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?

[amvi]

Yes, I’ve restarted it. Have also been in touch with support and they say that they are trying to fix it, and it’s affecting Charge 5 watches. My watch is only 5 months old and is now useless. Going on day 5 now. 

[shimsim]

@foreversoul you might be right but that ship has sailed for me, I'm 4 months in and not living in the country of purchase at the moment. I'm back on my charge 2 also, but I've had it for a while and the battery life is starting to get shorter, I do wish they made them with replaceable batteries (just like we had is the 70s when things were made to last lol)

@LiJaHi I think there is some confusion between 'restart/reboot' and factory 'RESET', they are 2 different things. The suggestion given is to regularly restart/reboot the charge5 regularly to stop it from experiencing fast battery drain. this does not lose any setting or data

Factory reset is a 'last resort' option, you lose all your data and need to set up the device again.

[Bike-man]

Hope this isn’t something I have to look forward to.   Got mine in December and it is giving me 7-8 days on a charge.

you might want to check the topic https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Charge-5/Charge-5-battery-draining-too-fast/td-p/4973720/jump-to/fir....  There are 30 pages related to this issue.  

[ChrisB1966]

Just checking back to see if anything had happened with a proper firmware update yet, and I see that no it has not!

It's the randomness that gets me, mine has been fine for a few weeks - then today after some gardening the remaining battery has jumped down. The worst is when it decides to go flat overnight although some of the HRV readings are very doubtful (I have a polar chest strap that I take a morning reading with). 

My Charge 5 is a replacement for a Charge 4 that failed so I got it at half price, but I'm beginning to think I still paid too much. I don't expect it to be great at this price point but at least the Charge 4 never went  flat unexpectedly.

[GJT]

Fitbit have been threatening an update from December 21 if you go back on the posts.

I honesty don’t think they have an answer and have been left fielded by this.

Really they should be recalling the charge 5 and refunding customers.

I have had replacements ( still not working ) at the end of this month if there is no resolution I am going to trading standards in the UK, they have resolved bigger issues than Fitbit.

Customers have been more than patient but Fitbit just don’t care. ….. Profits before remedy.

Thanks

Gary

[malbers75]

For a few weeks it was on a normal recharge schedule and that was with using the GPS enabled walks/runs. Now overnight it drained from 88% down to 50%. Then within an hour of waking up, it drained to 44%. When I charge, I do a hard reset and then it showed 27% charge. This stuff is getting old. 

[cputnam14]

I've seen that, thanks.
It will now hold charge for less than a day.  
100% about 17 hours ago, 42% and dropping rapidly now. Kinda ridiculous 

[LisaD1973]

I’m having the same problem. 

[SherrieB]

Mine started doing the same thing a few days ago. I've disabled everything so as to make it fairly useless and reset 3 times. Charge to 100% before bed and it's at 30% by morning, even with manual display setting. I'm at the point of parting company with Fitbit.

[robert_bloor]

I suspect given he amount of time that either the microcode on the chip is such it can not be resolved and/or the talent behind the design as been switched to other tasks that Google have now prioritized or left. It such a shame what has happened as on paper it was a truly great product. 

One thing I found that worked after I had issues id to switch between gps and phone after a restart. 

[Cazzzzy]

I have done all of what you suggest and more - but it’s hopeless and very frustrating. My AltHr required charging once a week; this one is heading for once a day, cannot believe this issue hasn’t been addressed properly…. I’ll attempt to swap it for another - just in case this one is faulty, as I really do like the watch and the App… but FitBit are delivering little of what is promised ‘on the tin’ 😡

PS/ I don’t know why the original post is marked as “answered’; an ‘answer’ may have been given but the issue is far from resolved…

[foreversoul]

I'm starting to think that so many Charge 5 units are defective that the right thing to do would be to do a massive recall... but that would be too costly for Fitbit so they are dragging this thing out, promising a firmware update that may never come or may not really solve the problem. 

[Cazzzzy]

Ditto Sherrie B… I’ve even started to look to see if I can still buy an AltHr, as mine used to keep it’s charge for 7-days. Ah no wait, that one was hopeless too really, as I couldn’t see the time in daylight 😂. Time to move on me thinks… ☹️

[robert_bloor]

I am mighty disappointed too. To this end I have set the Premium subscription which I find is very good not to renew after the 6 month trial to avoid giving these folks anymore money until they start to deliver on the promises made for the product.

[Clemens13]

Unfortunately that may be the only way to get their attention.

Sent from my iPhone

[KB1310]

Hi. Same issue. Apple Watch was physically too big for my wrist, even though I went for the smallest screen and the battery required charging every day, which is just too frequent. Switched to Charge 5 and the first one I had died after a week (5 dots) and they sent a replacement. But this battery seems just as useless as the Apple. After 24 hours I’ve got 15% left, so I’m charging each night.  Surely that’s not right…….do I stick it out and hope it improves?  Why can’t I find a decent colour display tracker to keep being paired (also a Fitbit problem) with my iPhone that doesn’t need charge every 24 hours?

What is the solution?

[DavideFitbit]

Hi everyone, thank you for all your efforts in troubleshooting this problem with the battery. I'm sorry to read to many are still experiencing the same issue, but it's good to know that some users have seen an improvement or have been able to resolve. 

Rest assured the team is already working to fix the issue with the GPS chip causing rapid battery drain with an upcoming firmware update. It's not possible to provide a specific date of release, but please know that all your feedback is appreciated and the team continues to work to release it soon. 

In the meantime, please make sure you've tried the these troubleshooting 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,
• Follow the recommendations listed here to improve battery life in general. 

Some features make the battery drain faster than usual, like Always-On Display or tracking SpO2 data. If you use GPS to track your exercise, use the Phone GPS setting to preserve battery life. In addition, make sure to keep the Charge 5 and the Fitbit app up-to-date to ensure you receive the latest updates. 

See you around. 

[Rockyrugosa]

I just got my charge 5 yesterday, an upgrade from my old and dependable charge2.  I had to use the charge 2 for a while today while the 5 was recharging.  I have everything turned off that can be turned off and it still drains the battery.  I read that there is an update in the works to address this.  i say hurry it up already!  As noted in another post, one has to turn off all the features we bought it to use in order to get through a day.  Come on Fitbit, surely you can do better than that!

[amvi]

OP here, well now it's even worse. Last it even lit up was a few days ago. Fully charged before bed at 12:30am, and dead by 9am when I woke up. Now it won't even charge at all, and is completely dead. The button on the charging cord won't do a thing if it's not even taking a charge. It doesn't even give me the fitbit logo when first plugged in. The response I keep getting from support is "we're working on it, keep looking for a firmware update". Will take it back to the store I got it at, still have the receipt and see what kind of response I get. Although store refund policy says only 60 days so they will probably want to send it in for a repair. Will keep you all posted.  

--------

What are your thinking about moving on to next? would love some suggestions. 

[Cazzzzy]

Hi David

Many thanks for your kind reply but I’m afraid many of us simply do not believe that FitBit is working to resolve this at all! I mean - have you seen the date of the first post in this chat?? 29th Sept 2021… And the date today is 19th Apr 22… You do the maths ☹️