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?

[GDSchulz]

Same for me. Thought that restart after charging was the miracle cure
because my Charge 5 still had plenty of power left after 6 days. But
charged it to 100% again without restarting and this time It's back down to
26% after less than three days. This *does* seem like a firmware problem
rather than a battery problem, which is the good news. Charging to 100%
again now and will restart again after that, hoping for the best.

To those whose battery was DOA straight out of the box: This
restart-after-charging workaround probably won't help you. Turning off
SpO2 or other features probably won't help you either. I keep SpO2 on
constantly (always have) and I still get most of a week easily when the
product is working right. Dunno about GPS. I use my phone for GPS based
on postings here before I even bought this tracker. Also, make sure when
you finish an exercise session that you completely exit out of the exercise
app. I forgot to scroll all the way to the bottom of the stats once and
press DONE at the end of a WALK, and I think that cost me excess battery
drain on that occasion.

Other than that, now that I have evidence that the battery's fine, I
eagerly await this firmware update that's supposedly coming.

[Bunchadogs]

After wiping the data from my Charge 5 and just leaving it unpaired the battery only drained 1% in over two hours. 

Like GDShulz said - there seems to be plenty of evidence that it is not really a "battery" issue and more likely a battery drain issue.

Watching the Bluetooth connection "waffle" back and forth lead me to believe there is a compatibility issue - whether it's Fitbit firmware / software or iPhone software or a combination of both. I've really tried to be patient with Fitbit because I understand the issues they face with different platforms / hardware / OS / etc.

One other thought I had - in a previous thread a Fitbit tech support blamed the battery drain on communication between the Charge5 and the phone.

I wonder if the user account / associated data has any affect?

I've had the same Fitbit account for many years, going through a variety of different devices.  I'm also a heavy phone user - with hundreds / thousands of emails per day, dozens (even hundred during conversations) of MMS messages...calls, voice mail notifications...

In the past few weeks I haven't used my Fitbit as a fitness tracker at all - obviously it can barely handle a few hours away from a charger - so it's definitely not GPS or massive fitness tracking / walk / run / bike tracking!

I can just imagine if the device had an issue syncing data and was constantly trying to send an entire "bucket" of data back and forth it might have a drastically different battery life.

Moderator edit: format

[Sled483]

And here in lies one of the problems. I'd love to follow your suggestion. But they won't allow it. I've been using fitbits since according to my dash board 2016. I've purchased at least 8-10 devices from them. For myself and as gifts. I really liked my charge 5 until this issue happen. I purchased mine in November of 2021. This battery issue is new for me. It started about 3 weeks ago. I've done everything that has been suggested. After charging it 100% and restarting it does seem to give me a longer battery life. Like everyone else has said and I've said multiple times, this is an issue for their tech team to fix. Someone in Customer Service or a moderator should know about this discussion and they should be addressing it and reassuring us they will fix it. Not by having us turn every function off. Not by having to restart every time we charge it. Admit there is an issue and address these comments in this forum. 

[GDSchulz]

Sled483, THANK YOU for that very interesting reply. We now have a smoking
gun! I too got my Charge 5 last fall (October). The battery life had been
excellent until (wait for it...) about 3 weeks ago. The week of April 24
to be exact. Up until then I had been getting easily 6+ days on a charge.
There's been no firmware update for months,

Some chronology:

On Wednesday April 27, my Charge 5 refused to sync with my Android phone
just before I went to bed. In the morning I discovered the battery was
completely dead only 3-4 days after last being fully charged. I charged it
back to 100% and found I had lost 26 hours of data. After that, I found I
was getting only about 3 days on a charge. I assumed it was a battery
problem.

I still have my Fitbit Premium membership. And a week later (on May 5) I
got an unsolicited notification from Fitbit advising that they had enabled
a new feature on my Charge 5 to monitor my heart rate for symptoms of
Afib. The processing would be completely offline and I didn't have to do
anything but wear my Fitbit to bed (which I do anyway). Of course, this
could have been just a coincidence. But the timing is awfully suspicious.
Whatever they did to enable the new feature they must have done in the days
before May 5. Did they have to switch something on in the tracker? Did
they update the Android app to send in more data? Who knows?

I spent the next week wondering what to do about the apparent battery
problem, until I saw the recommendation here to restart after charging to
100%. I did that and my battery usage went back to normal. I got 6+ days
again during that week. Then I charged back to 100% this past Sunday,
WITHOUT restarting, and usage dropped back to 3 days again. So I charged
back up yesterday to 100% (from 26%) and restarted again. Today, I am
happy to report, the battery drain has been excellent again. Now 24 hours
after charging, Fitbit is still indicating 95% battery.

So we have a distinct pattern. I can't be sure the Afib monitoring feature
is to blame. But the battery problem and the Afib feature are both brand
new. So I'm suspicious. Whatever; I now have very high confidence that
the excessive drain problem — whatever it is — is not the battery. It's
either something in the tracker's firmware or the Android app. The
workaround is to restart after charging to 100% and hope for a software or
firmware update soon to fix it.

