Is battery life being compromised?

[delawareBirder]

I am one of the unfortunate ones who has updated to firmware revision 171 and needs to charge my device 4 - 5 times a day.  I have had numerous contacts with customer service and have been told to wait for the next firmware update to solve this problem.  I'm wondering if the battery life is being compromised due to the excessive amount of charge/discharge cycles.  I used to charge once per week, now 30 times a week.  I thought that battery life is determined by the number of charge/discharge cycles.  Is anyone knowledgeable in this area?  If the battery life is being compromised, my Charge 5 may be useless by time a firmware update is released to solve the problem that revision 171 created.  This is my third style of Fitbit I've purchased over the years (6 total), and at the way customer support is treating me, it probably will be my last.

[billion_steps]

going from 100% to <5% to 100% to <5% several times a day will make your battery age lightning fast, no need to take my word for it, you can read about it on the internet.

Ideally I'd charge the Charge 5 to 50% and then switch it off till the new firmware arrives, however the Charge 5 cannot be switched off, almost as if Fitbit wants it to slowly die in your hands.

Fortunately I'm not affected by the battery drain bug but if I was I'd probably go nuts

[y2kcrash]

I was told by the store where I bought my Charge 5 when I told them about my similar issue that they now to their customers recommended that is best to use a older style charging block ( = or > 1.5A)

Was told to avoid the newer higher V / A Fast charging blocks being issued  with new phones and tablets.

In their experience problems / compliants they are seeing seems to be related to the use of the  FAST charger blocks.

Are they right anyones guess but it is an awful small battery. 

Plus they said never over charge by leaving the charge  on long after it has reach full charge. 

ie: over night for example.

It is something that they also recommend to extend the battery life on you phone ( not to over charge) 

[delawareBirder]

I haven't changed my method of charging since I bought the Charge 5 in December of last year.  It's only with this 171 firmware version that I'm having the problem.  I'm going to call customer service again tomorrow, during a week day, and see if I get any better response.  I wonder what version of firmware they are shipping with replacement devices.

[billion_steps]

There's almost no electromechanical education provided through American public schools which gives ground for all kinds of absurd assumptions (a similar situation can be observed in third world african countries when it comes to modern medicine)

You cannot overcharge your fitbit device when leaving it plugged in, a 3A charger won't deliver 3 times the current of a 1A charger and the higher voltage of a fast charger isn't utilized by the fitbit device either, in other words the charger isn't the culprit here and buying a "weak" 500mA charger isn't gonna change anything for the better

[SunsetRunner]

You can't overcharge a battery but you can certainly heat one up badly by using too much charging current. Match the charger with the size of the battery. My laptop has a 7 amp charger for example. My Kindle uses .85 amps.

[Kiptoe]

All I did was reset mine and the battery worked way better 

[billion_steps]

See that's what's I'm talking about.

Your Kindle pulls the current from the charger, it won't suddently pull 10amps from a stronger charger just because the charger can deliver it. It's quite appalling that the majority of american consumers believe it to work this way, with such bogus knowledge I wouldn't feel comfortable using any household electronics either.

[SunsetRunner]

 I know what you're saying but... your rudeness is what's appalling.

[Sucharitra]

Dear all; I too would like to add that I updated firmware and my battery dies within 2 hours, what poor system this Charge 5!!!

Please help me.  Thank you.

[Talahthas]

There's no need to match your charger with the size of the battery as the charging electronics is inside mobile devices. What you plug into a wall socket simply is a power supply. The charging electronics of the corresponding device then regulates what amount of power is directed through to the battery while constantly controlling the battery status. That's why the last few percent of charge sometimes last forever: The charging electronics do what's called "tickle charging" to not stress the battery too much by generating too much heat.
To extend battery life as much as possible, you should keep it's charge between 10 and 90 percent. This is applicable for every Lithium battery.

[L07har]

This thread seems to be the most indepth on the charge 5 sync issue... so keeping it going with some more info for the next googler. 

I was able to re-sync my charge 5 without hard resetting by 'forgetting' the charge 5 in my Bluetooth settings (iphone). After forgetting the device - I went back into the fitbit app and 'synced'. It re-paired with the charge 5 (after I hit the okay button). 

All of my data (5 days worth) was saved. Hopefully this works for the next person with this issue too! 

[L07har]

The amount of charges a battery can take is finite so to answer your questions directly - yes it is being compromised by the faulty firmware (as was mine - the newest firmware fixed mine).

This is a Lithium-polymer (LIPO) battery. It is best stored at nominal voltage (3.7 volts from a range of 4.2 to ~3).. thats a little more than 50%. 

You most certainly can overcharge a lipo... just the charging device is designed to not do this. If it were defective it could... 

I am most certainly not a battery expert but, I use LIPOs frequently in several applications... a quick google on these batteries would give you more info than you would probably want.   

Basically tho - fitbit will say the loss of life expectancy of the device wasn't compromised in a meaningful way... which I'd agree