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Charge 5 Experience and my Bluetooth issues

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‎04-13-2022 01:14

‎04-13-2022 01:14

Hi all,

 

I previously owned a Charge 3 and recently changed to the Charge 5 when the 3's screen got to the stage of being unreadable outdoors. 🤔 I just I would give my quick thoughts so far after a few weeks with the new device....

Overall - I really love the Charge 5. It's been easy to use and the LED screen is a breath of fresh air compared to the previous incarnations. I read a fair few people having issues with waking the screen but I must say I have had no such problems. I think screen waking can be quite personal and based on how you move your wrist when raising your hand to check your screen. As an example, my mother has a tracker from a different manufacturer and it drives her crazy as she can't ever get it to show her the time - yet when I put in on my wrist it wakes every time without issue. The double tap on the Charge 5 has also worked flawlessly for me so far. Fingers crossed it stays that way!!

All other features have so far worked flawlessly. Accuracy seems to be right in the range you'd expect for wrist worn devices - and remember their are never going to brilliantly accurate!! Heart rate and sleep tracking are major features for me and it does these very well.

I have the screen brightness turned down to 'dim'. Being honest I can't really see much difference at all between this setting and standard brightness, but it has stretched my battery life out close to 8 or 9 days at times so I'd recommend trying it if you haven't. I last fully charged my device last Friday - today is Wednesday and I have exaclty 50% battery remaning. Although I am a light user tracking maybe 3 or 4 specific workout sessions a week and don't use the inbuilt GPS as I always have my phone with me, I still think it's nice to have more battery life than advertised as it's usually the other way around!

I did and do have bluetooth connection issues. These are limited to anytime I want to manually synchronise my device with the app, or if I want to load a new clock face. I get continuous reptitive bluetooth connection warnings in the app saying the connection is lost. It then resets and repeats every few seconds ad naseum. However, this seems to be a proximity issue. As soon as I increase the distance between phone and device then it all behaves. I can even cause the connection to fail by starting with it stable and then holding the phone in the same hand as I wear the device on.

So if anyone has been losing their mind with the bluetooth issues try moving them apart and see if that helps. It's obviously not ideal and something Fitbit need to fix, but for me it is definitely proximity related - and not an unfamiliar problem to me from other bluetooth devices I've used in the past. Keepiong them a foot or two apart or more seems to do the trick If I need a sync, I just hold the phone in my opposite hand and keep my device hand by my side and it works every single time.

So - in summary, the bluetooth issues are there but I can easily work around them. Everything else makes me very happy and to this point at least I am extremely pleased with the Charge 5. 🙂

BK

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2 REPLIES 2

‎04-13-2022 06:57

‎04-13-2022 06:57

Hi NoddyPilot,

I just bought a Charge 5 (it replaced my Charge 2) and I ride my bike to work 4-5 days a week. I noticed in your post that your Charge 5 lasts 8 or 9 days... that's awesome! I was hoping that you could share some of your settings (like you mentioned about seting your display to Dim). I think some of the little things can add up to a longer battery life.

 

GP

Best Answer

‎04-13-2022 11:57 - edited ‎04-13-2022 11:57

In response to Gpolly1

‎04-13-2022 11:57 - edited ‎04-13-2022 11:57

@Gpolly1So I haven't really changed much from the default setup. Simply reduces the screen brightness to dim and otherwise left everything - such as screen wake and screen time out - all at default.

 

Aside from basic settings I have turned off all auto-recognised exercises - really cos I find them quite annoying actually!! But also because I play a lot of golf and my tracker would go crazy keeping an eye on me walking when I play!!

One thing which I do routinely though is log walks or golf after the fact rather than before I start - it might not make much actual difference to the battery life but I can see why it might help battery life if the tracker doesn't need to actively monitor or time anything. I just note the start time and end time of walks or golf - and then go into the app when I'm finished and add it in - with just the start time and duration - and then the Fitbit adds all the details by itself including steps, distance, heart rate details and so on.

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