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?

[shimsim]

@SunsetRunner I'm at the start of day 5 (5 full nights, 4 full days) and the battery is showing 61% 

For anyone just joining, I did multiple restarts and overnight charges, etc etc that didn't help. Always tested using the default configuration (screen manual, No notifications, No GPS usage) so decided to try a full factory reset and I've gone from 2 days to 5 days so far. Whilst this is definitely a huge improvement, lets see how the battery continues to drain because one of the issues has been the non-linear 'sudden' drop to zero on the last day. I'm not left with a great deal of confidence in the product and even if it does give the stated 5-7 day life, I've read that some people started off with great battery life then started to experience this rapid drain. (see post from @DominoUK )

@Charon I'm in the same boat as you, not available in my country, had to as a friend to ship it to me, didn't think it would be such a lottery on getting a working device

@GJT @Thunderstorm93 If my experience is anything to go by, you don't need to turn off the primary sensors, in fact, its kind of ridiculous to even be suggesting it. What's the point of buying a charge 5 if you can use the heart rate and spo2 ? The only functions that will understandably rapidly drain the battery should be GPS usage and having the screen on all the time. I guess notification will also have an impact but I have them disabled, I dont want or need a smart watch, I need a fitness tracker. 

I will continue to report on my charge level but from my personal journey with this issue, its looking like a factory reset might work and nobody here should be having to disable key functionality to get 5-7 days battery with light usage.

As for those that have had posts removed .... join the club, its insult to injury when that happens, I wasn't even saying anything threatening towards the company, just sharing the experience I had. We are definitely living in a world where open discussion is no longer tolerated or valued 😔

[Abcrisger]

How to do the full factory reset? 

[shimsim]

@Abcrisger there is a video here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gyx9pT874sk

Basically its from the menu, goto device info then clear user data, hold for 3 seconds

You will need to set it up again, pair it with your phone etc etc, so make sure you have time for that

[Abcrisger]

Hopefully this fixes my battery issue 😅

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Already asked for a replacement. Hopefully when it arrives, it wont have the same battery issue anymore.

[shimsim]

For anyone who has been following my specific experience, at the end of day 5 went to bed with around 40% , when I woke on day 6, battery dropped to 13% (so around 30% overnight) then within 1 hour it dropped from 13% to 3%.

I think it's fair to say that something is wrong with the battery status reporting, not sure if that is also related to what everyone else is experiencing with poor battery life but considering I was initially just getting 2 days of life, there must be some connection.

I am done troubleshooting this, you might day 5 days is acceptable but I have honestly avoiding even activating the screen just to maximize how long it will last. I dread to think how short the life would be if I actually used this anywhere close to the way I used my charge 2 (which is 3 years old and can still outlast this charge 5).

Aside from the poor battery life, no one can possibly argue that it's normal for the battery to drop 5% over 24 hours then 10% in the lat hour of life (when I'm not even doing anything, was laying in bed .... Well it is new year's Day 🤪)

I shall be contacting support after the holiday and wait to see what they say 

Good luck to everyone else with this issue and happy new year 

[Abcrisger]

Same thing happened to me. On my fourth day when it drained from 50% to completely drained by night. Been contacting customer support, i was given a choice if i want a 50% discount or getting a new replacement. Went for the replacement instead, hope when it comes it doesn’t have the battery issue anymore. 

[Nittybit]

Today my charge died again after only 2 1/2 days. I synced it to the app and it worked but now my steps aren't accurate and the app says I only have 4% power but the Fitbit says it is fully charged. What the heck is going on?

What other brand are you looking at ?

[shimsim]

@Abcrisger thanks for the info, at least I have some idea now what to expect. I think its kind of strange to offer a 50% discount, I don't think anyone here bought the charge 5 because they were looking to save a few bucks on a cheap fitness tracker. I really hope they will be able to help me out in my location with a replacement but more importantly, I wonder if they have identified the issue and resolved it or if it will just be more pot luck.

If anyone at Fitbit is reading this, I appreciate you can't go into 'details' but the one redeeming action you could take now is to update how customer support is handling this and make it easier for those who are affected to get a replacement. Clearly there is an issue either with the battery itself or part of the circuitry responsible for battery management and it would be good to know that it has been identified and resolved. 

@Nittybit looks like you are one of the lucky ones with this issue, best to try the basic troubleshooting issues first (i.e. the reset) then if that doesn't help, contact support 

[Nittybit]

If I reset it will I lose all my stats? And I will have to read on how to reset but may as well try. Thank you 

[Abcrisger]

I think there’s something wrong with the battery itself or the battery tracking or firmware itself. Hopefully an update fixes this battery issue. 

[Nittybit]

Is restart the same as reset? And if it is it seems simple enough to do so we will see...hope it helps. I really want to like this. I had a fitbit one forever but I washed it . ugh. I have not enjoyed this charge 5 experience at all so far. 

Restarting did nothing to fix my syncing issue.

[SunsetRunner]

I didn’t purchase mine from Fitbit so I don’t know if they would give me a replacement or not. 

[shimsim]

@Nittybit You might have missing data because the battery went dead, but this thread will be focused on the poor battery life, not issues with data being synced if it was properly recorded.

Restart is different from factory reset.

Restart is what support recommends to try if you have a battery issue.

Factory reset is something i tried because restart didn't help me. Best not to do a factory reset if you don't want to lose all your data (unless support recommend that as a fix for your sync issue)

[Abcrisger]

Didnt bought mine at fitbit as well. Still they offered a replacement, will be receiving mine hopefully within the week. 

[jsjaxn]

I received a Charge 5 for Christmas and was having the same issues.  In less than a day it would be down to 10 - 15%.  This happened twice and the 3rd time it went completely dead in less than 24 hours.  I thought I’d give it one more try so I recharged it again to 100% and I am now on day 4 and still have 66% remaining.  GPS is off but everything else is default.  I read here someone else had similar results so if you haven’t already, let it drain completely and then recharge to 100%.

[Abcrisger]

How do you turn off the GPS?

[Charon]

Day 5 after charger button reset and charging to 100%.

48% left.

GPS is set to phone, all other options are default.

[SunsetRunner]

Done that multiple times. By the 4th day or even sooner, it drops from 50% down to 18%. 

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Good for you. Hope it continues. Mine doesn't make it to Day 5. 

[jsjaxn]

I misspoke, not off but set to phone.

[Nittybit]

Jan 1 still having syncing issues and my fitbit was charged to 100% around 5ish yesterday and is now at 1:22 pm down to 88% I can't imagine what is happening except I have a lemon.