causing the app to pause, even though SpeedTest and the built in tool in XBox One network settings says it is fine
  
• the app crashing back to the home screen at random points - particularly annoying when you have completed a workout and are waiting for the feedback/stamps to be credited
  
• the Kinect device "losing" you and seemingly going blind to the gesturing person in its line of sight, until they completely stop the exercise, stand up and wave wildly, forfeiting all form and affecting scores, achievements etc.
  

I would like to see more interaction with the programmers and the users to really perfect this app. We've all bounced dozens of ideas around this forum and not really seen much response.

I did get to do a survey on it a week back and deliberately held back on high scores for it because I could not recommend it, due to its ability to frustrate. Disappointingly, the survey did not even give me the opportunity to provide feedback in an open form
- it was so rigid, I couldn't comment on the bandwidth, crashing or Kinect issues.

To sum up, I think we all want:

• ability to host the workouts on our XBox, instead of downloading/streaming every single time and being at the whim of the Internet gods
  
• quality control by the programmers as to why the crashes occur randomly and perhaps rewriting the code so achievements prior to the crash are recorded and count anyway
  
• more research into the Kinect camera and perhaps a new code routine that assumes for 5-10 seconds that the person really is still in view, even if it can't differentiate between them and the couch (come on, are they really that different the XBox thinks
  the person evaporated into thin air?)

I'm happy to be an unpaid beta tester for XBox Fitness but it should be a two-way communication.

Thanks!

:)

 

Voice chat through speakers

ugh... these consoles were not ready for primetime

 

Hide uninstalled apps

Hi!

I've just uninstalled Xbox Fitness from my Xbox One, but its tile is still listed in my apps menu (grayed out, with a cloud icon and marked as ready to install). How can I completely remove it? Thanks.

 

This game has been released to the public for consumption. People can buy workouts and earn achievements. Xbox Fitness is not in it's beta stage. How it ever got the "green light" is beyond me. These issues would be been known if anyone testing this game
thoroughly played it. Maybe they knew about the issues and still released this game anyways.

The issues are pervasive and ruin the experience. Ignore the fact that you get a workout by playing this game, because this is still a game. If any other Xbox One game had any issue that Xbox Fitness has, that issue would be fixed within a week. We've been
waiting for an update since November, and the only one we got was a couple of weeks ago that broke the game even further, which caused a revert. I'm baffled by the abysmal "support" this game has received.

I'm sick of my progress being lost at the end of workouts, I'm sick of losing stamps (around 30-40 now) because the game crashes but somehow my session challenge progress is saved (meaning I don't receive stamps for challenges I complete), I'm sick of the
bandwidth issues, I'm sick of the lack of support or knowledge about the issues, and I'm sick of getting my hopes up that "this time it will be different".

It's gotten to the point where I pick up my phone and take a video of the last few seconds of the workout to see if it crashes or not. I have several videos of the game crashing. I shouldn't have to do this.

 

I usually don't have problems with Xbox Fitness except recently every time I get on, about a quarter way through the workout it crashes back to the main screen. Its irritating because I am usually 5 starring the entire time up till that point then I have
to just fast forward to where it died and the points I previously had simply vanish. I still finish the workout as I need to but it just makes my progress seem minimal which is quite frustrating. Would be nice if they could fix it.

 

I couldn't agree more, I wish this feature/game would work as advertised. It's starting to get to the point where I feel like a sucker for continually purchasing Microsoft products.

Please fix, it has been half a year.

 

I don't know if this will help, but I'll just past his along just in case.

Back in December I couldn't even launch the program. It turned out that having the Skylanders portal plugged in the USB port was preventing it from launching (weird, random thing I guess). So maybe something in a USB port is causing issues?

I was also told by an Xbox support rep that I should plug the power brick directly into the wall and not in a surge protector (because the power brick has surge protection already built in). Apparently plugging into a surge protector reduces the power to
the Xbox One, which causes a lot of issues.

Anyhow, maybe one of those things could help with the Xbox Fitness program issues.

 

Great post, I agree with all of this..... but "being at the whim of the Internet gods" isn't the issue. The broken app is the issue. Every other app on the Xbox One has no problems with the internet.

@xboxfitness on twitter is very active. They tend to avoid questions that deal with constant crashing and buffering/time-out issues.

