Charge 5 battery draining too fast

[SharleneH]

I have had the new Charge 5 for 2 days. The battery discharges within a day. GPS is off, the phone is not set to always on. In looking over the troubleshooting instructions from Fitbit, it seems that you essentially have to disable all of the features that were selling points of this device in order to get decent battery life. Even my ancient Charge 3 got 6 days on one charge! Has anyone with this battery problem found a solution other than disabling everything?

[SunsetRunner]

How’s your charge holding up percentage wise after your complete reboot/reset?

[GJT]

I got a replacement and it’s a max of 3 days with features turned off. 

to be honest I have give it to my wife and I’m back to the charge 4 I was interested to see what she thought of battery life not knowing about my original problem with the first device. 

only this morning she asked should she not be getting longer than 3 days ? 

we have done the resets but no different I will probably be returning this device as well. 

lost all confidence in the Fitbit brand and when I tell them that they take it as a  criticism and politely tell me u have the right to buy other brands!

I know that but wouldn’t it just be really nice to purchase a device as advertised. 

[shimsim]

Start of Day 4 after the factory reset (and prior multiple reboots, overnight charge, etc etc troubleshooting) I'm at 72%, that's 4 nights sleep + 3 full days. If I get past today without the sudden battery drop to zero it will be the best result I've had so far. Prior to this was getting 2 days, on one specific reboot I almost got 4 full days but then it went back to 2 days with the following charge.

Even if this does end up being a fix, this is not how a product should be working out of the box, it's been 2 weeks of troubleshooting. I didn't buy this to spend my time conducting experiments and scouring online forums for a solution, but let's see how this ends up, I still have a feeling it's going to rapidly drop on the last day.

[Charon]

I followed the steps with charger button, charged the device to 100% (before it could only be charged to 99%) and after 2 full days of use including 1 night of sleep it's 83%, which is great.

I only used exercises twice (walking with GPS set to phone) for about 30 minutes. Screen is set to automatically activate. 

[JuanFitbit]

Hi everyone. Thank you for your reports, feedback and efforts. 

As some of you are new to the thread, please have a look at this if you haven't done so: Can I extend my Fitbit device's battery life? You'll find a lot of useful tips there. We also recommend restarting your device using the 3 button press, see instructions here. 

If you don't see any improvement, please give a call or chat with us. Our team will be more than glad to have a closer look at your cases. 

Click here to get connected. 

In addition, the team is aware of a battery drain issue affecting some Charge 5 devices in which the built-in GPS chip may remain active after ending a GPS-enabled exercise and they've working on an update to fix the issue. Please note the following:

• If you use GPS to track your exercise, use the Phone GPS setting on your tracker to preserve battery life. For more information, see How do I use GPS on my Fitbit device?
• We’ll work to resolve it and hope to have a fix soon. Be sure to keep your Fitbit device and app up-to-date to ensure you receive the quickest resolution.

See you around. 

[shimsim]

One of us took the time to read through this thread and try suggesting things that have not already been done to death 😋 

I appreciate needing to tow the party line and ping in to direct customers to 'the solution' but please take the time to address those who have already made the effort of trying these basic troubleshooting steps. If it was as simple as restarting, the best answer posted 3 months ago would have negated the need for all these additional posts.

There are customers that are getting terrible battery life whilst hardly using the device (e.g. 30% drain overnight) and have already tried multiple restarts. Perhaps it is going to be some magical combination of restarting, resetting, charging overnight or whatever else, but it makes for a terrible experience and not what anyone who purchased this device should expect. 

[JuanFitbit]

@shimsim , Nice to see you back. Thank you for your feedback. 

My apologies if you felt that I hadn't address the users that already tried and performed the recommended steps. 

If you already have tried them and you don't see an improvement, please contact our team. Either via chat or call them . Please let them know what you already performed so that they know and don't ask you to repeat the steps, if not needed and move forward with the case. 

See you around. 

