Charge 5 battery draining quickly

[naniman]

Hello,

Since updating the Fitbit app to version 4.23 on my iPhone a few days ago, I've noticed that the battery on my Charge 5 is draining rapidly—it depletes from 100% to zero in approximately five hours.

Is there a solution to this issue?

Thank you for your assistance.

Moderator Edit: Clarified subject

[MarreFitbit]

Hi there, @naniman. Welcome to the Fitbit Community Forums. Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I'm sorry to hear that the battery of your Charge 5 started draining after the update. I understand your concern, I will do my best to help you with this!

Since you mentioned that this started happening after the update, please try to logout of the Fitbit app and swipe off the active face on your phone and turn off the phone's Bluetooth, then hold the watch button for 10 seconds till it vibrates and the logo appears and wait for it to start. In this disassociated state the battery should last as before.

Nevertheless, please bear in mind that as all rechargeable batteries age, they deteriorate to some extent and an older device will need to be charged more often than a new one. The best way of minimizing this effect is to avoid deep discharges of the battery. To maximize the overall life of your Fitbit device's battery, ideally keep it between 20-80%.  Many people find that a daily battery boost works best ( e.g. giving it a 15 minutes charge while you are showering in the morning).

Using features such as always-on display and GPS require more frequent charging. If you turn on the always-on display, your Charge 5 will have a battery life of up to 3 days and if you also use built-in GPS continuously it'll have a battery life of up to 5 hours. For more information, see Can I extend my Fitbit device's battery life?

[RiekoC]

Hello @naniman 

When my Charge 5 started having rapid battery loss, I restarted and recharged my device multiple times over several days. As soon as I saw a rapid drop in battery, I restarted my Charge 5 and put it on the charger until it was back to 100%, often doing this multiple times in a day. Eventually, this process got my device "unstuck" and the battery went back to lasting 6-7 days. Although there's no guarantee that this will work for you, it might be worth a try.

[naniman]

Thank you very much for your support, @MarreFitbit.

Unfortunately, the suggested solutions did not resolve the issue with my device. Additionally, I attempted to determine whether the Charge 5 or the Fitbit app was the cause of the problem by killing (swiping out) the Fitbit app, disabling Bluetooth on my iPhone, and setting the GPS mode on the Charge 5 to use the phone's GPS, but the battery drain persisted.

I suspect that the battery in the Charge 5 may have degraded (it has been in use for one and a half years). However, I am still curious if there might be another cause, especially since the battery lasted for at least five days before the app update.

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Thank you for the advice, @RiekoC.

I will follow your suggestion and repeatedly restart and recharge my device whenever I notice a rapid battery drop. I'm hopeful this approach will help my device recover and extend its battery life as it did for yours.

[Skmiller]

I had this problem start happening 2 days ago. At the same time, my ECG quit working. I've tried all the troubleshooting things for both. Mine is still under warranty though, so I'm going to get them to replace it.