Battery drain/Notifications - Samsung Galaxy S8/S8+

[AlessFitbit]

Fitbit Update: 09/3/2017

Our team is still actively investigating the root cause of this battery drain with Blaze and the Samsung Galaxy S8/S8+. I'm sorry that many of you are still having issues with a shorter battery life, but rest assured this is being looked at as high-priority for our team. My apologies for the inconvenience, and thank you all for your patience! I will provide an update as soon as there is more information available. In the meantime, please continue manually syncing your Blaze trackers only when needed. This will help preserve the battery-life.

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Fitbit Update: 08/14/2017

Hi everybody!

Thanks for reporting your experiences with a rapid battery drain on Blaze trackers and your Android device - Samsung Galaxy S8/S8+. Our team is aware this is affecting Blaze users and they are investigating the root cause. I will update this thread when there is more information available. 

As a temporary workaround, turn OFF "Always Connected" and the "All-Day sync" features. Make sure to manually sync your devices at least once a day.

Thanks for your patience! 

[ThatsaFactjack]

Bluetooth 5.0 is not the problem. Personally I haven't had any problem with my 10 Bluetooth devices that I have synced to my S8+, so I can assure you is not your phone but the Blaze needing a software update. Bluetooth 5.0 is backwards compatible meaning it will work with all your old devices. Like I said before my Blaze is the only device having issues.

Fitbit customer service is a joke. All they do is follow a script every time we call and if that doesn't work then here is a new one. Seriously

If you want them to fix the problem contact them thought the fitbit app. In the google play store when you go to the fitbit app scroll to the bottom there is a option to email the people that work on the app and are on charge of compatibility.

Hope for a resolution soon. I'm tired of charging my Blaze every 2 to 3 days, that's with all day sync and always connected off. I'm gonna disconnected from my S8+ and connected to my Pc. 

[calecp01]

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@ThatsaFactjack wrote:

Bluetooth 5.0 is not the problem. Personally I haven't had any problem with my 10 Bluetooth devices that I have synced to my S8+, so I can assure you is not your phone but the Blaze needing a software update. Bluetooth 5.0 is backwards compatible meaning it will work with all your old devices. Like I said before my Blaze is the only device having issues.

Fitbit customer service is a joke. All they do is follow a script every time we call and if that doesn't work then here is a new one. Seriously

If you want them to fix the problem contact them thought the fitbit app. In the google play store when you go to the fitbit app scroll to the bottom there is a option to email the people that work on the app and are on charge of compatibility.

Hope for a resolution soon. I'm tired of charging my Blaze every 2 to 3 days, that's with all day sync and always connected off. I'm gonna disconnected from my S8+ and connected to my Pc. 

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Correct, Bluetooth 5.0 is not the problem, and I didn't mean to imply that. It is backward compatible. A Samsung moderator on their support board claimed otherwise at first, but then walked that statement back.
There actually is a problem though with Samsung's implementation of Bluetooth 5.0 on the S8 and S8+ as reported by many many users, even if you are not having any other issues yourself. I personally have audio stuttering over Bluetooth on all apps when connected to my Amazon Tap, Mini Cooper, and Denon Audio Reciever, and many other users have experienced the exact same issue, which a factory reset does not fix. Many others (not me) are reporting losing connection with Bluetooth devices on a regular basis. On the Samsung Community support forum, Samsung has confirmed there is a problem with Bluetooth on the S8 and S8+ that they claim they are actively working on fixing for the Samsung Experience release with the Nougat 7.1 release. They have not confirmed if this problem is also responsible for the battery drain issue on the Blaze yet.
So I am just saying, we do have a confirmed Samsung issue with Bluetooth specific to the S8 and S8+, therefore it might be a Samsung issue and not a FitBit issue. FitBit still has a responsibility to look into it and determine where the problem lies, but again, at the end of the day it might actually be Samsung's responsibility to fix, which means it will be a while. 

[Zrocck94]

My blaze worked fine with my s8 until the firmware update in April. After that, my battery started draining and lasting only 2 days. It's been documented on another post that the firmware caused a battery drain issue. But their support does not seem to care to acknowledge it. They sent me a new device and it has the same issues. And I have let them know this. Their response was to turn somethings off. That's a joke that I can't use a device due to their firmware screw up. I am going to check with my local store and see what my return options are and th possibility of switching to another brand. I need something that works.

[Jchaffin]

I just got my Galaxy 8+ and my charge went from about 5 days or more to not lasting the weekend. I contacted support and they told me I could purchase a new Blaze for 25% off since my warranty was up.

This isn't good Fitbit... 😞

[mbs_SE]

@TheAcornWarrior, because they are sending them to me..
But the last one I received did not finish the firmwareupdate, so It useless.. Can't do any changes, or sync.. Going back to my first replacement.

[Zrocck94]

Update. So they suggested I do 2 things. 

1 turn off heart rate monitor

2 turn off the all day sync.

the heart rate monitor off did not seem to have any affect. However since turning off the all day sync, I have gotten 5 days out of the last charge. So if you try that, it may work for you. It's not a solution, merely a work around. But at least it's working for keeping the battery around longer. I still feel it's an issue with the firmware update and wish the developers would look at it. But they seem to simply want to bandaid it rather than fix it. Sad.

