Phone Battery Drain

[USAF-Larry]

A few days ago I downloaded & installed the new version of the FitBit app (v 2.26) on my Android HTC phone, and since that time the app has been seriously draining the battery on the phone.  Prior to the install, the phone battery lasted about 2.5 days, and now it lasts less less than a day. When I look at the phone's settings for battery usage, it shows that FitBit is using 30% of the phone battery.

Anyone else having this problem with the new Android app draining the phone battery?

[Odyssey13]

@USAF-Larry I moved this over to the Android area to get more responses.

My Android is running Lollipop and it rately gets to 3% of the battery. Which system do you have?

[USAF-Larry]

My Android HTC One is running Marsmallow 6.0. I shut down the phone and restarted it after the new FitBit app was installed to make sure it started clean, but that has not helped with the battery drain.  Today I intentionally did not open the FitBit app on the phone to make sure I wasn't using the battery to sync with the tracker or anything. I just now checked battery usage for the day, and it shows that FitBit used 14% of the battery without ever being opened.

Previous versions of the FitBit app never used more than 2% or 3% of the battery.

[Odyssey13]

You clean the cache? I've not had a problem, but I'm not sure my provider will put me on Marshmallow.

You were logged out of the app? Maybe log out of it and keep the phone on. Well, that is if you're not still in the juror's box.

[USAF-Larry]

Yes, I did all that, and more.  I finally went into Setup, Apps, and did a Force Stop on the FitBit app so the phone would keep its charge all day while I was in confined quarters.

[Odyssey13]

I figured you knew how to do all that @USAF-Larry

Hope you're soon free of the jury duty. I narrowly escaped a murder trial the other year.

Maybe one of our fantastic moderators can figure out why this is happening to you.

[Mcore]

Hi there @USAF-Larry! This is a very unusual situation. By any chance do you have the "all day sync" option enabled? Did you have this option enabled before you updated the app version? Any changes you might have noticed since you last posted?

In the meantime, I'll further investigate on this with the rest of the team.

Looking forward to your reply.

[USAF-Larry]

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@Mcore wrote:

Hi there @USAF-Larry! This is a very unusual situation. By any chance do you have the "all day sync" option enabled? Did you have this option enabled before you updated the app version? Any changes you might have noticed since you last posted?

In the meantime, I'll further investigate on this with the rest of the team.

Looking forward to your reply.

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Yes, I have both All Day Sync and Always Connected disabled. I also do not have any Call Notifications enabled. I very seldom sync the Charge HR to the phone, maybe once or twice a day - I usually use my Linux laptop for syncing the HR. The main times I use the FitBit app on the Android phone is for the Map My Walk feature.

I just checked the phone battery usage, and it shows the FitBit app as using 18% of the battery.  I would like to uninstall the new version 2.26, and fall back to the version 2.25, wich worked fine, but the Google Play Store does not offer that option.

[USAF-Larry]

Last evening I went into the phone settings apps for FitBit, and Cleared Cache and Cleared Data, then uninstalled FitBit and shut down the phone. I restarted the phone, reinstalled FitBit, and then reconnected the app to the Charge HR.  This morning I checked the battery usage, and it showed that FitBit used 4% of the battery overnight. So, it may have fixed the problem - I'll watch it for a few days to see if it continues that way.

Apparently, when the Google Play Store updated the app from v2.25 to v2.26 it did not no it cleanly.

[Odyssey13]

@USAF-Larry sounds more like my three to four percent. Looks like it's working again for you.

It's been a few days, Larry. How is everything?

[USAF-Larry]

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@Odyssey13 wrote:

@USAF-Larry sounds more like my three to four percent. Looks like it's working again for you.

It's been a few days, Larry. How is everything?

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It has been working fine ever since I uninstalled the app and re-installed it. Using about 3% of the battery, instead of completely draining it.  I just recently upgraded the app to the new Android version 2.27, and it is still working good wth no significant battery drain.

[ErickFitbit]

@USAF-Larry Thanks for sharing the update and also explaining what you did to resolve this. Seemed weird that it was draining so much when our app doesn't do much in the background. Glad to hear that you're all good now. Thanks again for the update!

[Blair64]

Just this past week, Fitbit is draining my battery in just a few hours. I checked this morning, and the battery usage was 60%. 

I have changed nothing, Im running the latest version, 2.33. I have had the charge HR since last christmas and have always had the settings the same, always connected and all-day sync and my battery would last 2 days. 

[AlvaroFitbit]

@Blair64 Welcome to our Community! Although the app shouldn't drain your battery this much could you just try disabling the All day Sync and Always Connected? This way it may be possible to know if these are related to the battery drain issue or if it something else. All this information helps a lot when correcting issues that arise with a new app release.

Let me know how it goes!

[zanimul]

@Blair64 Just started having the same situation with my Droid Turbo on 5.1 and FitBit app 4.0.  For now, I've turned off all day sync and bluetooth on the phone. seems to have helped, but that really defeats a lot of options I normally have on.  I've had my Charge HR for almost a year and have never had to change these settings on my phone since day one.  

Currently thinking about the uninstall - clean cache - reinstall procedure to get me back to a more tenable configuration.

[AlvaroFitbit]

@zanimul Welcome to our Community! This is something that shouldn't be happening, the app should not affect your phones battery. Did you try uninstalling the app? Does the phone's battery keeps draining fast? 

Keep me posted!

[Blair64]

I did turn off the all day sync and reset my Fitbit Charge HR. That seemed to have fixed the problem I had. Not sure why I had to turn off all day sync when I had it on for months before I had any problems.

[zanimul]

Yes, I did unistall and re-install, it helped some but not totally.  I installed a battery monitor app, that helped narrow things down a bit and I suspect it may have been a bad interaction between two apps; FitBit and "Phases of the Moon".  I un-installed the Phases app and things have been fairly normal, though I do note that the fitbit app seems to have a lot of trouble connecting to my Charge HR.

[ErickFitbit]

@Blair64 If you're experiencing issues with your battery life, I recommend checking out the tips in this help article. I'm glad that adjusting your all-day sync setting has improved your battery life.

@zanimul Sometimes, there are apps that run in the background of your Android operating system and eat up your battery life. A good example of this is the Snapchat app on my phone. I always make sure I force close it so it doesn't eat up my battery while not interacting with it.

[USAF-Larry]

When experiencing high battery drain issues, always go to the phone Settings, Battery Manager, Battery Usage History and see what apps/devices are using a high percentage of the battery. You can then decide if the apps using a high percentage of the battery need to be running or if you can Force Stop them to preserve the battery. 

For example -  Today, while working out at the gym, I was listening to SiriusXM on the phone for 2 1/2 hours. When I was done working out, I closed the app, and then I went into the phone Settings and did a Force Stop on the app since I will not need it until the next visit to the gym. When I looked at the Battery Usage History, it showed that the SiriusXM app had used 29% of my battery during that 2.5 hour workout.