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?

[SunsetRunner]

Hi @KayeDMaye - what exactly do you mean when you say you cannot find the Fitbit app?  It should be on your phone and you should be able to edit your Home Screen to include it, making it easier to find. 

Let’s get this question settled, then I’d be happy to try to help with the battery issue. In the meantime, you may want to check this Help page explanation. 

[Baybeemon]

@Alex_Lane  thanks for letting me know as I do want to compare with mine when I start using. So I guess it is around 10% a day for people who are active. Currently Im still using my charge 2 and just wear my charge 5 to sleep and does ECG and EDA daily and it is draining 9% a day. I believe once I start using it 24/7 probably it will drained 15% or more since I will use the exercise apps daily.

Will test it out without restarting and see if it goes crazy.

Hi Logan, currently my second unit is better than the first, at least it doesn't die on second day. However I never wear it for 24/7. Shall update again next week when I will be wearing it for 24/7.

[Clemens13]

Battery drain has been 75% to 85% in a 24 hour period.

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[RunningMamma]

Thank you!

[drewski]

What is 3 clicks on the USB? I've been reseting in the Settings menu on the tracker, which doesn't seem to help.

[Alex_Lane]

Yeah its not obvious.  On the USB cable, on the plug that goes into the wall socket adaptor, there is a little button.  Whilst the device is being charged (but I have to let it get to ~90% it seems), press the button 3 times, with a regular cadence.  Click, click, click. If you get the timing right, the Charge5 will reboot itself.  If you don't get it right (it takes me a few times), just wait a few seconds and try again.  Like I said, this works for me - I have a perfect Charge5 (from Malaysia - my unit from China was hopeless!).

[Bandit3138]

Hello,

You will notice the drain. If I don't catch it in time it will drain down
from 100% to 15% overnight.

[mereebarber]

I’m so very disappointed with my charge 5. This is my 4th Fitbit device & the only reason I’ve now got a charge 5 is because my ionic was recalled even though I didn’t have issues &( I’m still waiting for refund!) I’ve had the device for under a month & the battery life is now lasting less than one days I’ve checked all info re GPS etc & it’s not making slightest bit of difference. Grrrr!

[LoganDrake]

Meree,

I certainly understand. If you've ended up here, most likely you've bought a junker Fitbit.

It's a good thing they're aware of the problem and looking to fix it. It's a good thing Fitbit doesn't make car seats, brakes, or airplane engines.


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[mereebarber]

Thankyou certainly it doesn’t help with wanting to wear Fitbit at night for sleep monitoring

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[Sysy95]

Well pretty much the only thing I can do is remove the SpO2 which I've now down so fingers crossed. I've already done everything else to improve battery life that the article has suggested.

[mereebarber]

Thank you so much for addressing my fitbit battery issues. I now understand that Spo2 refers to blood oxygen levels & it won’t be an issue if it is deleted re my general wellness.
I’ve recharged my Fitbit this evening so that I can monitor the battery & at this stage the battery is at 99% so this us much better than it has been.
All I need to do now is ensure that refund issues with the recall of my Ionic are dealt with
Kind regards
Meree

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[GennysHoomom]

This is not a fix! Tracking SpO2 shouldn't wipe out the battery in a single night. I used my Charge 2 to track sleep every night and could easily get a week out of a charge with text and call notifications on during the day. The only difference in my settings is the SpO2 tracking. This is a gross oversight on Fitbit's part to design a tracker that can't maintain a charge for 24 hours. Not to mention it takes over 3 hours to charge every single morning! Again, the Charge 2 I just retired could do a full charge from 15% battery in under an hour. The battery life on the Charge 5 makes the tracker completely useless.

[LoganDrake]

Completely agree. Don't forget to buy the $80.00 YEARLY subscription so you can talk to friends and share.



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[Baybeemon]

Personally, the solution to save the battery consumption from Fitbit website imo is a walk around instead of a solution. It is pretty ridiculous to ask us to turn off the core functions like gps and spo2 to get a 7 day battery usage. When they advertise 7 days battery usage I expect it to last for 7 days using their default settings.

However, I don't think the spo2 app is the issue. Since there are many who enabled this function and still get 7-8 days of battery life. I believe is the unit itself. Probably there is a bad batch of units that was sent out. Anyway my replacement is working fine. I hope that it will continue to be good and I won't have to reset it.

[ChrisB1966]

Whatever people are doing to add more battery life by turning functions off or charging every day is really nothing to do with the 'problem'. If I was to be cynical I'd say it was just busywork to stop people sending back a product with a known fault.  My Charge 5 has been fine for the last 2 weeks, but it will suddenly drop 50% in hours randomly. While my premium subscription lasts I am waiting for the update, if it plays up any more it will go back under warranty. I nearly called it a day before, but IF it worked as promised it is a good product at the price point.  

[Clemens13]

Agreed. My only problem is the battery life.

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[drewski]

Unscientifically, I did a couple of things yesterday: 1) turned off GPS for each exercise option on my tracker, and 2) the 3-click reset after charging that @Alex_Lane mentioned.

Anyway, it's been ~18 hours and I'm at 94% battery!! Finally a work-around that seems like it's working!

[Wildcatguy]

Yes, I also manually shut off GPS tracking for each exercise, one at a time.  It seems like engaging GPS in any form starts the excessive battery drain.

My current configuration is:  

1) Never using GPS of any kind (either phone or internal).

2) Bluetooth notifications from the phone to the tracker shut off.

3) Keeping Bluetooth on my phone turned off, except when I'm actively using it.

4) Rebooting the Fitbit after every charge.

Operating in this mode, I can go 6 days between charges.

That said, why should I have to shut down so much functionality on the tracker to get decent battery life?  That's not what was advertised, and not what I thought I was buying.

I'm still hoping to get that firmware update before both the polar ice caps melt, but things are looking pretty drippy.......

[drewski]

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@Wildcatguy wrote:

I'm still hoping to get that firmware update before both the polar ice caps melt, but things are looking pretty drippy.......

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I'm not holding my breath. A similar thing happened with my Charge 2 where battery life went to sh*t after a firmware update and the promised update to fix the issue never materialized . . . still debating returning it.