[Scott_STL]

I was finally able to sync notifications and get everything working on the Blaze with the G8+ like I was with my Galaxy Note 5. But I am noticing serious battery drain on the Blaze watch.  I have not changed any features to the blaze but I have to put the screen brightness to "Dim" in order to last two days.  Previously I was getting 5 days easy.  

[08jgarcia]

Mine was working fine, syncing and with notifications but the battery was horrible.  I saw someone post here to that he deleted his blaze and resynced and it helped battery life. I did that and now NONE of my notifications work and Blaze isn't even showing up on my bluetooth list! Ugh! 

[Scott_STL]

I just posted on how to sync your blaze again. Check if that helps re-sync, but I already deleted the Blaze from fitbit and added it again and I am not getting a better battery life.

[Bb0910]

Oh man you so just figured out the biggest mystery ever for me. Ever since I got my s8 it had been choppy on playing music on my UE boom. Sometimes it works most the time it doesn't. Until the other day  it was 100% fine. It is because I turned off my all day syncing on my fitbit to save battery life, which did not help on my battery and now have not synched for 6 days...but hey my speaker works   (Oh by the way this is a replacement that fitbit sent me because I thought my fit bit was broke...nope still have to charge ALL the time)

[Zrocck94]

Updat. Turning the all day sync off and th heart rate off did finally give me 5 days. I actually could have gone more, but the rest of my week is busy with no time to think about this. 

So this is working for me currently. Give a try folks.

[calecp01]

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@Bb0910 wrote:

Oh man you so just figured out the biggest mystery ever for me. Ever since I got my s8 it had been choppy on playing music on my UE boom. Sometimes it works most the time it doesn't. Until the other day  it was 100% fine. It is because I turned off my all day syncing on my fitbit to save battery life, which did not help on my battery and now have not synched for 6 days...but hey my speaker works   (Oh by the way this is a replacement that fitbit sent me because I thought my fit bit was broke...nope still have to charge ALL the time)

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Hm - I tried turning off all day sync as well to see if that would fix the audio skipping issue, and while it seemed to be ok for a day or so, it did come back. Let us know if the same things happens to you, thanks!

[calecp01]

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@Zrocck94 wrote:

My blaze worked fine with my s8 until the firmware update in April. After that, my battery started draining and lasting only 2 days. It's been documented on another post that the firmware caused a battery drain issue. But their support does not seem to care to acknowledge it. They sent me a new device and it has the same issues. And I have let them know this. Their response was to turn somethings off. That's a joke that I can't use a device due to their firmware screw up. I am going to check with my local store and see what my return options are and th possibility of switching to another brand. I need something that works.

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Interesting - if anyone can test the battery drain with a non-S8 device that would be swell.

[allycat1964]

I am having the same issue with my battery and now wondering if this is why everything is carrying over from the previous day.  I woke up with nearly 9,000 steps, etc.  What the heck! 

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@mbs_SE wrote:

I changed phone, from Samsung Galaxy S6 to Samsung Galaxy S8 the other day, and after that Blaze "eats" battery like crazy. 

Is there any setting I have missed, or can do? 

Before I loaded the Blaze every 6-7th day, and now 1-2 day. 

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[Scott_STL]

I had the Blaze updated prior to switching from the Galaxy Note 5 to the Galaxy 8 plus.  The issue of battery life did not exist with the Note 5.  I would get 5 days easily on my Blaze with the Note 5. My Galaxy 8 plus is reducing the battery life to a day and a half.  I charge it every morning, while I am in the shower, just to make sure it doesn't die on me while I am out doing activities.  

All of the devices in question: Note 5, Galaxy 8 plus, fitbit app, and Blaze are all up-to-date.

[Johnny_Tapia]

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@Scott_STL wrote:

I had the Blaze updated prior to switching from the Galaxy Note 5 to the Galaxy 8 plus.  The issue of battery life did not exist with the Note 5.  I would get 5 days easily on my Blaze with the Note 5. My Galaxy 8 plus is reducing the battery life to a day and a half.  I charge it every morning, while I am in the shower, just to make sure it doesn't die on me while I am out doing activities.  

All of the devices in question: Note 5, Galaxy 8 plus, fitbit app, and Blaze are all up-to-date.

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Same here--my Fitbit Blaze was updated to the latest firmware PRIOR to me even purchasing the Galaxy S8+. Everything worked just fine on my Galaxy S6 Active, I was getting 5-7 days of battery life easily with All-Day Sync, Always Connected, and Notifications turned on.

[Clss1380]

My blaze hold a charge for a day and a half. Not sure it's any better.....

[Mall04]

My battery lasts 2 days max. This is unacceptable. Is it going to be fixed?

[Leachman74]

I'm glad to know I'm not the only one with this issue.  I didn't even realize that the s8 was causing this issue until seeing this post.  Sure enough since I've had the s8 +  I have been charging my watch every other day.

[ratcityrain]

So far everything has been working flawlessly, but like others have mentioned I do think the battery life of the blaze has decreased since going to the S8+ from the iPhone 7+

I had fully charged it last night and now it is half dead already. I have turned off all notifications (minus text, phone & calendar) and honestly haven't been very active today either so not sure how it could lose half it's battery life over night.

I will continue to monitor it, but just wanted to let others know my observation.