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?

[Clemens13]

So to boil this all down to its simplest form, the units made in Malaysia are good, those made in China, bad. Obvious solution, replace all the bad units with the good!

[PipPips]

Issues do not need to apply to "all" units for a recall, just many. This issue is prevalent across the spectrum. You can go on YouTube and all the reviewers who got them as pre-release and post-release have mostly experienced this issue. The GPS location within the unit seems to be an engineering flaw that was never tested at all as well. There is so much wrong with the Charge 5 that it is blowing my mind that it made it out of QA alive. GPS broke? Ignore. Battery life not working right? Ignore. Payments not working right? Ignore. Heart rate off by 20? Ignore.  Lets send copies to the reviewers and release it a month later!

What.

[OKmamaJ]

My Charge 5 battery has been pretty good so far, then suddenly it went from 80% before bed last night, to DEAD this morning.

[Clemens13]

On the bright side, it has a nice color display.
But don't use it, it will drain the battery!
Sigh

Moderator edit: all-caps

[LiJaHi]

Clemens13, if all you want is a pedometer, surely there are cheaper devices already that would do the job for you. No need to buy something with bells and whistles. The extra features are what many people want though.

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Bike-man, are you getting 8 days charge while using the GPS?

[mereebarber]

So agree with your sentiments. this is my 4th Fitbit & the 1st one I’ve had problems with & the only reason I’ve got charge 5 is it’s a birthday gift for an ionic which I had no problems with . I only had it for 3 days before it shut down while on a long walk
Like you I’ve uninstalled spo2 most of apps except walking. GPS is on phone, screen awake to manual & like you I have to charge it an end of every day in fact yesterday I lost 7 % battery life in the first 30 minutes & by 5pm it was@ 51% & by 11pm down to 32%
I’ve sought help from Fitbit who advised about the issues, but surely the battery issue should be result in a recall. We shouldn’t have to recharge every 1-2 days. And I’m still waiting for refund on the recall of my Ionic.

Sent from my iPhone

[mereebarber]

No, even though it’s linked to my phone. The longest it’s stayed charged is from Sunday night to Tuesday

Sent from my iPhone

[KathyJUK]

My battery is barely lasting 3 hours.  I have stopped wearing my Charge 5 now, as its a waste of time.  I havent seen anyone else saying their battery is as bad as mine.  I bought mine in September when they were first released.  I am asking for a full refund, and have been told this only happens within 45 days of purchase.  REALLY!!!  What kind of guarantee is offered by FitBit.  This is a truly disgraceful way to treat your customers.  I have always loved Fitbit, but this is the last time I will buy a Fitbit device.  I really dont think a fix is going to "fix" this issue, and with no timescale of when this update is due, it leaves me feeling like we are being treating like an inconvenience.  
How do I go about getting a refund please.  I am done with this now. 
Kathy

[Frannymac]

Same problem here. Only getting 3-4 days in a charge even after disabling always on and lowers the screen brightness.

[Gpolly1]

I guess my biggest complaint is that battery's inconsistancy. Sometimes it will last for several days, other days it will drain to 50% in a few hours. Reset and it works fine again, then sometimes-reset and it still drains quickly. The amount of time I spend rebooting my phone, rebooting the Charge 5, restarting the Charge 5, resetting the app... in one day, can be extremely frustrating! 

[drewski]

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@Clemens13 wrote:
So to boil this all down to its simplest form, the units made in Malaysia are good, those made in China, bad. Obvious solution, replace all the bad units with the good!

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No. Mine was made in Malaysia and has this issue. The restart via  charging cable button helps. Restarting via the settings menu, which is one of the options from @DavideFitbit's link doesn't . . . YMMV

[KathyJUK]

How do I check if mine was made in China or Malaysia please?
Kathy

[Clemens13]

True. In fact I have a simple pedometer that works just fine at counting steps. The Fitbit was useful because it uploaded your info to the website, and our wellness provider at work could access that data. This means we automatically earned our "health bucks"!

[LesleyMY]

"How do I check if mine was made in China or Malaysia please?
Kathy"

It's on the box. Strangely though, the Fitbits sold in Malaysia come from China. 😬

I wish they'd come up with the promised fix.

[Bike-man]

Hi, if you don’t have the original box, go to Settings on your Charge 5, then System Info, then Regulatory info and scroll all the way to the bottom of the screen.

[Clemens13]

Bad news. Made in Malaysia but battery still sucks.

Sent from my iPhone

[Baybeemon]

My previous unit also has similar problem, not sure where it is manufactured. Fitbit gave me a replacement, made in Malaysia. I have been monitoring it for two weeks. The battery deplete 8-12% in 24 hours. I exercise and does EDA everyday. On days I interact less with my Fitbit and does less manually sync, the battery deplete slower. The number of steps I accumulate doesn't seems to affect the rate of the battery deplete. Settings are default, except I use phone gps and change clock face to energize.

If you use manual wake screen, most probably it will save some battery too, since chances of it auto light up will be low.

I personally think that what I'm experiencing now is normal. I charge it every 7 days when my battery is at 20% range. Not sure those that made in china has higher chance of being a bad unit. Most people who complains, their unit happened to be MIC. It could also be majority of Fitbit are MIC that's why we see most of the Fitbit that have issues are MIC. My sister's charge 5 is MIC too, she has been using it for months now without issue. I read that units that are made in Malaysia does have some battery issue, however it usually can be resolved by restarting the device through the device itself or cable. Those MIC are just lost cause.

[Bike-man]

Yes, I too had an issue when I 1st starting using my new Charge 5.  Then I did a reset and restart and all has been well since January.  Just put mine on the charger this am with 13% charge left after 9 days.  Made in Malaysia.   

[KathyJUK]

Thanks.  Just checked, and mine is, of course, made in China.  😞

[JKOFFOTH]

They have not fixed my wife’s draining problem. Support acknowledges there is a problem and with be coming out with a software fix in the future. I believe the device is defective but their support of the device is currently that a fix via software is coming. Her charge 5 is 8 months old before the rapid discharge problem happened.

I lost my Charge 5 several months ago but do not think I will buy another Fitbit.