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?

[TomRobinson]

I still don’t get why the New York Times’ Wirecutter rates the Charge 5 as the best fitness tracker. Literally hundreds of us have found the Charge 5 as a failed product. Twice I encouraged users to write to Wirecutter about this, and Fitbit management threatened to kick me out of this forum. Well, I’ve been a Google then Alphabet shareholder for many years, plus I have used Gmail since its inception. If Fitbit drops me for encouraging customer honesty, I’m happy to carry my criticism forward in half a dozen other forums and other social media. 

This is really a case of unreliable product quality and woefully inadequate customer service. Fitbit and Google continue to ignore this, and I find it shameful. 

Tom Robinson 

[shimsim]

@TomRobinson Well said. The irony is that it would actually make me more loyal and have a better impression of Fitbit if they did just own up to the Charge 5 having these issues. Honesty is a value I can get behind and it seems to have been entirely removed from the ethics of the majority of companies. It's not like they didn't send me and many others replacements, so how much are they really saving by not coming clean and more importantly how does that compare to the damage it's having on their reputation?

I honestly used to recommend Fitbit to everyone I knew (so I could compete with them in steps :p), I just can't do that anymore. Now if someone asks me about my Fitbit, I tell them 'yeh it's good for me but don't buy it', because when I did recommend it to friends, it failed, not just once but on multiple occasions. 

[Longestplague]

Yeah you're probably correct, it's worth a try just in the slight hope that something will solve the issue, it's struggling to last 8 hours currently so it's not really much use and that's with auto screen wake turned off, and just checking the time once or twice an hour. It won't be the first fitbit I've had to replace while under warranty, the previous one I owned the Charge 3 suffered a similar fate as the battery was draining on that when just a few months old. The replacement was fine though, until the display eventually faded to the point when it was barely readable which is when I got the current Charge 5. 

It's a shame Fitbit has these issues, and so many of us face the frustrations, devices really shouldn't be failing like this when under 6 months old. I'll get a replacement while under warranty, if that develops a similar issue I might try the Samsung device instead. I don't want anything too advanced, I only really use this for the time, to monitor my sleep, and heart rate.

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

Got a replacement device on it's way so hopefully that will be as good as the replacement charge 3 I got 🤞

I had my charge 5 on charge all yesterday afternoon, tried reseting it, cleared the user data, switched off everything I didn't need, was still completely dead again by this morning. 

[ypevie]

I had mine replaced for the same reason and 6 months later the face fell
off! The replacement was considered to be under the original warranty so no
replacement for the replacement but I got a discount. For a new one So,
I’m on Fitbit #3 in less than 2 years. Fingers crossed 🤞 for lucky #3! I
do like the darn thing when it’s working correctly!

[Longestplague]

The face fell off, crikey. I've not had that issue yet... I'm guessing they are reluctant to keep sending out replacements but at least you got a discount. I looked at other models before I bought the charge 5 was contemplating getting a Garmin but thought the charge 5 looked the best for what I need, the GPS was a swinger (for recording walks) although I've never used it yet. At least it's usually relatively easy to get a replacement fitbit just gotta hope the replacement is better. One thing I might try to do is ensure my replacement gets a long charge at least every few weeks as often I just charge it for 30 mins before I head out for work.

[shimsim]

@Longestplague @ypevie My 4th replacement also just died after 6 months, so does anyone know people that actually have a Charge 5 that lasts more than 6 months? 

I think we should all be posting on a more common thread now because its not just about the battery drain issue anymore, its about overall reliability. Most of us on here will get a replacement when this issue pops up but then the replacement unit is likely to fail from something else.

I have been posting here - https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Charge-5/Charge-5-experiences-reliability/td-p/5094537

but any other suggestions are welcome. I think Fitbit needs to know that having multiple failures and then being told you are out of warranty after 1 year from the date of the original purchase just isn't right. Clearly, there is something wrong with the reliability of the Charge 5, the forums are full of people complaining that it won't turn on anymore.

[Notrunner]

After 3 failed Charge-5's, I've switched to Garmin.  Didn't want to, but I do enjoy not having to wonder each morning if my Fitness Tracker is dead.  It seems that mother-ship Google is little by little strangling FitBit in hopes of transitioning people to their Google Pixel smartwatch.

[BBALLDA]

After my second FitBit Charge 5 became totally unresponsive, I purchased an Apple Watch SE. My first Charge 5 lasted 8 months and the free replacement then lasted 7 months. They offered me a 35% discount to buy another one. NO THANK YOU!! 35% percent off and last 7 months? Not for me.

[bbunge]

My charge 5 has been working well since the firmware upgrade on 6 Dec 22. Do a charge once a week even now that I am recording bike rides.

