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?

[Therealraz]

Having same issues.

Literally got the watch other day, after the iconic recall, so thought I'd take the 40% discount they where offering to stay with Fitbit.

Totally regretting it. This is my 4th Fitbit, the watch looks slick and is neat on the wrist. But to my horror hadn't even the watch a full day and was flagging up 5% battery left. Couldn't believe it.

So have went and done everything that they are saying to fix it, and it's still draining out after 2 days.

I for the life of me don't understand why a watch that is advertised as 7+ days, literally only functions for a day or 2, and you have the luxury of having to turn every feature of for this to happen. Bizarre.

Not sure what action to take as everyone is saying the replacement watch is the same problem.

Almost feel like just using the iconic again as currently they haven't even paid me for that yet either, after recalling it, and then sent me a watch that is clearly deflective, were as the iconic Gave me zero issues, but it meant to he deflective......night and day between the performance from both of them.

[shimsim]

@Therealraz Just out of curiosity, where is your Charge 5 manufactured? China or Malaysia? 

[Wildcatguy]

I'm not sure where my Charge 5 was manufactured.  Where would I find that information?

Thanks!

[spongerd82]

@Wildcatguy It should be on the bottom of the box.

[shimsim]

@Wildcatguy can also find it in the charge 5 menu, just go to settings, device info, regulatory info, then scroll all the way down

[Wildcatguy]

That's very helpful.  Thank you!

My Charger 5 was manufactured in China.

[Bike-man]

My sympathies.  My sense is that it is the China made devices suffer from the battery malady.  

[shimsim]

Certainly not conclusive, but yes, it does seem that everyone reporting this battery issue on here has a made in China unit. My replacement was made in Malaysia and it did not have any battery drain issues.

[Kksnell]

Some thing is happening to mine on Android. Wish I would have reviewed these before purchasing. 

[IoanT]

A simple and easy solution below:

I bought a new Fitbit Charge 5 a few days ago. I fully charged it and after 30 hours it ran out of battery. I made a research on internet about this problem and I realized that due to certain GPS and display settings, the battery runs out very quickly. I changed some settings and now, after the same 30 hours of functioning, the battery level is about 85%, which is a major improvement. Below are the changes that I made:

- GPS mode - Phone (setting in Fitbit Charge 5) - for this, makes sure your Fitbit device and phone or can always communicate with one another

- Confirm that the Fitbit app can use your location (Allow Location Access is set to Always) - setting in Iphone/Android

- Confirm that Background App Refresh is turned on for the Fitbit app - setting in IOS/Android

- Screen Wake - Manual mode (setting in Fitbit Charge 5)

Mentions:

In Dynamic GPS mode, if you wear Fitbit Charge 5 but your phone is not in range (and can't communicate with one another via bluetooth), Fitbit Charge 5 switches automatically on Built-in GPS, that drains battery very fast.

Screen Wake ( Auto mode) is another battery drain issue, because with each certain movement of the hand, the display lights up, which also drains the battery more. 

For more info check: https://help.fitbit.com/articles/en_US/Help_article/1874.htm

I hope all of this information will be useful to you as well.

[spongerd82]

So, to recap, we need to disable as the features of our $150 fitness tracker in order to get decent battery life? At that point, why not get a $50 cheap tracker? Our issue is that these 'work around' fixes shouldn't be needed. There's a hardware defect in some of the watches that must be repaired. Fitbit support is useless at this point as well. I'm sure you're just trying to help, but what you're talking about has already been discussed. Give it a week or so, and the fast drain will come back, even with everything turned off. 

[Bike-man]

I’m glad you have been able to temporarily fix your battery issue.   There are 25 pages of comments here and I wish the answer to the battery issue was that simple.  I would suggest you read back and see what others have experienced.  Perhaps you are lucky and have a Malaysian Charge 5.   In which case you might be ok.   For others it has been a frustration.   
Best of luck.  

[shimsim]

@IoanT Thanks for the suggestion, but not sure it applies to the issue people are experiencing here. Most people are already using these settings but still getting poor battery life. Unless you have the screen set to ON all the time and are heavily using the GPS, there is no reason for the battery to drain in 2 days or even overnight, which is what is typically being reported here. As confirmed by those who got a working replacement, its not about how the device is being used, its an issue with the device itself.

