Bought my daughter fitbit blaze for Xmas and just couldn' get it setup/ charged then found what i think is a solution... Haven't seen any mention of this so thought Id post it to see if it helps anyone else. The charger I was plugging into was an adaptive charge samsung charger....I believe most usb wall chargers for mobiles are adaptive charge, fast charge, quick charge or whatever each company call it. Had absolutely no luck getting the blaze to charge using these, then I thought about it for a while and dug out an old usb wall charger from a old samsung mobile phone pre adaptive charge era plugged the blaze charge cradle thing in let it charge about 5 mins (it won't tell u it's charging just the fitbit log and setup link displayed). I then did the following...
1. Install fitbit app and turn on location on bluetooth ( I'm using android)
2. Setup/login to your fitbit account on the app
3. Take blaze out charger cradle hold the middle button on left of screen and bottom button on right of screen for around 10 seconds until the logo goes off and comes back on
4. On the fitbit app go to add new device, select blaze and when screen shows looking for tracker press the button on left side of the blaze screen
5. I then quickly put the blaze back into the charger cradle with it powered on to charge in the old style usb charger.
6. The pairing code will apear on the blaze, enter it on the fitbit app and within about 30 seconds it should connect and give the screen to run the software update....follow the prompts and wait around 10 mins keeping the blaze on charge during process.
SUCCESS!
Have done this now for 2 blaze devices that would not work.... both setup first time using this process and I used two separate old school chargers with no adaptive charge capability and worked both times. The charger you use is key...
To be clear my adaptive charger I used in the test that did not charge the fitbit blaze was 50-60Hz 0.5amp input and 9.0Volts 1.67amp or 5.0volts 2.0amp output (this is the adaptive charge as it can vary voltage and charge levels).
The old school charger I used looked identical but the input is 50-60Hz 0.35amp and output is 5.3 Volts 2.0amp. The inputs and outputs should be printed somewhere on your wall charger so take a look if you have the 2 different outputs listed its no good you want to get one with the single output of 5.3 volts / 2amp or less. This was the values on my chargers that worked but i believe 5volt would also be ok as well as 1amp or less outputs as i think the 9volts in the newer chargers is the actual issue.
From what i know Adaptive chargers use power and data cables combines I believe to provide more charge quicker to saturate the battery of modern devices then the charge slows to more old school rates of charge and voltage at around 80% up to 100% of full charge. So as the blaze is running on empty the adaptive charger puts out the higher voltage and charge to speedily charge the device and the blaze cradle basically says no thanks! Im no electrical engineer but i think laptop devices will also use power and data contacts on the usb connector to connected devices to charge them up and I believe the fitbit blaze is standard old school charge cable with no data cable in the chord looking at the charger cable as its pretty thin therefor i believe the cradle does not support fast charge or 9volt outputs hence many people not able to get a charge into the device as their charger will have this adaptive quick charge capability built into it. I think the newer chargers are supposed to be backwards compatible but im thinking possibly fitbit have added something in their cradle like a resistor or something that point blank stops it making successful contacts needed with newer chargers or laptop ports with adaptive charge capability possibly for safety from overheating or charging the device too quickly ruining it etc. When you think about it with the blaze uncharged the usb adapter will want to deliver highest voltage and charge to begin with like it's designed to but the blaze cant take it. Also where people say charging taking 24hr etc... with the old school usb charger I used it seemed to fully charge really quickly on both tests on the seperate devices for me so it seems if your adaptive charger does charge the blaze it will only trickle which is not enough to get you through setup. again I'd imagine there' some sort of safeguard on the cradle charger thing by design that' making it incompatible with adaptive chargers and causing the issues everyone is experiencing.
Hope this helps people get their blaze setup as I found it so frustrating until I realised what I believe the simple issue is which is a design limitation in the charger cradle. I think fitbit should know how theyv designed their products and realise this is the underlying issue and at the end of the day consumers paying the high cost for these products, fitbit should provide a working charger like most premium mobile companies usually do that is multi region compliant for US Europe and UK and fits in the box neatly...they companies can do it no problem so no excuse from fitbit about regional plug adapters complicating things or chargers taking up too much space. The blaze box is bigger than most samsung mobile device boxes and contains less and for the cost a compatible charger that plugs into the wall should be included and this would solve the complaints and dissapointed consumers.
Hope this simple fix works for you like it did for me if you have an old school non adaptive non quick charge chargers laying around!
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