Charge 5 GPS continues to drop in/out as I exercise

[brandon05w]

After my Garmin bit the dust I decided to go back to Fitbit as I enjoy the challenges and community. I have owned Fitbits in the past but none with built in GPS which is the main reason I bought the charge 5. Unfortunately, the GPS never connects until after I start my workout and it continues to drop in/out as I exercise. This is very frustrating and I feel like I have wasted my money on a product that doesn’t do what was advertised.  I’m very disappointed in Fitbit for releasing such a poor product.  Maybe the Sense or the Versa would have been a better choice?  Can anything be done about this GPS issue? I’m extremely let down.

Moderator edit: subject updated for clarity

[DavideFitbit]

Hi, welcome back to the Community forums, @brandon05w.  

Thank you for sharing all your feedback and this information about the trouble you've been experiencing with your Charge 5.  

Before considering other options, make sure to follow the steps suggested in this article. All devices with GPS sensors require a direct path to GPS satellites to calculate location. A weak GPS signal might affect the accuracy of your route and other activity data. Your device uses your step count to calculate distance until it finds a signal, so the total distance calculated for a workout may be slightly less accurate when GPS isn't available for the entire time. In particular, please make sure of the following: 

• That you are  in open sky and moderate trees
• Adjust how you wear the tracker when you want to use GPS 
• Make sure the Location in your phone settings is set to Always or All the time for the Fitbit app (if you're using connected GPS)

If you continue to experience the same behavior and your GPS is getting disconnected, make sure to try following the steps listed in this article to complete a three pulse restart (using the charging cable), as this has been useful for other users experiencing something similar. 

Thanks again for all your feedback and comments about the product. 

I'll be around. 

[Runtime]

Having the same issue but it’s very erratic. Some days flawless - the the very next day it drops halfway through my run

really frustrating 

watchband is fit the same way - never had this issue with my charge 2 regardless of the weather 

it can’t just be a “point to the sky” problem

any other ideas?

[StefanH]

Also have GPS problems all the time. Run every week the same route. Sometimes he records what but mostly comes out only junk. If the display already brings a GPS message I know that the data is unusable. I have the C5 removed the notification after 3 weeks, because it vibrates every 400m. Also, at night the light always came on when you moved. Now I wanted to activate the function that I get a notification every kilometer to estimate the distance. However, most of the time the GPS fails and in the end you only get nonsense displayed. Actually, I was happy to run without a cell phone, but so really mature is not yet with the C5. I had so many Fibits before but this one is just annoying. The usual ways with Rset and resync I have tried everything already.

[DavideFitbit]

@Runtime @StefanH Thank you for confirming that you already tried all the troubleshooting steps suggested and that you continue to experience the same issue with GPS. 

In this case, since you already tried the steps shared in the forums to improve accuracy, I do recommend that you get in touch with the Customer Support team for further assistance with this. They will let you know how to proceed. 

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. 

[Runtime]

I actually reset the watch to “dynamic” and the issue resolved - it means I have to run with my phone but it’s no longer dropping the gps

Thx for the suggestion

[StefanH]

@DavideFitbit: I tried a lot of things, but I am going to give up! The Link you provided is just for Twitter?!? Do you can provide a support option mainly in German what I can contact? If you don't want to offer here you can send me an email. Thanks in advance Stefan

[DavideFitbit]

@Runtime Thanks for sharing this update and for confirming it's no longer dropping the GPS, that's great news! 

@StefanH Thank you for confirming that you already tried all the steps suggested. In this case, I've gone ahead and sent your information to the Customer Support team for further assistance with this, so you should be getting a reply soon in German. 

Have a good day. 

[StefanH]

Thanks in advance, hope to get a solution for my problems.

[DavideFitbit]

No problem, @StefanH! 

Have a good day.  

[StefanH]

@DavideFitbit: Sent a couple of Emails to Support  Ticket #46973842, but did not get any response back. Can you see why?

[DavideFitbit]

@StefanH It seems that your case is still being reviewed. 

It can take around 48 hours to receive a response from Customer Support sometimes, but you should be receiving a reply soon. 

See you around in the Community! 

[Rkrkrlrl]

just bought charge five and the hos wouldn’t work then I changed some settings and it still wouldn’t work but the issue was that it just took forever to connect and when I connected I was excited but I soon found out I was terrible it always disconnecting and reconnection and even if it’s the connected the whole time very rarely will this happen I go to view the route and it’s messy and shows that I’m on the main road but I’m actually 2 streets away from the main road it’s not gos in new technology mand smartwatches have this feature and Fitbit has had it for 2 generations of watches 

[Runtime]

I did fix this by turning the dynamic gps on in setting so it uses my phone if the watch drops the signal

However - I’ll still have issues from time to time so seems a bit less reliable than my charge 2 which was 100% stable

I just lost half of my ride the weekend which was kind of a bummer