As  @Bike-man said, we all wish it was that simple, if it was, there would not be 25 pages of troubleshooting and complaints.

[HeresHelen]

This may have already been suggested, so apologies if I missed it,  but I had the same issue, Charge 5 battery draining in less than 24 hours.  Was fed up and trying to return it.

Whilst I was fed up with it and trying to find out how to return it (nightmare!), I let the thing completely die, then charged it for 24 hours, just left it, even after it said 100%.  After doing that, it has lasted 11 days, discharging about 7-9% per day which I'm happy with 🙂

It's now at 5% and asking to be charged - so I'm going to try charging it now from 5%, instead of letting it die, and hope it works again.

Can come back and update if it helps anyone.

[LiJaHi]

loanT, a major reason for choosing this device is that it has a built-in GPS. If you have to turn it off and take your phone with you when you exercise, it defeats the purpose. I agree with the earlier post that this is not a satisfactory solution to the battery issues being reported.

[Wildcatguy]

Thanks for the idea.  So far, the only thing I have found that works is frequent rebooting.  Any time I notice the Charge 5 is losing battery quickly (say 5% in just one hour), I reboot it.  That seems to arrest the process.  It's not a final solution, but helps as a stop-gap. 

I wish the new firmware update happened as quickly as the battery drains........

[Bike-man]

Yes, report back with the outcome but also check the place of manufacture. I too initially had a battery discharge problem until I did a reset. My Charge 5 has worked well since then but……….mine was manufactured in Malaysia. It seems most of the persistent battery issues are with devices manufactured in China. So check your place of manufacture. It is on the original box or can be found by going to Settings, Device Info, Regulatory Info, and scroll all the way to the bottom.
Best of luck

Joe H.
Sent from my iPad

[shimsim]

@HeresHelen I can confirm that I did try this. I spent about 2 weeks troubleshooting before I eventually gave up and decided to try and get a replacement unit. Like many, I also didn't want to go through the hassle of a replacement. To be fair to Fitbit, they did go out of their way to get a one to me, so although it was a struggle to prove that it was defective (which it should not have been), I do now have a working unit, albeit with different 'quirks' compared to the 1st one.

Doing a full discharge and recharge overnight was one of the first things I tried, as was the suggested reboot fix, I then did the same but after a full factory reset. Whilst did improve things and it went from 2 days to 4 days life, it was still way off the 7-8 days people with good units can achieve (with normal usage, e.g. no heavy GPS usage or screen always on).

The big giveaway that your unit might be defective (at least in my personal experience) is not just the battery running out too quickly but the way the battery drains. It will hardly drain for the first few days, sometimes maybe only 5% over 24 hours, then on the last day, it will rapidly drop, something like 50%. It was not uncommon for me to go sleep with more than half a battery and wake up with it almost dead.

Anyway, good luck, no hard in trying, just hoping to save people the weeks of time that I spent trying to get it to work properly, in the end, only a replacement unit solved this issue for me.

[Unhappy_mother]

Update on my new fitbit. I don't know if this helped at all or not keeping my fitbit charged this time. After charging my fitbit for the second time in less than 12 hours back on the 12th, I did the resart device suggestion. I have now gotten 7 days out of my battery life, currently have 38% battery life left. I could possibly get 8 day but I don't like to run anything much past 25%. I am going to try to charge my fitbit this time without doing the restart. I pray it holds a charge because it would suck if I had to do a restart after every charge. Also unlike most others, I do not use the GPS, Payment, or many of the other features, therefore they are all turned off and have been since I bought this fitbit. I hope they get this bug fixed for these new Charge 5s.

I just looked on the box my fitbit came in to see where mine was manufactured. It looks like mine was manufactured in China. This information is located on the side of the outside box just above the bar code. Mine was a box in a box. It is also located on the smaller box that the actual fitbit came in and like the other just above the bar code.

[AKLDave]

Yes I have noticed that in the days after using the GPS for a walk or run the battery doesn't last a day and the restart fixes it. Hopefully you will have a firmware update to fix this ASAP as this is very frustrating.