How to Change the Time on Your Fitbit (And Why It Might Be Wrong)

Your Fitbit is showing the wrong time — maybe it's an hour off after a time zone change, or it never updated after daylight saving time. The fix is usually straightforward, but it depends on how your Fitbit syncs time and what device you're pairing it with.

Here's what's actually happening under the hood, and what controls the clock on your wrist.

How Fitbit Devices Keep Time

Fitbit devices don't have independent clocks in the way you might expect. They rely on syncing with the Fitbit app on your smartphone to pull the correct time. When your Fitbit syncs, it reads the time from your phone, which in turn gets its time from your carrier network or internet time servers.

This means your Fitbit's clock is essentially a mirror of your phone's clock — with a slight lag between syncs.

The practical result: if your Fitbit is showing the wrong time, the root cause is almost always one of three things:

• Your phone's time is incorrect
• Your Fitbit hasn't synced recently
• Your phone's time zone setting is wrong or set to manual

The Standard Fix: Sync Your Fitbit

For most users, changing or correcting the time on a Fitbit is a two-step process.

Step 1: Make sure your phone's time is accurate

On iPhone: go to Settings → General → Date & Time and enable Set Automatically.

On Android: go to Settings → General Management → Date and Time (exact path varies by manufacturer) and enable Automatic date and time.

Step 2: Force a sync in the Fitbit app

Open the Fitbit app on your phone, go to your device's Today tab, and pull down to refresh. This triggers a manual sync. Once complete, your Fitbit should display the updated time within a few seconds.

That's the complete process for the vast majority of Fitbit models. There's no time-setting menu on the device itself — the clock is managed entirely through the app sync.

When the Time Zone Is the Problem 🌍

Crossing time zones is a common trigger for time confusion on Fitbit devices. Here's where it gets slightly nuanced.

If your phone is set to automatic time zone, it will update when you land in a new region, and your Fitbit will pick up the correct time on the next sync. Most travelers won't need to do anything manually.

If your phone is set to a manual time zone, it won't update automatically — and neither will your Fitbit. In that case, go into your phone's date and time settings, switch the time zone manually to your current location, then sync your Fitbit app.

Some users also manage time zone preferences through the Fitbit app settings directly:

• Open the Fitbit app
• Tap your profile photo → your device name → Advanced Settings
• Look for Time Zone and make sure it's not overriding your phone's automatic setting

If "Automatic" is selected there, the Fitbit defers to whatever your phone reports. If a specific time zone is hard-coded in the app, that will take precedence — which can cause a mismatch if you've traveled.

Daylight Saving Time and Automatic Updates

Fitbit handles daylight saving time (DST) automatically as long as your phone's time is set to automatic. When DST kicks in and your phone jumps forward or back, the next sync passes that change to your Fitbit.

If your device didn't update for DST, the usual cause is that the Fitbit didn't sync around the time the change occurred — perhaps because it was out of Bluetooth range or the app was closed. A manual sync will resolve it immediately.

Fitbit Models With GPS or LTE 📡

Higher-end Fitbit models — including those with built-in GPS or LTE connectivity (such as certain Sense and Versa variants) — can sometimes pull location data independently. However, even these models still rely on the Fitbit app sync for time display rather than calculating it from GPS signals the way dedicated GPS watches sometimes do.

If you own an LTE-capable Fitbit, keep in mind that time accuracy still traces back to the connected smartphone and app infrastructure, not the cellular signal directly.

If the Time Is Still Wrong After Syncing

A sync that doesn't fix the time usually points to one of these variables:

A restart of the Fitbit device itself can also clear minor sync glitches. The restart method varies by model — most involve holding the side button or buttons for several seconds until the Fitbit logo appears.

What You Can't Change Directly on the Device

Unlike some smartwatches, Fitbit doesn't offer an on-device time-setting interface. You won't find a clock menu on the Fitbit itself where you can manually dial in hours and minutes. Everything flows through the app.

This is worth knowing because it changes how you troubleshoot. The answer is almost never on the device — it's in the phone settings or the Fitbit app configuration.

The Variable That Determines Your Experience

Whether a simple sync fixes your time issue — or whether you need to dig into time zone settings, app updates, or firmware — depends heavily on your specific combination of phone OS version, Fitbit model, app version, and how your phone handles automatic time. Two people with the same problem can have meaningfully different paths to the fix depending on those factors, which is worth keeping in mind as you work through the steps above.