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?

[OKmamaJ]

Honestly, considering all the problems I've had with my Pixel 6 Pro, hearing that Google is behind them now makes me trust the hardware LESS.
There's a "known issue" that has been an issue since APRIL that results in my data speeds being less than 1mpbs. STILL waiting on our firmware update to fix it.

[ChrisB1966]

Hi,  Just an update that may help those who think the problems gone away because it behaves okay for a few weeks. After going 4 to 5 days before it was worth recharging for a month or so my Charge 5 has now run down from full to 15% warning within a day for the last 4 days. No workouts or anything different than before, fortunately it's during the day and not night otherwise I'd lose the nighttime monitoring - which is the only task left that's even remotely worthwhile. I'm pressing the reset button, but to be honest I'm thinking it has made it worse as I did not need to do that when it was working okay.

[DavideFitbit]

Hi, welcome to the Fitbit Community forums, @Dammers. 

I appreciate the information provided about this issue with your Charge 5. 

It seems that you already tried all the basic troubleshooting steps shared in the forums to try to resolve the problem with the battery draining too fast. As you mentioned earlier, the team is working to fix the issue with the GPS chip affecting battery life with an upcoming firmware update. 

However, not all battery problems are related to the GPS chip problem. Please keep in mind that some features make the battery drain faster than usual, like Always-On Display or tracking SpO2 data. Make sure you've also tried the these steps if you haven't done so already:

• Try restarting your tracker by connecting it to the charging cable,
• Open the Fitbit app, pull down on the screen to force a manual sync and monitor its behavior in the next days.
• If you use GPS to track your exercise, use the Phone GPS setting to preserve battery life. Make sure to keep the Charge 5 and the Fitbit updated to the latest version available. 

If you already tried all these steps and you're still having the same problem, it will be necessary that you continue the communication with the Customer Support team so they can let you know how to proceed. Thanks again for all the feedback and comments provided about this so far. 

See you around. 

[drewski]

The reset button in settings didn't help, but using the button on the charge cable did (3 presses, 1 sec apart)

[Sunshine908]

Glad it worked for you. I’ve done that several times-not so lucky. As I said I’ve spent several hours on the phone with the representatives going through each and every application on the phone dismantling everything rebooting everything etc. nothing is working.

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[Dammers]

Thanks Davide for your prompt reply. 

I never use Always on Display, I have always had my Fitbit set to use Manual Wake-up. I am not tracking SpO2 data.

I got only 9 hours out of the battery yesterday (from fully charged to completely drained) but the Fitbit wasn't functional at all. I wasn't checking the time on it or tracking workouts, so just lying dormant I only got 9 hours.  

[Magnus1973]

Hi Davide,

I have the same problem, I purchased the charge 5 -  2 weeks ago and the battery runs out after 26 hours.

I've tried everything you describe to no avail..

Customersupport only advises me to wait for the next firmware upgrade but can't tell me when that is?

Surely this falls under warranty! 

[DataGuyDJW]

I'm encountering the same problem.  I charged the device yesterday and found a few minutes ago that it's completely drained.  That's the first time that has happened but last week I did get a Battery Low message just a couple of days after charging. 

Yesterday I charged it after a walk and haven't done an activity since then.  I didn't actually check it when I put it on this morning, but the phone app doesn't show any steps for today, so it probably died overnight. I didn't get a battery low message, the darned thing just died and did it fast.

I bought mine a month ago, haven't used the SpO2 feature.  I did try to start the EKG feature once, but it required some setup I didn't have time to do so I didn't pursue it.  No idea if that has anything to do with it.

Based on what I read here, I'm considering returning it to Amazon.  It's a shame because I've had two other Charge devices and used them for >2 years before they died, I thought the Charge 5 would give me that much.

[Snkitten]

I am having the exact same problem ever since last week. It's been fine since November '21 when I bought it and all of a sudden it goes from full charge to dead within about 6 hours. It can't even track my sleep anymore because it doesn't last long enough off the charger. It is now unusable. I have worked with tech support 3 times and they give me the same steps every time. We've done a factory reset and uninstalled/reinstalled the fitbit app/ fitbit device, etc.. Every time they rush me out of chat telling me to go do it all again and then get back in touch. The last time I called in to speak with someone she told me she'd send me "different directions than ever before" via email. It was the same 2 sad restart steps I'd already done multiple times. I'm so disgusted. 

[Tu4131]

Hello. Any update on firmware update to address battery drain?

[AngieMama]

Got this Charge 5 for Christmas, but problems started in the first few weeks. We're been through this forum several times and tried everything (meaning turning everything off, resets, etc.) with no help. The battery rarely lasts a day, I usually find it dead by late afternoon. Was really hoping for a magic firmware update, but have run out of patience. I think this battery is defective. I guess we'll get on with support and run thought everything again and request a replacement, but my husband is researching a different brand, we've wasted enough time on Fitbit now. 

[tcat007]

Update on my battery since I did the button reboot while on charger.  My first cycle lasted 10 days, I'm on my 2nd cycle, 5th day at 62%. Something with gps puts it out of wack, so not using GPS anymore. I have auto recognize activity on (which doesn't work well with swimming), it does recognize walks. I wear it 24/7 mainly for sleep info (which is extremely accurate).  I have all notifications off, since I have my phone with me 24/7.  I use "MapMyFitness" on phone for GPS tracking.

[DataGuyDJW]

I've been watching mine closely since it drained the other day and I recharged it.  Battery life seems to be fine, but here's the weird thing.  I haven't been receiving notifications from my phone for emails, etc.  Just before the drain event, my FitBit buzzed really often with notifications.  I wonder if what drained it was excessive chatter between the FitBit and the phone. 

TBH, I'm fine without all the notifications, they were getting annoying.  When it notified me about emails I seemed to get repeats from earlier notifications.  I need to figure out how to turn those off on the phone.  For me it would be an acceptable trade-off.

[langenesgry]

Did you Get the problem sorted? Mine is Even worse than yours the last 24 hours. 10 min wearing it, 10% less battery.. there is no way i can use it😭

[DataGuyDJW]

Mine has behaved properly since I charged it, which worries me.  Based on what I've read in this thread, I don't know whether I'll have intermittent problems until it suddenly becomes unusable, or whether it was a genuine fluke and this particular unit won't experience the battery problem.  Either way, this is a problem that shouldn't be happening to so many people and FitBit really needs to step up to find a cause and a solution.

[dguzauckas]

I am confirming that if you charge up your tracker and immediately restart the device, the battery will last days even with all of the features enabled.  While it's annoying to have to do this, it takes just a couple of seconds and does not impact your stats.

[ChrisB1966]

Sorry that's logically incorrect, it has worked for you. If you are happy doing that carry on, but don't be suprised by random drain events. My Charge 5 randomly drained quickly then worked normally for a month or so - now seems to have bricked.  

[Rodpud]

Ya I can confirm that doesn’t work lol.  Sometimes I get a couple days and it does seem to help a bit but most days I barely get a day out of a charge.  Have all the settings off.  Not all of them are the same and you assume outta all of the people on here posting that we haven’t tried that then ya didn’t read the threads lol 

[Sunshine908]

Right?! There’s over 107,000 hits on this topic on their own forum-for a REASON! The fact that they are still selling this product is baffling.

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[Snkitten]

Nope, I can’t use it anymore. I went back to wearing a different pedometer so I still get my points at work..thanks for nothing, Fitbit.