Charge 5 battery draining quickly

[Carlybc]

I’ve had my charge 5 for about a year now. all of a sudden the battery isn’t lasting as long. It used to last me a week. Now it’s drained within a few hours. Anyone else having this issue? 

Moderator Edit: Clarified subject

[katam]

After several weeks of this my Charge 5 is dead.   It blinks the logo, but nothing else despite troubleshooting.  It went from working perfectly fine, 5+ days to a charge in early October (a few days before the Charge 6 was released and right when the phone app was updated) to suddenly requiring at least daily charging and then losing the display a week later.  So, I'm out of here, off to look at a Garmin.  Good luck guys.

[tomm8tx]

I have had mine for about a year too, i woke up this morning and it had 60% battery, just before 11am it went to 4%, so I plugged it up thinking it would charge and a reset would be needed, no big deal. Welllllllllll, the reality is that it dropped to 3% battery and has stayed at 3% while being plugged in for the last 3 hours. It did finally sync to my phone, but that is about all I could get it to do. I cleaned the contacts with a pencil eraser and whipped with an alcohol soaked q-tip, both the fitbit and the charger, but nothing seems to help. I am lucky as I did buy a 2yr warranty from best buy for it as I usually shatter them in the first 6 - 8 months and the replacement is worth it, but this one has lasted for a year without much physical damage, just software damage. Unless a moderator has a solution or knows one will be here soon, I'll be taking it back to best buy and upgrading to the 6. My firmware is 188.58, sooooo maybe the firmware update mentioned by @LizzyFitbit  will arrive soon?? hahahahaha...or maybe I go to best buy next week (no way do I want to go during black Friday week). 

[mic68]

yes it seems to be timed with the release of the charge 6.... seems we are being apple'd

[mic68]

seems to be timed perfectly with the release of the charge 6 , this happened with the charge 3, 4, and 5

[MomEMom]

Mine was getting better, not great. But since the new change to the app, it
is bad again.

[MarinaGomes]

The exact same thing is happening to my watch. The battery started lasting for 12 hours tops out of the blue. One day everything was great, I didn't change any settings and this just started happening about 2 months ago, when I've had It for about 10 months.

[Vivieke]

I don't get how there are so many of the same complaints and nothing is done. What can you do as a customer in this case? I feel cheated. This feels like it was some programmed device failure.

[EAllen63]

Same issue here. In October battery life dropped from 5-6 days to less than a day. Only difference being that my Charge 5 also continuously prompts me to add a card. It happens so often that the tracker is virtually unusable. Began around the same time as reported by others. I’ve tried every “fix” I can find online. It’s a shame because this was my first Fitbit and I absolutely loved it. I had been a long time Garmin wearer but had every intention of switching loyalty to Fitbit. No more! New Garmin arriving in a few days. User interface typically not as user friendly as Fitbit but they’re built to last.

[Hayleyb103]

Yes also having this issue, looks like a lot of charge 5 owners are experiencing this one year after purchase, funny that considering the warranty runs out after 12 months...this is my third fitbit, never again! May go over to Garmin! 

[Hayleyb103]

This is absolute rubbish, so many people have tried this or their settings are already off as per your suggestion. Fitbit should admit their devices have a short life span!

[Hayleyb103]

My cousin has a gaming and she loves it...fitbit are pretty rubbish now, obviously using substandard components! 

[tomscot2]

Several weeks ago my Charge 5 battery life went down to 36 hours. Sometimes I get the email warning, but most of the time the display is unresponsive. When I connect the charger the fitbit logo briefly appears and then it begins charging. If I disconnect the charger the charge indicator appears at 55%, but then the watch goes unresponsive. I connect the charger again and the Fitbit logo appears and charging begins.

I have had the watch since July of 2022. It worked perfectly until this behavior suddenly started. It seems it may have occurred with the app update.

If this isn't fixed soon, I too will be done with being a long-time Fitbit user and go to an Apple watch to sync to my iPhone.

[MomEMom]

My Fitbit started to improve, then, the app updated and the battery on my
Charge 5 went bad again. This is ridiculous.

[Jbk32958]

Yes...have had it about 2 years and my battery is draining from 100 to 20 in 3 hrs.

[Doug07]

I just went through the chat with the help desk. I did the contact cleaning with alcohol and the full charge. I contacted the helpdesk the second time and ended up with the escalation for some type of replacement deal that will be sent to me by email.

However, after checking my Fitbit Account for date of purchase, I realized that I had purchased the 2 year extended warranty. I would suggest checking your purchase account to see if you may have purchased the extended warranty. I am not so sure that Fitbit would mention it if I did not see it. 

[katam]

I just ordered a Garmin.  There are some great sales right now.  For about the same as I spent on the Charge 5, I got something a lot nicer.  Other reviews of the Garmins said they were converts from Fitbit bc they die so quickly.  It's not just that I hate spending the $ every year or two - it's the wastefulness of it going in the landfill so often.

[sCaribooGal]

I have only had my Charge 5 since June due to health concerns.

Since the beginning of Nov the charge went from many days to barely a few hours...  I can't imagine looking into any of the other products with such a short life span on the my first try.

From the other comments/replies, it appears that there isn't much support.

[Dissatisfieduse]

I had TKR two weeks ago. Charge 5 has stopped gathering data correctly AND maintaining its charge. I received it in April of 23. Last night it discharged completely.  No data saved. Further yesterday's data gone. Said synced 20 hours before yet it showed, prior to dumping the data, that I had 8k in steps. FitBit doesn't care.