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?

[Dukey123]

I've had my charge 5 for about a year and half and it always worked perfectly fine until last week. Now the battery is constantly draining within 2 hours of taking it off the charger. You might be better off going elsewhere and spending your money because there are a lot of people having this issue and the best that the company can come up with is a coupon for people who still have warranty 🙄

[AcrobatSolo]

My charge 5 lasted about a year and then it malfunctioned.  It kept asking for a wallet, and then it just deactivated.  I contacted CS and they offered me either a replacement or a discount on a purchase.  I bought a Sense 2 with a decent discount, and I like it better than the charge.   We'll see if it lasts.

[Bike-man]

Glad to hear they were able to resolve your issue to your satisfaction. Mine Charge 5 going strong after 18 months.
Best,
Joe H

[shimsim]

it's pretty telling that the milestone for being satisfied with this product is having one that lasts 18 months 😂

Would love to know how many actually last that long, how many fail within the first year (multiple times) and how many will last past the 24-month mark. I suspect that information will never be public for good reason.

[Marymmo]

It’s also pretty telling that there are 84 pages of people’s responses with the vast majority being from those with the exact quality issue!

The only thing way I keep my Fitbit going is by turning off all the features I bought it for.  Never again!

[Nooshesmat]

Mine just suddenly completely died. Not liking this and now off fitbit altogether

Regards,
Nashwa

[shimsim]

@Nooshesmat how long did you have it before it died?

[Bike-man]

My sympathies. It’s interesting to me how the vast number of fitness trackers only receive mediocre reviews whether it’s a $35 or $200 device. Perhaps the manufacturers don’t spend enough on design, manufacturing or with QC. The only device that seems to consistently get great reviews is the 🍏watch. But the main limitation is the battery life, requiring daily charging.
I see my Charge 5 as a disposable item with an expectation of 1-2 years of life. It’s very disappointing when the function or advertised features fail or fall short.
We consumers deserve better.

Joe H

[shimsim]

@Bike-man thats exactly how I see the Charge 5, its a subscription service, you pay upfront and get replacements for 1 year (2 years in the EU). Once you are out of warranty, you get a 35% discount on your next Charge 5 subscription. It's basically what Whoop is doing but without marketing it that way or being transparent about it. I actually wouldn't mind that model either, at least you know what you are getting into and you don't need to worry about the device failing because you always get a replacement for free (without the painful customer support process). It is a real shame that everything has turned into a subscription, its easy to understand the motivation for companies to do this, but as consumers, it means that quality is no longer based on the product quality but the 'experience', however, even by that measure, Fitbit has failed.

[Bike-man]

Shimsim, I think your comment is on target re: it being a subscription service. If only the tangible product were better. I bought the subscription, perhaps thats why my Charge 5 still works. IT’s a conspiracy! 🙂

Joe H

[Milo5712]

Hi all,

I haven't updated for a while.

I just thought I'd post an update on my situation.

Re-cap: brand new Charge 5 30 June 2022 - getting about 9+ days of charge from battery (my Fitbit 2 it replaced only lasted 2 days!!!); applied Firmware update first week of September (or thereabouts); straight away had the battery draining issue and had to re-charge every 2 days (sometimes less!!!). Went through all the usual things to try; and Fitbit, tried some more things all to no avail! So Fitbit replaced my Charge 5. Came with a Firmware update ready to go. NO way I was doing that!

So, since 13th October, when I received the replacement & started using it, I have been once again getting 9+ days of battery.

After 6 months or so of using the replacement, I finally applied the firmware update. No problem. Phew!

Okay, so since then the replacement CH5 has been running as expected - 9 days+ between charges. It's now just out of warranty, so I'll have to just keep monitoring it. But it seems, for now - fingers X - I am one of the lucky ones.

Myles, OZ

[Cathiedb]

Good to know 😃

Sent from my iPhone

[Bike-man]

A case where persistence paid off. Fingers crossed.

Joe H

[dargret]

I'm in the same boat as dukey123 above. I bought mine in May 2022 and it worked wonderfully (nearly a week of battery life!!!) until about a week ago, when it inexplicably can't even last twelve hours. I'm on the most recent firmware update, (20001.188.58) and absolutely NOTHING about my habits has changed. 

It's exceptionally frustrating to see that this is a known issue for over a year and nothing has been done yet. 

[LuizManetti]

I tend to think the main issue with this device is "water". It is water resistant to 50 meters, but mine had signs of water inside the unit when the battery issue started. I never used my replacement in shower, or even while raining, and I did not have any issues for months.

Has anyone else had issues after using it under water, even a simple quick shower?

[ypevie]

I’m very interested in an answer about the use of the Fitbit in water. I
swim a fair bit but I never wear it in the water because I don’t trust it
not to be affected after having it replaced twice! It has swimming as one
of the exercise options but this hasn’t proved to be the most reliable
device.

[shimsim]

@dargret i know there are many stories of firmware breaking devices and battery life dramatically dropping after updates but from my personal experience having had 4 x Charge 5 devices (1 purchase and 3 replacements) and all of them at different firmware versions, I never saw any correlation between doing an update and the product developing this issue. I suspect its just because the Charge5 is so prone to failure and its inevitable that it does sometimes happen after a firmware update.
That does not mean firmware does not brick these devices, I think there is currently a huge ongoing issue with the latest firmware update that is causing problems but the typical battery going from 7-9 days to only holding charge for a few hours has been happening from day one of this device and with every firmware released, so its more likely to be a hardware issue.

@LuizManetti you might be right, perhaps they are failing for that reason, I've always suspected its a battery issue and water ingress would explain that. In fact, the last unit that failed started to heat up when I tried to charge it, that could also be explained by water ingress. I personally never used it swimming but of course, it would get splashed regularly and definitely a lot of exposure to sweat. If only Fitbit would take the time to acknowledge and address these failures, we might have an answer but don't hold your breath 😛

[sporkster]

Mine's intermittently failing and recovering (and just a bit out of warranty - bought on 3/22) so I'm going to open this thing up and see if there's any water ingress. I wouldn't be shocked - there seems to be lots of conflicting info here about how waterproof these are and a not-insignificant number of people reporting issues after swimming or otherwise getting the device wet. I clean mine daily with a quick wipe of soapy water and then rinse it, which is nothing like going 50 meters underwater, but... who knows?

[KathyJUK]

I have finally managed to get a replacement approved, and should receive it soon.  Here's hoping that this one lasts longer than my first one.   My initial case had been closed as I hadnt responded in a while, so had to open a new one, and was expecting to get the same response as before, so couldnt believe my eyes when the "online chat" person said they would check to see if I would be approved for a replacement.  I ordered my original Charge 5 on pre-order, so would have been one of the first to get this model, and within 6 months, the battery was barely lasting 3 hours.  

[SunsetRunner]

@AndreaFitbit 

ref#: ----- - not holding charge.

Moderator edit: removed personal information.