Charge 5 Battery Draining

[WMW66]

I have had my Fitbit Charge 5 for about a year and have had no issues. My battery life had been running 5-6 days. All of a sudden two days ago it is draining about 1% every couple of minutes. Needless to say that make it useless. I had made no changes to any settings. Any suggestions?

Moderator edit: updated subject for clarity. 

[kookwart]

Interesting 🤔. I also had a similar experience. I had to remind him that I had gone through all these steps with no positive results.

[KC_sunshine]

Haha good point 🤣

[Adutta]

Good job .. ya … They told me the same too .. Didn’t work .. they’ve promised a replacement after a lot of push ! Am very disappointed.. no .. disgusted ! The replacement has to come from China to India ( can you believe it?) and I need to update my KYC .. get my address proof updated so that this precious piece of cargo doesn’t get stuck in customs in India ..  India is a small country you see .. they don’t have spare stock in India !!!! make it so difficult that the customer thrashes the device out of frustration  which you did ! I will labour on … am gonna bust these guys in any relevant forum .. 

Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone

[WMW66]

My experience was completely opposite. The rep asked me if I had tried a
few things, which I had, then looked and apparently could see that my
Charge 5 had discharged in less than hour the day before and had a new one
sent. Must be the luck of the draw on the chat rep.

[Beccab88]

 

[PRT940]

Well, unfortunately, I am joining the battery-draining club. I've had my Charge 5 since last November, and had no issues with it until Wednesday. I used to be able to charge it every Sunday night, and even then it would have 20 to 30% battery left. But I went to check the time Wednesday night, and my Charge 5 was dead. Apparently the battery had drained an hour or two earlier. I charged it up to about 40 to 50%, and went to bed. It was dead again in the morning. This time I left it on the charger for a couple hours, and now I'm getting about 1 day battery life before recharging. I guess I'll have to reach out to support as well. Hopefully they fix this problem for the Charge 6, which is probably coming out in early 2023.

[Tootsie617]

I may also have joined the battery draining club. I charged my battery this morning. Now it seems that the tracker has stopped tracking steps, heart rate etc. All I have is a draining battery. I am recharging and then resetting. I'll write back later. THank you.

[PRT940]

I initially contacted Fitbit support (via chat) about the battery-draining issue with my Charge 5 on 10/1. They opened a case number, and said they'd track my battery life, and if the problem continued, I should check back with them. I did so on 10/8, and they sent me an email with an option to get a replacement Charge 5 or 50% off a different Fitbit device. I chose the replacement device. On 10/10 I received an email indicating that my replacement device had shipped. But as of this morning, 10/15, I'm still seeing an "Awaiting Carrier Pickup" status on the UPS site. This is the poorest customer experience I've ever had with Fitbit. And now I've had to get replacements for my last 2 Fitbit devices due to hardware/manufacturing issues, both after less than a year of normal, non-heavy usage. It might be time to start looking elsewhere. The Versa 4 and Sense 2 were both underwhelming. I'm liking the look of the Garmin Venu SQ2; hopefully it gets a big price drop before Christmas, so I can check it out.

Edit -- Apparently the USPS will be delivering a package from Carol Stream, IL tomorrow. Since I have nothing else on order,  I am assuming this will be my replacement Charge 5. It looks like it shipped on 10/10, so it appears that for some reason Fitbit gave me a UPS tracking number, but then shipped it via USPS and didn't give me that tracking number. 😕

[CFeost]

Had the same issue and had to do some digging to sort it out. 
Swipe down from the main screen and find settings. Check these settings, as changing them has vastly improved battery life: 

GPS-default setting will use battery

Swipe left to exercise menu. Change the following settings in each exercise to save battery:

Autodetect &Always on display. 
Before making these changes battery life was about 48 hrs. After making changes battery is at 65% after 4+ days. 

[CoffeePDX]

I have had same problem, the device eventually just dies - i am on replacement #4 - and it died last week.  Worked for a few weeks just fine and then went from100% to zero in about an hour - i went through full trouble shooting, charged for 2 days, updated firmware etc. - completely dead.  

I wish my old Charge 2 was still available.   I think this device was released too early.

[CoffeePDX]

replace

[PiyushIND]

Hi, 

Fitbit replaced my charge5 but again in new watch I am facing the same issue. The replaced watched worked properly 5 months and after that facing battery issue. I think the quality of the battery is very poor. 

[Anna2018]

I also have replace one and have the same issue with the replacement. I decided to replace with inspire 2 but this very sub par and driving me nuts. I’m completely ditching Fitbit and going to Apple Watch which I have been holding off on. Fitbit has completely lost me. 

[katbird52]

Mines is less than three days old and been charged 2 times is almost dead again. 

[Mmo83]

Mine too..not sure why

[Jason425]

If it happens again (did to me) and you are out of warranty at that point, you're out of luck. I'm giving up on Fitbit now.

[FeaT]

That's good to know if I can get someone to answer phone!

[Jason425]

Try live chat

[Sunflower7447]

I bought mine June of 2022 and mine just did the exact same exact thing. Coincidence…I think not! I’m sure some update caused that to happen so people have to purchase a new one! Well…you just lost by business FitBit because 1 year max time on a battery that isn’t supposed to be switched out for new is not efficient or affordable. 

[BobbyMcGee]

That solution does not work in this instance.