[StevieBB]

Mine is ok - got us each one each for Christmas.  After 2 days, and low use thus far (aside from the setup) its charge is showing as 81% GPS is off & screen is default so only minimal display times.  I thought this was pretty good.  My wife's however has the same settings & it doesn't last 24 hours before needing a recharge.  Just returned it for a replacement which I will watch very closely as there seems to be a systemic problem here with the battery life of the Charge 5. If I had known this I wouldn't have purchased them.

The online Help Chat took over 55 minutes and was extremely painful.  Their system couldn't properly print my return address for the postage label.  Really!!

Umm yes - Fitbit needs to improve its product AND its service.

[shimsim]

@JuanFitbit Thanks, yeh, I was trying to avoid the painful customer support, long wait time only to be told 'did you try restarting it' 

I'm fairly capable technically and would rather solve a problem myself, customer support is the last resort, plus I am kind of worried that returning this for a replacement is going to be a nightmare.

Cheers

[DominoUK]

I've had my Charge 5 for a few months now and battery life has been excellent, lasting for at least a week at a time before needing to recharge. (AOD off.)

Yesterday morning I was checking my alarms and noticed the display was very laggy. Never has been before but I didn't think anything of it. It was at about 50% battery.

Woke up this morning, a day later, realising my alarm didn't go off. Tried tapping the screen endlessly but the device wouldn't turn on. I connected the charger and it booted from 0% battery.

The last time it recorded any data was yesterday morning. It must have drained 50% of its battery within hours and turned off without me realising. I somehow went 24 hours without checking it.

I'm now charging it again and will keep my eye on it. Hoping this was a one-off but it has me worried this might happen again.

[StevieBB]

I hope you have good consumer protection laws. I do and I intend to enforce them when needed.

[Charon]

These laws can only be helpful for those having Fitbit officially represented in their countries.

I bought my device from Amazon, but via a forwarding company who delivers goods from US to other countries, so basically I don't even have any warranty because I cannot return the device.

[StevieBB]

Consumer laws are laws that are enacted in your country. Nothing to do with whether a company is represented there.  If you have weak consumer laws then I guess you need to call your local government rep or not buy stuff from untrustworthy companies and post the hell out of your poor experiences to shame them into better conduct.  Don't be silent.

----------------

Yes I am going through the return process now. As you predicted - a NIGHTMARE. A shambles. Pathetic. No-one knows what they are doing..... Let's see how they recover from this mess.

[Charon]

If a company is not represented in my country, no laws can help 🙄 But that's OK, I knew that when I was buying the device.

However, my next smart watch will probably be Suunto. They are truly professional devices, ship worldwide, and have global warranty as well. 

[Minidanjer]

"Can I extend my battery life" page basically says to disable everything and not use it for any actual activity. At that point, why even put the features in the device?

I have my screen set to manual on, you have to tap the screen. I use the Water Lock feature pretty much every morning that the thing isn't charging from zero because it died sometime overnight. Even with that, if the thing is at 80% battery before I hop into bed when I wake up it's at 12% or lower telling me it's dead. Charging it from zero to 100 takes about 30-40 minutes but the page says it takes 2 hours.

I will say that the reboot by pushing the button on the charger (as instructed by help chat) got me the longest stretch at three days. I've done that reboot three times and since then, the longest I've been able to get is 2 days. Weird because my Charge 3 would get like a week and a half even after being 3+ years old with a screen that was totally illegible outside of a dark room. Figured the latest and greatest would actually be the latest and greatest but it seems like a massive step in the reverse direction.

[mccarmon84]

I've tried everything to preserve the Charge 5 battery. Nothing works.  I'm sending mine back.  

[Charon]

Even the instructions with button on the charging cable?

[Thunderstorm93]

I just got mine on Tuesday and I’m having the same problem the battery drains to fast my charge 4 last for 6 days one one charge I’m trying to find a way to make the battery last longer 

[GJT]

Reset and turn all the features off 

[Thunderstorm93]

Even the heart rate off