soldermonkey,
The "conspiracy theorist" in me (a small part, mind you, but there LOL) would tend to agree with your statement.
I have a Blaze that had the stuck thermometer symbol display. I fixed that. But in doing so, also noticed the charging pins on the back of my Fitbit are developing the "holes" others have also noticed. For $15 online I found a Blaze whose battery is showing dead, which came with the charger cord (we could use another one) plus Blaze & holder. I just wanted the back for my Blaze, but before I do that, I figured I'd do some snooping with the unchargeable Blaze.
I'll be adding to this post, but as of 8/1, what I found out is the battery on the Blaze showing that it needs to be charged is at a healthy, 3.8 volts. It's nominal voltage is 3.6, so the battery is not a problem.
I desoldered both leads of the battery to see if a complete, hard reset would cure the problem. I waited about 10 minutes and resoldered the battery back on, and no difference. Same behavior.
I desoldered the battery once again, and this time noticed that there was over 1/2 volt on the terminals to which the battery connects. I shorted these points out, and eventually got that residual voltage down to under 10 millivolts. I was hoping that perhaps there was a circuit that was remaining powered and keeping memory alive in the watch. By completely discharging this, I thought that possibly this would completely wipe the memory in the watch. Long story short, it didn't make any difference. When I resoldered the battery, it exhibited the same behavior. Mind you that the battery is continually showing over 3.8 volts.
I removed the battery once again and will tinker with it a bit more at my next opportunity.
My next plan is to connect a 3.6V power source to the Fitbit Blaze in stead of the battery to see if that solves the problem. If it does, then it's 99% certain to be a battery problem. If it doesn't, that means it's something else in the watch, and possibly a software problem.
For those who might not be aware, batteries are pretty complex little critters in most computer controlled devices. They usually include a circuit which helps with charging & discharging and general info about the condition of the battery. It is possible, and I've seen it happen many times, that the battery cells are 100% functional, but this circuit fails. It can either prevent charging, or, I've also seen it fail where it reports to the device that the battery is drained, even though it is 100% functional.
I'm beginning to wonder if this might be the case with the Blaze's that are having this issue. That charging control circuit reports it's status to the watch, which is obviously running software. So if something messes up the code that reads what the charging circuit is reporting, the watch can "think" the battery is dead and therefore, behave like it's dead.
All of the above are just conjectures at this point, but I hope to be able to come up with some more conclusive theories in the next couple of days, and will update this post.
The fact that many of these charging issues/battery failures seem to have occurred after a recent "update" has been pushed out is particularly coincidental. Was it done on purpose? One would think they wouldn't do that, especially since Apple got caught purposely slowing down their older mobile devices with software "updates" to hasten people to buy newer devices. Would Fitbit stoop to similar tactics? I'd like to think they are above that.
But if they didn't do it purposely, then they should stand behind their product and admit that some bad code was circulated and step up and replace people's devices free of charge. That is what a company that wishes to maintain their customer base would do. Again, it remains to be seen if this was software related. Hopefully we'll find out soon.
~Rick
