Charge 5 Battery Life Gone

[Phdrunningchick]

I have tried searching for this topic and seached for how to turn off autosync on the IPhone app. Can't find it. I've owned a Charge 5 for less than an year and have had great battery life until in last week. Overnight it was lasting for a week to draining in 36 hours. I have no clue what happened or what settign might have been changed accidentally. 

Moderator edit: updated subject for clarity. 

[Odyssey13]

Hi @Phdrunningchick  auto sync is by default and we can't change it. The only other thing you could do is to log out of the app, but then you wouldn't get notifications of texts or calls. Read this article on extending your battery useage.

[Hollyish6]

I agree with you. My charge 5 is less than 6 months old. It was lasting five or more days on one charge up until a sudden change yesterday when it died unexpectedly. I've since charged it three times. Twice today I've charged it to full and it's drained back down to fully dead. I haven't made any changes to my settings. There was a firmware update that I performed today while it was plugged in, I thought perhaps that would help it, but it hasn't.

[Phdrunningchick]

I going to attempt to do a reset on my Fitbit tonight but to see if that helps. Then I might attempt to return it since it’s less than a year old. This is the first time with any Fitbit I’ve own that has had this issue. 

[rockfruit]

See other posts regarding battery drain issues with Charge 5 after firmware update 1.171.50 started in July 2022, some got the push update reminder and installed it around first week of Dec 2022 which raised a lot of complaints from Charge 5 owners that battery lasts in less than a day. The new pushed firmware 1.188.58 didn't fix the issue as we thought it would have or part of the fix because of the timing of the release when all these issues/complaints kept cropping up, but moderators are saying that recent update is for something else. Hopefully, they will come up with an update to fix the battery drain issue.

[Phdrunningchick]

Thanks for the link to the article. I’ve tried everything and my Fitbit makes it less than 24hrs before the battery drains. I’m wearing an expensive watch that needs to be charged everyday at this point without any perks of why I bought it

I’m hoping they fix it soon too. At this point it’s a hassle to deal with charging the watch. If I replace it. I’ll choose a nonFitbit product 

[Ique]

It's not just you. I charge my device 100% and the battery drains in just 1 hour. This malfunction started  after firmware update 1.188.58 this week.- I started wearing charge 5 eight months ago, too early for battery failure

[DavideFitbit]

Hi everyone, thank you for sharing that you've been experiencing the same problem with the battery that is draining too fast. 

Before considering other options, please make sure that you've exhausted all the troubleshooting steps in this article to improve battery life in general. The Charge 5 should have a battery life of 7 days, and although battery life is affected by use or other settings and actual results may vary, it shouldn't last for only 1 or 2 days. Some of the feature that can drain the battery more rapidly are: 

• Built-in GPS (Charge 5 can have a battery life of up to 4 day when using this feature regularly, or up to 5 hours if you use it continuously).
• Always-on display (Charge 5 can have a battery life of up to 3 days when using this feature). 
• Using an Spo2 clock face (Fitbit points out in this article that you may have to charge your Fitbit device more often when collecting SpO2 data).

If you already followed the recommendations to improve battery life, considering how some features affect it, and you still consider the battery is draining too fast, I recommend that you reach out to our Customer Support team for further assistance. The best way to get help for this problem is to chat with us online or give us a call. Click here to get connected. 

See you around. 

[Ique]

I reinforce the comments and complaints. There are many devices that experienced battery failure after firmware update. This is not a simple coincidence, this is not one's user device specific problem, this is an issue that has to be solved by Fitbit as soon as possible.

[Phdrunningchick]

Thank for the tips. These did not work. Like many others have said FitBit needs to acknowledge this issue and give a timeline to fix it. Garmin and apple products are looking more appealing right now. Being a Fitbit user for 7 years I’ve let coming back to up grade my  Fitbit over the years never second guessing the quality of the products. Now I’m loosing faith that Fitbit is making quality products or willing to admit when mistake happen. 

[DavideFitbit · Accepted solution]

Hi everyone, thanks for sharing all your comments and feedback about this.

It seems that other users had a similar experience after the update. I've sent this information to the team so they can look into it, but we haven't received any other updates for the moment.

In the meantime, if you already tried all the troubleshooting steps suggested earlier and you're still having the same problem, I do recommend that you continue the communication with the Customer Support team so they can provide you with the next steps. I've been informed that some of you already have a case created and that you have received some instructions. You can click here to get connected. 

See you around in the Community. 

[Ique]

Hello, I have tried to factory reset and restart the device many times without success, but exactly 3 days ago the battery suddenly returned to normal and now it is working fine, consuming  just 10% of the total charge a day.

As the Customer Support could not solve my issue in this period, I bought a new device and when I was about to discard the "old one" ( just 8 months of use) it decided to come back to life.

With no new firmware or app update in this period, I can't imagine what reversed this issue.

[DavideFitbit]

@Ique Thanks for sharing this update! 

It's good to know that your device started working properly again. Let me know in case you continue to have the same issue. 

See you around in the Community. . 

[cjcj12]

I am also having issues with my battery life. My fitbit is only 6 days old and won't stay charged for more than a day and a half.... I have already followed all of the steps to extend the battery life and it did not make a difference..

[Phdrunningchick]

I finally reached out to FitBit via Facebook messenger. They walked me through their process of resetting my FitBit, charging it, monitoring the battery life. It did take 2 days but they also saw the issues I was experiencing and offered me replacement. Good Luck, it was frustrating to experience but I’m happy to say I’m looking forward to my replacement FitBit. 

[Mrs.Marsh]

Agreed. Same issue all of a sudden. My Fitbit usually lasts a week & I like wearing it to bed to track my sleep but I can’t even wear it for a whole morning now without it going from 100% to 0%. It’s definitely the update & Fitbit needs to get this fixed. Why own an expensive smart watch that is rendered useless after a couple hours??? In the last 10 minutes, it’s gone down 6% which is unacceptable. 

[mattiaslundblad]

Was about to buy a charge 5 but then I found this post and thread, thanks! Will look into competing products 

[DavideFitbit]

Hi everyone, thank you for confirming that you're still experiencing this inconvenience with your Charge 5 and that you already tried a few troubleshooting steps.  

In this case, if you're new to this thread or if you already tried all the steps mentioned here earlier to improve the battery life in general and you continue to experience the same problem, I do recommend that you continue the communication with the Customer Support team for further assistance with this. They will let you know about the next steps. You can click here to get connected.

See you around in the Community. 

[Phdrunningchick]

I looked at other products and really considered an Apple Watch. The need to charge it daily is a huge drawback to my lifestyle. The replacement Fitbit offered is working great in terms of battery life. 

[DavideFitbit]

@Phdrunningchick  That's good news, thanks for sharing that your replacement device is working properly!