I'd estimate I've lost over a million points and a couple cards of stamps simply from crashes and internet timeouts. It's unacceptable and to have zero response from Sumo Digital is an insult. This is
Sumo Digitals Facebook Page, I suggest posting your grievances there as well.

 

Thanks - I guess the bandwidth thing wouldn't be an issue if it wasn't constantly streaming the workouts. I don't really stream much else on my XB1 so couldn't compare it to anything else - last time I used Netflix, the video was blocky and I just used another
device but hopefully that is at least fixed by now.

I did post something on Sumo Digital's Facebook page so thanks for the link. We should all start posting there as well as here.

 

In their defense, Sumo Digital might just not be allowed to comment by their contract. I have no evidence that suggests this, but I can imagine this is how it works.

@XboxFitness on Twitter is definitely monitored. While they do seem evasive about their issues, they did end inviting me to their early access program while I only tweeted at them a few times talking about the internet connection / dashboarding errors. I've
only had the early access update for 2 days so far, but no error yet. Time will tell if it did fix anything. They hope to release this update to the public in a few days.

@XboxSupport on Twitter is also very responsive, but the things they suggest to try and fix it are the things most of us already tried. Still might be worth is so they at least get a signal of how much people have issues.

 

SumoDigital did respond and I sent them a lengthy personal message on Facebook, detailing the issues. I have not heard back yet but it was a positive step at least.

 

Latest annoyance - squatting with 65lbs. of barbell on your back and then getting "Internet Connection Error".

Had to safely dump the weight, find my controller and then hit "Try Again", to at least get back to a point where I could use voice control.

I feel like I am more and more headed towards working out offline - doubt that was Microsoft's intention but even working with their support is a wasted exercise - basically every step suggested you've either already done or involves powering down, unplugging
etc.

Hope others are doing better. Anyone completed the achievements for Mossa? I'm not sure I will ever complete the ones that expect a certain score or 5 stars through a particular set because the camera loses track of me without fail in those ones. Ah well.

 

@PAFC If you're referring to the session challenge where you have to get 5 stars in all Round 5 sets, 2 sessions in a row, then no, not yet. And I was real REAL close! Did it for one session, then on the next session I basically made it all the way to the
last 5th round with all 5 stars and I was pushing, pushing, while watching for the 5th star to light up ... I was so sure it was going to show up because it was sitting on 4 for so long ... then time runs out. It never lit up. I was soooo ***!

I can't rightly say it was the fault of the program. For one, I got too invested in getting that last 5th star that I started watching for it, which probably made me relax my intensity a bit. I do remember being a little frustrated at that point because
it was one of those challenges that shows up at the bottom of the screen where you try to either beat your highest FP, or, beat the average user's FP. It was covering the stars making it hard to see, and I think I ended up slowing down to see where the stars
were under that bar.

Anyhow, my only problem with the Xbox Fitness program so far is that it sometimes pauses to load during a workout. It never has crashed on me though. I agree with everyone else on here that they need to make these workout programs downloadable so they run
local off the machine, and not stream from the Internet. I really don't know why it has to stream, other than it was already developed this way when Xbox was going to go the "always online" route last year before they changed their minds. Either way, the technology
is there in streaming video that accounts for the slowest of connections, so implementing that should be doable for this.

I'll be curious on how many people will continue with this program when it is no longer free in December. Since I don't seem to have too many issues with it, I'll probably continue with a subscription, but I can't see how everyone else that is having the
problems that they're having will pay to continue their experiences, unless Sumo fixes everything before the free trial runs out. I really do hope they get it all worked out.

 

Wow that's insane.

I come here to report my problems with Xbox Fitness and I've seen that 90% of the forum are experiencing the same problems.

It's painfull to see no response in the forum from Microsoft and it's worst to see that Xbox Fitness Team doesn't solve the problems that all of us are experiencing.

I've the same problems as you and as I've said to @XboxFitness the ability to host the workouts on our XBox, instead of downloading/streaming every single time and being at the whim of the Internet gods, must be mandatory.

I hope to see this before Xbox Fitness needs a paid subscription on early 2015 :-(

 

Just want to say that I also got these issues. Sometimes it's still crashing to home during workouts, and the tracking isn't always working as it should.

It's really frustrating that these issues can't be sorted out since it's a great program when it works. But it really has to be more stable before I'll spend any money on it.