That's all I know.

[Webber1998]

I was having this issue with my new charge 5.  If I manually restart from the charge 5 display every night I get the advertised battery life.  While not 100% ideal it works very well and overall happy with the device 

[malbers75]

I’ve had mine since December 2021 and have always had an issue. It seems to be worse when I have to use the “dynamic” gps since I cannot get my phone to connect for gps exercises. 100% charged Wednesday night and down to 40% this morning after 2 walks with dynamic gps. Anyone have any good tips to have the phone gps connect without having to try 20 times and 5 minutes of trying? 

[Bunchadogs]

For some reason I've never been able to get the 100% + Reboot to affect my FitBit.

I did get it to last for almost 3 days when I removed the device from my account and "forgot" it from my phone's Bluetooth list.

However, as you said it really doesn't seem to be a "physical" battery problem, there is something else going on!

[tcat007]

One more issue.  I've had the C5 2 or 3 months now.  I was very happy the 1st month or two.  Battery was lasting 10-14 days.  A while ago I decided to take a walk and use the GPS feature.  I only used it once for a walk, but ever since battery loses 35-50% per day.  I've restarted and doesn't help.

[Wolf4me]

Just got mine 2 days ago and did the same thing.  I let it deplete to 0% then recharged it and rebooted it.  With all the stuff on now, it's dropped 3% in half a day.  Sounds like it's software related.  Something in the background was depleting it.

[tcat007]

6% per day seems very good, that's more than 14 days.

[GDSchulz]

Yes, it's interesting. It's been almost 4 full days now since I last
charged to 100% and then restarted. Fitbit is still indicating 70%
charge. This is as good as I've seen during the 7 months I've had my
Charge 5 and about what I'd come to expect prior to 4 weeks ago when the
battery drain problem started. So it's clear: There's nothing wrong with
the battery. Either that, or it's lying to me about its current state of
charge.

My Charge 5 has been on my wrist continuously since last charge. I will
confess that I've not used any of the exercise apps during that time. It's
just been tracking my daily routine and sleep. SpO2 is on, GPS is set to
phone, and I'm opted in to the Afib monitoring. Heart rate on, heart zone
notifications off. Other settings all default. Health Metrics are all
working, except for HRV which is sporadic.

Whatever caused the severe battery drain to begin 4 weeks ago, it's
apparently a software problem. The workaround is to charge to 100% and
then restart. I'm willing to be proven wrong, but that's my experience.

[shimsim]

It might work for you, I hope it does but its likely to happen again. I tried pretty much everything that newcomers to the now 40-page thread are suggesting. Unless Fitbit releases an official fix, it's either going to happen again or not work for everyone. Even if you do get a steady and reasonable battery drain after the full charge and reset, you might get a sudden and unexpected drain. Best to monitor the results for a few full battery cycles to be sure and even then, it might still randomly happen.

[GDSchulz]

Thank you for your reply. Yes, it *did* happen again when I failed to
restart after charging, and the "remedy" also worked again after
restarting. I now know the drill. Like everyone else, I am eagerly
awaiting that next promised firmware update that is supposedly coming..

[7028]

Same problem here.  First it stopped tracking.  I was able to reset it and the tracking works but the battery dies after several hours.  GPS set to phone and screen is manual.  I’ve only had this watch for six months.  Very frustrating.

[JBerry2012]

Looks like get to join the cool kid battery drain club...this is ridiculous.

[ChrisB1966]

Hello Again Fitbit Moderators,

Any news on the 'fix', without a proper solution soon my intention is not to renew my premium membership and move to a competitor's product. 

[rrrzzz]

I am having the same battery issue as others here including @Jopaggio. Can someone from Fitbit provide an update on progress towards the proposed firmware fix?

[FarmGirlMcD]

So… is this a code bug that will be fixed with a patch (I have seen this mentioned but but by anyone “officially from FitBit) Or is the only something to try to turn everything off and restart? Because I’ve tried all that and I’m still losing 100% battery in a 24 hour time span. Plus, I want to actually use the features. I’d just like some realistic direction in if a patch is coming or if I should exchange this device. 

[weishein]

All these complaints within the Fitbit community, it's not going to be as effective as we, the Charge 5 user, hoping for. If only all these can be view by the public, as in by those who hasn't bought this faulty product. Fitbit might put a bit more urgency into solving this issue. Right now, it's only among the community who already bought the product.

[Bike-man]

The community here is great and Fitbit should be grateful to those who show an amazing amount of patience and perseverance as the promised firmware patch is created.  
I would like to suggest that all those who have reported an issue with their Charge 5 be given at minimum a full year of premium at no charge.  
WHAT DO YOU SAY FITBIT?   
Oh, BTW how about letting us know the expected timeline on the FIX.