Drilling Down On the Fitbit Data
There's more?! Unfortunately there's more. The Fitbit rabbit hole is endless, and that's probably intentional by the person or people responsible for Nicola's death (I believe someone is responsible for her death). Pick any aspect of this case, and the number of obfuscations, fibs, exaggerations, outright lies and general lack of concrete information could send you on a multi-day quest where you unearth seven different theories, each as plausible as the last.
Some might say, What's the point? We're never going to get to the truth. But in my view that's what they want you to say. They want you to give up. So let's never give up, okay?
Today I'm looking at information that can get us to a more narrative-like retelling of what happened to Nikki using the Fitbit as a guide. I'm not there yet, but I'm getting closer.
I'm starting with an important question posed by @OliviaV979695 on Twitter yesterday. Essentially: Is it even true that Nikki's Fitbit hadn't been synced since Tuesday, January 24, as EW claimed to the Mirror on February 4 (the day the Fitbit stopped recording data 😅)?
Let's explore the possibility that the Fitbit had been synced on or after January 24. What could this mean?
This is a much more nefarious scenario than if EW, messenger of you-know-who, is telling the truth (they're both still nefarious scenarios). It suggests that data from January 24 to January 27 might have been more incriminating somehow.
If it had been synced, it's possible someone deleted the data from January 24-January 27 off Nikki's phone before handing it to police, to make it look like it hadn’t synced since Tuesday the 24th. This is easy to do within the Fitbit app. You can delete a custom date range and even individual types of data (this video is one of many that walks through the process).
But then how did police get the detailed January 27 data weeks later? Some possibilities:
- Because the data stayed on the device even when deleted from the app (unlikely based on what I know about these devices and similar brands).
- Because Fitbit owner Google’s privacy laws are sh*te and they save people’s deleted data, probably for circumstances such as these. As long as the January 27 data was synced with the Fitbit app on her phone at some point prior to DC Greenhalgh doing it, that means it synced to the cloud and was possibly recoverable by Google even after (theoretically) being deleted from the app by someone. I’m unclear how long Google saves users’ cloud data or whether they'd even admit to this, but you know they do. Again, Fitbits don't sync to the cloud without the phone, so IMO it still had to have been synced by someone with her phone before February 3.
- Because the perp faked, amended or edited some or all of the January 27-February 4 data to get it “ready” for when the device was found with Nikki. Faked by having someone else wear the device, manually entering or changing data after removing the Fitbit from Nikki, or a combination. IMO, you’d still have to sync it by February 3 at the latest in order to get detailed data from Jan 27 to show up on there. And then you'd have to sync it again to get Jan 29-Feb 4 (the last 7 days of data) on there.
- Because police faked the January 27-February 4 data (highly unlikely IMO but more corrupt things have happened).
And remember that, at least in my view, it’s still not possible that the Fitbit lasted until February 4 in cold water. So regardless if EW’s secondhand statements were true or not, I believe the Fitbit was either kept by the perp somewhere, or kept on Nikki, and likely removed, possibly charged and definitely synced at some point in order for that January 27-February 4 data to be retrievable by police after finding Nikki. You just can't separate the "not synced since Tuesday" situation from the "Fitbit battery life is terrible in cold water" situation. They are linked.
So it's not a question of if a Fitbit ruse began, IMO, but how early it began.
If what EW said was true, and the Fitbit genuinely had not synced since January 24, what could this mean?
- The Fitbit was simply out of range of the phone (roughly 100-500ft depending on the Bluetooth technology on her phone model) after January 24. This can sometimes cause it to stop syncing automatically to the app even if Bluetooth is still on on both devices and "Background sync" is enabled (this has been reported by users quite a bit on the Versa 4 forums lately). "Background sync" is a setting in the Fitbit app that allows you to sync your data frequently throughout the day without having to open the Fitbit app. We don't know whether Nikki had this setting checked or not.
- The Fitbit was deliberately disconnected from her phone. This would be done by selecting "Forget device" in the Bluetooth settings of her iPhone. Note that Bluetooth cannot be switched off on the Versa 4 device itself; it is always on and therefore the device is always discoverable (providing it's on, it's within range of her phone, or within 100ft of a phone with a FindMyFitbit-type app on it, and not in water, which can disrupt the Bluetooth signal).
- Nikki simply didn't open the Fitbit app between January 24 and January 27. Again, if she did not have "Background sync" enabled on the Fitbit app, she would have had to manually open the Fitbit app every time she wanted to sync her data. It's also possible that she'd had background sync enabled, but someone turned it off.
The endpoint is the same: Somehow the battery lasted at least 8 days, and somehow DC Greenhalgh was able to obtain 9 days of detailed data off a device that only stores 7 days of detailed data. Based on my exchange with Fitbit Community mods and members yesterday, the latter just isn't possible. I asked them basically whether that very scant data (intermittent heart rate) between later on January 27 and February 4 could mean that the device was able to store more than 7 days' worth of data on it. The answer from a member was a confident "no." A moderator also weighed in.
When the mod says "Just the summary" above, what she means is that for the days prior to January 29, this model of device is only going to show you "summary data": very loose and non-detailed data from each of those days. Summary data is a day summary that includes calories, distance, steps and floors. It is not going to give you the heart rate data and steps recorded in 15-minute increments that Greenhalgh described at the inquest.
So, long story short, even if this device truly wasn't synced since January 24, as EW originally claimed, all the possibilities I listed above are still possible here:
• The Fitbit was synced at some point between January 27 and February 4. The data stayed in the cloud after that, and therefore possibly more than 7 days of it could have been retrieved for police by Google.
AND/OR:
• The data from January 27-February 4 was faked, amended or edited (by someone). This would still require a sync before the one Greenhalgh did, IMO.
What I'd expect from the ongoing College of Policing investigation is that this is all sorted out in a detailed and tech expert-led manner, not that I'm holding my breath. Here are the questions I have that, if answered, could explain the above insane web of possibilities once and for all:
- When did DC Greenhalgh and/or his colleagues first open the Fitbit app on Nikki's iPhone, and what data did they see when they did? Was some of this data examined before Nikki and the device were found, via the app? Did they see details about oxygen levels, breathing rate, sleep, resting heart rate averages, etc, in addition to steps, exercises, heart rate? Was there data from every day until she went missing, or did it stop on January 24?
- What were the settings in her phone and Fitbit app when police first examined it? A) Was "Background sync" on? B) Was her Versa 4 listed as a device in the Bluetooth settings of her iPhone? (If someone had selected "Forget device" at some point, the Versa 4 would not show up in her list of "My Devices.") These two questions matter immensely. They could be the difference between foul play and not foul play. C) Were there other Fitbits in the "My Devices" section? D) Did her partner own any Fitbits, or did he have any listed in the "My Devices" section of his phone, including any of Nicola's? E) How about friends or family members?
- If the January 27 data was, as is presumed, not retrieved until the Fitbit was found with Nikki, how were so many details obtained? How did the device store 9 days' worth of detailed data instead of the 7 claimed by Fitbit? If Google helped retrieve the older data, how did they do this? If the data had not been synced to the Fitbit app/cloud prior to Greenhalgh doing it, it could not be retrieved by Google because there is no direct sync between Fitbits and the cloud.
- Lastly, and this one goes back to my original qualm with the Fitbit, how did the device battery last for 8 days in cold water? That just isn't possible, for all the reasons outlined here.
If you got through all this, thank you. On we go.