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. 

[seandunderdale]

So, I did the " pressing the button on the UBS end x3 then you get the logo on screen the your Fitbit will restart"

Something has changed...My fit bit goes from 99% to 55% in the space of an hour...It is better than the 99% to ZERO in a matter of minutes...it is still useless. It is supposed to last a up to a week, and did so just fine before all this mess. 

I am not sure what the USB button has done, if anything at all, or if its just random chance that its behaving differently, but I still have a defunct product, made so by the very people who roll out the updates, and no fix in sight. 

Since writing this message the ironically named "Charge" 5 has now dropped to 52%. 

[Benny21]

Well mine is now just cycling from a blank screen to the logo and back again. Super happy with over price pill of 💩. The worst part of this is the utter lack of support or replacement from #fitbit

Seem like a knockoff Chinese garbage company but worse because there's would still work!

[tamarpac]

Hi Benny. Thanks for sharing your experience. Looks like we are all in a club with substantial membership.  After they "offered" me yesterday to buy a new unit at a discount, and which I refused, with the argument that Fitbit has the responsibility to fix this bug and NOT prompt people to spend more money on an evidently flawed product, I contacted the support chat again this morning expressing my displeasure with product and service. After reviewing they came back with the same offer to buy a new one with a discount, " and that was all they could do." 

I asked who makes that decision, and they replied that the person do the chat was the decision maker. So, I asked to speak to a supervisor, which prompted the answer that they would "accelerate my case" and that they would respond within 48 hours by email. 

Given my past experience, I am not expecting any compassionate answer, really, but I think that community pressure needs to be put on the company to FIX this problem for all, and now and not use it to further their sales quotas. 

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Thanks for sharing your experience. Looks like we are all in a club with substantial membership.  After they "offered" me yesterday to buy a new unit at a discount, and which I refused, with the argument that Fitbit has the responsibility to fix this bug and NOT prompt people to spend more money on an evidently flawed product, I contacted the support chat again this morning expressing my displeasure with product and service. After reviewing they came back with the same offer to buy a new one with a discount, " and that was all they could do." 

I asked who makes that decision, and they replied that the person do the chat was the decision maker. So, I asked to speak to a supervisor, which prompted the answer that they would "accelerate my case" and that they would respond within 48 hours by email. 

Given my past experience, I am not expecting any compassionate answer, really, but I think that community pressure needs to be put on the company to FIX this problem for all, and now and not use it to further their sales quotas. 

[Benny21]

Update, they thus far approved me for either 50% a new device which really are you kidding me!

Or a replacement. I chose replacement. It's under review will see if they process it and send me a new one because the charge 5 thats 8 months old is bricked.

[seandunderdale]

Im down to 12% battery since my last post....so yeh...thanks Fitbit for the software update!

[tamarpac]

Seems that whatever they did with that update is not a fixable situation, or they just don't care.....or it's really complicated. Recalls are routinely done in the auto industry. Maybe they can learn something from that process and find a fix. 

Hope they approve your replacement, which is the right thing o do.

[FitEva]

It's my second Fitbit Charge series, I got a Fitbit Charge 3 before and its
life also last for less than 2 years. Then, bought Charge 5 for replacement
but last for just a year plus few months. That means the life of Fitbit
Charge series is just equivalent to its warranty period and don't expect a
longer product life.
My strongest feeling on the battery issue this time is that the company is
irresponsible to its customers as all the fault was put on its customers
even it is obviously their fault.
They have destroyed their brand themselves. I just shift to another brand
and would not turn back anymore.

[Udy7000]

Mine has just died, after one last shower. The water may be related. I cloud be a weak sealing. It has exhibited the same shortened battery life in the past couple of months as the rest of you.

Right now there is no image displayed, and it starts a series of short pulses after connecting it to the charger.

[tamarpac]

Thanks for sharing your experience. Looks like all these problems with Fitbit are very wide spread and their response to the problem is nil. I for my part will not be coming back after two failures in 12 or less months. And after having gifted another two units, I expect their grateful recipients to be back in touch in the near future. That will make four. UGHH!!

