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?

[Sarahyogi]

Yes, good idea. I find it appalling that they aren’t resolving this quicker & are still selling them knowing there is a fault. I saved for ages to treat myself and I can’t believe they won’t refund or offer me an alternative!  

[Bluejasmin]

Hey Eileen, I am having the same issues. Battery lasts only 2 hours now. I went swimming last week and locked the Fitbit for swimming, but since that day my watch is not usable. The Fitbit support is not helping with useful information at all. I am quite disappointed now.

[bcityrancher]

I bought my Charge 5 in December 2021, so about the same time frame and it just stopped holding charge in June. Worked brilliantly before that. I have talked to customer service twice and have an open case. Their first solution is to turn off functions and use the lowest options, like dimming the screen to lowest option. I did all of this and called back this week as now it's only holding battery for 4-6 hours, so basically useless.  The only answer the rep gave me is to wait for the firmware update and that they aren't replacing any devices at this time. And she doesn't have a time frame of when the next update is coming out. This is beyond annoying as I'm in my warranty period and still have 6 months of Premium left. 

My other question is if they know some of the options drain the battery, why offer them in the first place? I'm beyond frustrated. I've had one of their devices years ago and no problem.  I feel I've been ripped off by their incompetence.

[cpach123]

Happening to me too. Started 2 days ago. Haven’t had this watch for 3 months. Customer service page not working. The watch won’t charge and i can’t get the screen to turn on to reset. At a loss about what to do. 

[JessMeow]

Any response @Fitbit ???

[stillersrock]

I did NOTHING.  AT. ALL.  suddenly it is better.  I even took a long motorcycle ride today and it is just... normal battery usage.  I took no action at all.  Just kept charging it.  I have no idea if it got an update or anything.  No idea even how to check!  No wonder they are struggling with it if it is an intermittent problem.... wow.

[LizzyFitbit]

Hi everyone, and welcome to our new members.

Thanks for the details provided, and your efforts while working on this matter. Let me explain our team is aware of this situation and they're working on a firmware update to get this issue resolved. I understand where you're coming from, and I apologize for this experience.

While there isn't a time frame, be sure to keep your Charge 5 up-to-date as you've been doing, and follow the tips described in our help article to maximize the battery life. Your feedback is truly appreciated and please know it'll be provided to our team so they can be informed of the impact to all our members.

As a friendly reminder, we want our Fitbit Community to be a place where users can come to share their feedback and stories in a conducive manner, so please keep in mind the Community Guidelines when posting.

[Narfabi]

I've had my Charge 5 since November 2021. