Excessive battery draining, 'Always Connected' off

[ajkool]

Dear software team,

Can you please make the Android App do nothing when 'Always Connected' is off. Currently it cuts my (and my wife's) battery time in half.
Only if I turn off Bluetooth, the consumption is brought back to almost the original value (not completely).

So some activity is still going on.

But turning off Bluetooth is very inconvenient, since I need it in my car.

Please solve this issue.

Moderator Edit: Clarified subject & Format

[USAF-Larry]

@ajkool, the "software team" does not read nor respond to the User Community Forums.  But, the Android app should not be draining your battery - if I check the battery usage in the Phone's Settings on my Android phone it shows the Fitbit app is using 2% of the battery life.  The exception is while syncing the tracker to the phone, due to it using Bluetooth during that time.  Suggest you do two things: Ensure that All-Day Sync it turned off, and Restart the phone (prior to restarting the phone, open the Phone's Settings->Apps->Fitbit, tell it to Forget Device, and Clear Cache and Delete Data).

[LanuzaFitbit]

Welcome to the Forums @ajkool. Thanks for helping out @USAF-Larry.

This does sound very frustrating. 

I'd like to add to @USAF-Larry's excellent post, while having Bluetooth on will incur in heavier consumption of battery, it shouldn't be as high as it currently is. Specially because you already used it like that. 

It is important to note that even if Always Connected or All-Day Sync is turned off, your Fitbit will sync whenever the Fitbit app is opened. If you open the app to check your stats it will try to sync. This could lead to more battery usage if done regularly through the day. 

Aside from that, please do follow @USAF-Larry's instructions. 

Feel free to reach out if you have any questions.

[ajkool · Accepted solution]

Hello All,

Thanks for the advice. I have re-checked. With BT on and the App not synchronizing, I have a 1.5 - 3% / hr discharge during the night (special Android saving mode). Without BT on it drops to 0.5% / hr.
With the App de-installed, and BT on, 0.5%/hr.

So the App is causing some activity when BT is on.

Ihave de-installed the App and sold my Fitbit....

[2AE]

WTF is BT...and everybody just wants to know...Why is FitBit draining our phone batteries? 

[ajkool]

BT stands die Bluetooth.
Why it is draining the battery, I do not know. I am not the programmer.
I do'nt know whether the problem had been fixed, since I sold my Fitbit and
removed the App.

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Moderator edit: Removed personal info

[LanuzaFitbit]

Welcome to the Forums @2AE. Hello @ajkool.

I apologize for the delay in my response. @ajkool Thanks for that clarification. Hopefully you will consider Fitbit again in the future.

@2AE Did you make sure you go through all of the steps and settings that have been mentioned in the thread?

Let me know if you have any further questions.

[SpyderBlades]

I agree with you, there is something fishy with my battery life after getting this Fitbit.

I have all day sync off and stay connected off but my fairly new Sony phone has what feels like less than half the battery life it had before getting the watch.

I used Bluetooth often before too Ave it didn't seem to drain like this.

[Colinm39]

@SpyderBladesMy Sony shows the Fitbit as 3% battery usage after 9 hours from me awakening.  I turn my phone off at night.

My Fitbit settings are the same as yours.. In the Sony Fitbit Application settings I have Background Data turned off. Even so, it still shows about 43% background data.

I only sync when I need to..

[SpyderBlades]

I did a test last night.  I turned off Bluetooth and location services after a full charge.  Phone on stand by used only 1% per hour of battery.  

After turning on Bluetooth Aan location, then syncing the Versa my phone started using 3% per hour again just standing by.  

In both cases I just closed active applications.  I did not force stop anything.

3 times the battery life seems excessive to me.  I might return the watch.

[barbsey]

reading all these posts;   urrrr;    i am not a technological tech and sometimes I call this automation in life as antiquated.....    from what is sounds like -- if we want to use our FB and BT   we need to have better Battery Power... needless to say -- I need the BT and phone, more then I need a FB charge 3  --- Thus after reading, manipulating my phone,  the FB is still draining my phone batter and since I am not always near electricity   the FB  goes  first and foremost,    When I hear the FB has corrected the issues since I had tried a Versa,  that was not good  now I have tried a Charge 3 -- I would say I unfortunately am done with FB.  and I will go back to the good ole non syncing to phone activity counter   That all said Have a great day.

[SpyderBlades]

Just an update but I uninstalled the Fitbit app and reinstalled it.  

Battery usage is fixed with Bluetooth turned on.  I can now close the app and leave Bluetooth on and my phone will only use less than 1% battery per hour on standby.