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Thanks for your input FitEva. To hear your experience is troublesome, but seemingly that is a norm for this product. and I am surprised that there is not much more of an outrage about this out there. I don't know how many of these items they have sold, but the number has to be large, and one hears or sees nothing about this beyond this forum. Sad story, and I too will be moving on to a different brand. Certainly will not pay for a replacement at discount to be in the same spot  again in a few short months.

[Udy7000]

No problem. I gave them the whole price, at the start of Charge 5's existence. I expected a lot more. Almost exactly 2 years of use. There was a similar discussion about some phone manufacturers.

Fitbit expects to sell hardware or services? If they want to sell services, their hardware should last longer.

[jkterry]

Got the notification o the latest update. Never did it. Charged my Charge 5 to 90% yesterday. Within 6 hours it was completely dead! Within the past 2 weeks, it's been needing to be charged more often than usual. They pushed something through recently. Contacted customer support and did everything they said to. It's still dead. Waiting for my "warranty" email. I bought this thing 8/2/2022 to replace my old Charge 3. It's my 3rd Fitbit. I think it's time to go elsewhere.

[FitEva]

I never wear my Charge 5 in water or shower and it still gone with short
product life.

[mochahantas]

Same here

[seandunderdale]

I was waiting for the new Google Pixel watch to come out, and decide whether to get the Samsung Galaxy, or the new Pixel...but since it uses the Fitbit software, Im starting to rethink. Im feeling like I dont even want to use the Fitbit app / software at all now, even on the Pixel watch.

I feel like Fitbit came round my house and took a hammer to my watch. By pushing out a software update that breaks watches, its basically what theyve done. If it can be reversed, then they should let us know..but as is...most of us are just left in limbo with a broken watch, wondering what to do. This was all totally avoidable if theyd just left our f*cking watches alone.

[fargonia]

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@seandunderdale wrote:

I feel like Fitbit came round my house and took a hammer to my watch. By pushing out a software update that breaks watches, its basically what theyve done.

---

"Nice watch you've got there.  It'd be a shame if someone came around and ruined it."

The continued silence on this issue, as well as lack of any true remedy, from Fitbit is truly disheartening.  I have years of data in my Fitbit profile, and have been a Premium subscriber for years.  For that loyalty, this is what I get.  It would take a LOT to undo the damage of the past week, for me.

[Babypluto]

Yea same it only charges up to 99 and it was doing fine yesterday and the day before that that battery was bad too it died at 10:00 am and put it on at 6:00 am. Today I unplugged it, it was at 99 percent and when I unplugged it, it would not turn on so I don't think it's the watch I think it the update because someone I know has had there's for 3 years and has not had a problem.

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It's fitbit because the app lags I had problems when trying to sign up and now the battery.

[Briddy]

Same here. One minute fine the next the charge is lasting, if I am lucky, 2 days. It stopped recording my exercise and today It doesn't seem to want to charge up . Called fitbit and the advice was switch the app off and on and all the stuff they have said in the messages. Nothing has changed.

[tamarpac]

😱😱😱.... Certainly not getting another one, even with the paltry discount they offered. Time to look for new horizons. Too bad. I really liked that thing, as long as it worked, even so quirky at times. 

[Stevesqueak]

I have discovered that my short battery life was due to the ECG app constantly trying to install properly, This also caused the messages unable to update/install one or more apps, and the ECG app to fail to find phone. The solution was to uninstall ECG app.

Permanently uninstalling the ECG app which was also failing to uninstall for the same reason was achieved by resetting Fitbit and deleting Fitbit phone app at the same time, you then get option to cancel the install. This leaves the ECG app in the available to install state. 

battery life now at a normal 10 to 15% a day.

hope this helps some people.

it looks like an update broke the ECG app install, so needs a fix.

Regards, Stephen.

[tamarpac]

THANK YOU Stephen for this update. I had already given up on this, having tried everything possible to get their customer services/help to assist. One would think that Fitbit would be on this and provide a fix, since the problem seems to be fairly wide-spread. But from my experience, they don't care and their solution is to by a new one with a paltry discount.... after barely a year of function. 

In any case I would like to try to apply your process to see if that can rescue my now dead Charge 5, but have no idea what the ECG app is that  you are reefing to. Can you please elaborate for us dummies out here....  THANKS Again.