You just landed in London after a six-hour flight from New York, or maybe you finally remembered that Daylight Saving Time exists and your watch didn't get the memo. You look down at your wrist, and it’s glaringly wrong. It’s annoying. Most of us assume there’s a little "Settings" gear on the watch face where you can just tap and scroll to the right hour.
Wrong.
Fitbit doesn't really work that way. Honestly, it’s one of the most common complaints people have when they first pick up a Charge 6 or an Inspire 3. Your Fitbit isn't a standalone clock; it's basically a mirror of your smartphone. If you want to know how do i change time on fitbit, you have to stop looking at your wrist and start looking at your phone. It’s a sync issue, not a clock issue.
The Secret Sauce: It’s All About the Sync
Your tracker is essentially a "dumb" terminal for timekeeping. It pulls every single second from the Fitbit app on your iOS or Android device. So, if the time is wrong, it usually means your Bluetooth connection has gone to sleep or the app hasn’t checked in with the servers lately.
Fix it fast. Open the app.
Seriously, for about 90% of people, just opening the Fitbit app on your phone and pulling down on the main dashboard to force a sync solves the problem. You'll see that little progress bar crawl across the top. Once it finishes, the time on your wrist should snap into place. If it doesn't? Well, then things get a little more "tech support-y."
Sometimes the app thinks you're still in Los Angeles when you're clearly standing in the middle of Times Square. This happens because of the "Set Automatically" toggle in your profile settings. If that’s on and it’s still wrong, your phone’s own GPS might be trippng, or your privacy settings are blocking the Fitbit app from seeing your location.
Why the Time Zone Setting Fails You
Let’s dig into the weeds. Inside the app, you’ve got these "App Settings." You tap your profile icon (it’s usually your face or a little mail-slot looking icon in the top left), then go to "App Settings," and then "Time Zone."
There is a toggle there called "Set Automatically."
Flip it off. Then flip it back on.
It’s the classic "turn it off and back on again" move, but for location data. When you do this, you're forcing the app to re-ping the global NTP (Network Time Protocol) servers. If you’re traveling and the watch is stubborn, manually selecting your time zone—like choosing "London, GMT" instead of letting the phone guess—is often the only way to break the deadlock.
Dealing with the Daylight Saving Glitch
Twice a year, the internet explodes with people asking how do i change time on fitbit because the clocks jumped forward or back. It should be seamless. It often isn't.
Why? Because the Bluetooth handshake between your phone and your tracker is fickle. If your phone updated at 2:00 AM while you were asleep and your Fitbit was in "Sleep Mode" or "Do Not Disturb," it might have missed the memo. The watch is still living in yesterday.
Don't panic and factory reset. Please.
A factory reset is the nuclear option and it deletes your steps for the day. Instead, try the "Three-Sync Method." Sync once. Wait ten seconds. Sync again. If the time is still off, restart your tracker. For most modern Fitbits like the Luxe or Sense 2, you plug it into the charger and hold the button (or the gold contacts) for about 10 seconds until the Fitbit logo pops up. This doesn't erase your data; it just clears the "brain" of the device.
The Android vs. iPhone Struggle
Android users often have it tougher here. Google’s battery optimization settings are aggressive. They love to "kill" apps running in the background to save juice. If the Fitbit app is killed, it can’t update the time.
Go to your phone settings. Not the Fitbit app, but the actual Android system settings. Find "Apps," then "Fitbit," then "Battery." Make sure it’s set to "Unrestricted." This lets the app talk to your watch whenever it needs to, keeping the time—and your notifications—consistent.
On iPhone, it’s usually simpler, but you have to make sure "Background App Refresh" is toggled on. If you’re a power saver who keeps your phone in "Low Power Mode" 24/7, your Fitbit time is eventually going to drift or fail to update when you cross borders.
What if the Time is Just a Few Minutes Off?
This is a weird one. If your watch is exactly one hour off, it’s a time zone setting. But if it’s four minutes off? That’s a sync lag.
It happens when the tracker hasn't successfully communicated with the app for several days. Digital clocks, believe it or not, can "drift." They rely on an internal crystal oscillator. While they are incredibly accurate, they aren't perfect. They need a "heartbeat" from the internet to stay precise down to the millisecond.
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Check your Bluetooth list. If you see "Charge 5" or "Versa 4" listed as "Not Connected," your watch is basically an island. It’s losing time because it has no reference point. Re-pair the device if you have to, but usually, just toggling Bluetooth off and on on your phone will bridge that gap.
Changing the Clock Face Format
Sometimes when people ask how do i change time on fitbit, they don't mean the actual hour—they mean the look. Maybe you hate military time. Or maybe you want 24-hour time because you're working in a hospital or the military.
You won't find this in the app’s easy-access menu.
You actually have to go to the Fitbit.com online dashboard in a web browser for the most granular control, though most of it has migrated to the app under "App Settings" > "Units." If you want to switch from 12-hour to 24-hour time, change it there, and then—you guessed it—sync your watch.
When to Admit Your Fitbit is Glitching
Look, if you’ve toggled the time zones, restarted your phone, uninstalled the app, and your Sense 2 still thinks it’s 1970 or five hours in the future, you might have a hardware sync issue.
It’s rare.
Usually, it's a software hang-up. But check your "Media" or "Notifications" settings. If those are working (meaning you get a text on your wrist when someone messages you), then the Bluetooth link is fine. The issue is purely the data handshake for the time.
I’ve seen cases where a VPN on a phone confuses the Fitbit app. The VPN says you’re in Germany, your GPS says you’re in Chicago, and the Fitbit app just gives up and keeps the old time. Turn off your VPN temporarily if you’re trying to fix a stubborn clock. It sounds crazy, but it works because it clears the path for the app to see your true local network time.
The "All Day Sync" Controversy
Fitbit used to have a feature called "All Day Sync." They’ve phased that specific wording out in newer versions of the app, but the concept remains. To keep the time perfect, you need the app to have permission to work in the background.
Many people turn this off to save phone battery.
I get it. But if you do, don't be surprised when you look at your wrist after a long flight and see the time from your departure city. You’ve essentially told the watch "don't talk to the phone unless I tell you to." If you want accuracy, you have to give up a little bit of that battery life.
Actionable Steps for a Permanent Fix
Stop fighting with the watch and follow this specific sequence to ensure the time stays correct:
- Check your phone's system time. If your phone is wrong, your Fitbit will be wrong. Period.
- Verify Location Permissions. Ensure the Fitbit app has "Always" access to your location. This isn't just for GPS tracking your runs; it's how the app knows which time zone you're in.
- The "Manual Override" Trick. If "Set Automatically" fails, manually choose a city in your time zone. Sync. Then switch back to "Automatic" and sync again. This often clears cached location data that’s "stuck."
- Update the Firmware. Sometimes the time-keeping bugs are fixed in device updates. If you see a pink arrow in the Fitbit app, tap it. Install that update.
- Clean the Contacts. It sounds unrelated, but if your watch can't charge properly, it sometimes enters a low-power state that de-prioritizes the internal clock's sync frequency.
If you’ve done all of this, your Fitbit should be ticking along perfectly. No more "Wait, is it 3 PM or 4 PM?" confusion. Just a reliable tracker that actually knows what day it is.
To keep things running smoothly, get in the habit of opening the Fitbit app at least once a day. Even if you don't care about your steps right then, that 5-second window where the app talks to the tracker ensures the internal clock stays calibrated to the millisecond. It’s the easiest way to prevent those annoying time drifts before they even start.