[TMQ1973]

This weekend went from needing to be charged at most once a week to not lasting a day. Checked GPS was off and turned water lock on just to be safe.  Now screen won’t turn on at all and reset using USB does not work. Charge is 18 months old. Warranty supposedly is 2 years which assuming my wife bought it from Fitbit. Fingers crossed. 

[Jennyy102]

I got my fitbit charge 5 and 6 months later the battery drain so fast. After doing all exhausting trouble shooting they have suggested, I got my 2nd fitbit charge 5 9 months ago. The battery suddenly starts drain so fast, charged slowly. So after 2 hours charge and 2 hours uses just make my fitbit charge 5 battery from 100% to zero. Since one year warranty term? I couldn’t get a new device even though I am experienced same problem, and the device couldn’t stay even a year. They just suggested buy a new device with 35% discount.

[shimsim]

For anyone new to this thread and who doesn't want to read 82 pages of comments, the summary is this ....

The Charge 5 battery should last around 7-10 days under normal usage (i.e screen not on all the time, GPS dynamic, heart rate on). You don't need to disable any of the core functions for this but of course, if you are going for runs every day with the GPS on or have the screen set to on all the time, expect a short battery life.

You might get a glitch and suddenly the battery will drain quickly, in many cases a restart will solve this (press the button on the USB cable 3 times). It doesn't happen often with the latest firmware but it's worth giving that a try before assuming the worst.

Finally, you have the "it was working great but now only lasts a few hours or won't turn on anymore" scenario. This can happen anywhere from 2 weeks to 6 months in my experience (I've had 4 of these fail within 2 weeks, 2 months and 6 month periods) in which case its a matter of luck and if you are in warranty. I believe this is different for different countries, in the EU it might be 2 years, USA is 1 year, not sure everywhere else. If you are under warranty, you can contact support and get a replacement (the ease of this might vary, I've had some very positive and very bad experiences with this). If you are out of warranty, then you get the 35% discount but don't expect the next one to be any better, so consider it a hardware subscription. 

Hard to know for sure just how prone to failure this Charge 5 is, perhaps I got unlucky and perhaps these 83 pages (not to mention the other hundreds of pages if you count the other topics that people post on Charge 5 issues) are not a true representation of the quality of the device, but in my personal opinion, something is inherently wrong with the design and you are lucky if it lasts more than 1 year.

I would also suggest posting your experience here if your device has failed because it would be good to compile a comprehensive list of failures from all the different threads - https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Charge-5/Charge-5-experiences-reliability/m-p/5400745#M42069

Good luck 

[Tpegg]

Did anything else come of this? My warranty recently ended then within the last week and charge 5 went from holding a charge for a week to completely draining within an hour. After talking with 3 CS agents I was offered 35% another fitbit product but no answer to the issue. Don't think I'll be purchasing another fitbit.

[shimsim]

@Tpegg nothing else, you nailed it, this is how Fitbit is going to handle any Charge 5 units that stop holding charge outside of the warranty period (even though it's a well-documented and common problem that has been happening since the product was launched). If you want a device that you can depend upon for more than 1 year, this is not the one for you.

[Cathiedb]

I agree!!

Sent from my iPhone

[pelouffe]

What bothers me the most about this is the fact that Fitbit is totally ignoring this issue and only offering a 35% discount to purchase another device. If this was any other kind of equipment that had this kind of mass failure, wouldn't it be recalled and repaired at no cost to the consumer. Even car manufacturers do this. It's pretty obvious that something is not right here for the same thing to be happening to all of our Charge 5s. Plus, to have a 1-year warranty on something as expensive as this isn't right. Lots of people on here, myself included, had their Charge 5s become junk shortly following expiration of the warranty period. Even if Fitbit offered to replace the battery, it would be better than what they are doing now, which is nothing short of ignoring customers who paid them good money and put their faith and trust into a device (and company) they thought they would have for a longer time than a year. 

[ypevie]

I had the same thing happen. I got a free replacement which crapped out
after a few months because it separated from its case! Just hanging by its
electronics and I couldn’t make it stay put without taping it together and
that compromised some of its capabilities. So I took the 35% off for
another one. That was a few months ago and all is well so far. Fingers
crossed I can actually get some time with this one.

[Bike-man]

Hard to believe this stuff is still happening. Been a long time since I last posted. I’m lucky i guess. 19 months and still gives me 8-9 days on a charge.

Sent from my iPhone

[malbers75]

Me too, Bike-man. I still haven’t done the firmware update because of the fear that it drains quickly afterwards. Have you done the firmware update?

[Blackydog23456]

Same as my charge 5 I will be purchasing another smart watch and will not be from Fitbit as these are garbage for the price! The ones that were free in the cereal box worked better! Please do not say this is because I don’t know what I’m doing to set up the watch as this is my second one in two years. So I definitely know a good product from a inferior one.