Not sure what had gone sideways before but it has been using 5% per hour.  Fixed now!

[LanuzaFitbit]

Hello @SpyderBlades and @Colinm39. Welcome to the Forums @barbsey.

I apologize for the delay in my response.

@SpyderBlades Glad to read that everything seems to be working correctly after that update.

@barbsey, I'd like to take a closer look at the situation. How much battery is being used in your case? What phone are you using? What version of the app are you running?

Look forward to your reply.

[Kwbrt]

Hi All, I'm late to this party, here is my experience, since the last recent update to the fitbit app my Moto g6 plus battery drain has become very excessive, I ran my phone in safe mode last night with very little battery drain, must be 3rd party app and after doing some checking I've seen that the fitbit app is using 9% of my battery usage, this is a new thing I've had my fitbit versa for a year and never had this problem, I use the fitbit for all phone notifications so turning any settings off is out of the question. I'm in the process of deleting and reinstalling the app and will see if that makes any difference... Thanks guy...

[LanuzaFitbit]

Hello @Kwbrt.

Thanks for sharing those details and your experience on the matter.

Please do keep us posted on how it goes. I'd also recommend that you tr installing the latest version of the app. You can click here to read more about it.

Please do let me know if you have any further questions.

[Kwbrt]

Thanks for your reply LanuzaFitbit, uninstalling the fitbit app and reinstalling has worked perfectly, no more excessive battery drain! All credit to SyderBlades for sharing the fix!

[LanuzaFitbit]

Hello @Kwbrt.

Thanks for reaching back and letting us know that reinstalling the app did the trick!  Indeed thanks to @SpyderBlades for sharing! 

If you have the time, be sure to visit one of our Discussion boards. Lots of different topics to talk about with other users, maybe something will pique your interest.

Let me know if you have any further questions.

[Fish149]

I really noticed my phone's battery start to drain quickly as soon as I bought a Versa light and added Fit Bit's app to my phone. It's a G7 Power and the battery would sometimes last up to 3 days (alot of times it'll go an hour or two before going below 100% after a full charge, even with some calls). As soon as I added the fit bit app though I'd be lucky to get a day out off it. All the settings everyone else has suggested, Blue tooth, always connected, all day sync, etc.... didn't seem to make much difference whether they were on or not. What I found is that in three days time though, the fit bit app had racked up about 100mb of on my data plan. This is unusaully high for me with an app like this and I thought high data usage could also explain the high battery usage. What I did was to go to SETTINGS->APPS & NOTIFICATIONS then select Fit Bit and disable it from using data in the background. I also did this with My fitness pal which I have synced with fit bit as I noticed it had used alot of data as well. This seems to have fixed my problem. Battery usage is back to what I had before and I can use the Versa more or less the same, I just have to launch the app if I go running and want to map it then close it after I'm done. I'm pretty satisfied with this solution.

NOW, WHAT REALLY UPSETS ME IS THAT FIT BIT DID NOT OFFER THIS OR ANY OTHER SOUTION THAT WOULD WORK IN ANY OF THESE FORUMS THAT I'VE BEEN READING THRU.

I do not like the fact that they would put a product on the market with such a GLARING error. This was my first FIt Bit product and although I'm most likely keeping the Versa (for awhile at least) it is certainly going to be the LAST Fit Bit product I EVER purchase.

[GameMaker]

Apparently we're still not quite there yet.

Mine, too, is taking up 15-20% of my battery per day.

I restarted the phone - still happening.

When I go to Android settings -> apps and notifications -> fitbit -> battery, I notice that it says

Since full charge

While in active use

11 hr 48 min

While in background

Active for 0 min

So it's basically always running in the foreground - even when the app is not even running. I haven't even started it, and it's consuming battery as if it were active.

Next step is to try turning off using data in the background.

If that doesn't work, uninstall and reinstall.

[EricBuist]

Hi,

I'm having the same issue. The application is now running all the times, draining 1% of battery pretty much each couple of minutes. I tried to uninstall/reinstall, which is not only annoying but useless. The problem seemed to have disappeared after reinstallation, but it came back.

Disabling Bluetooth helped, but sometimes, the application starts running even with Bluetooth disabled and drains battery, constantly trying to connect to the watch!

At this point, the only solutions remaining is to try with another phone or uninstall the application and install it just to sync.

Another possibility would be to freeze the application using App Quarantine, but that requires to root the phone, which I'm not sure is easy/possible on a Google Pixel 2.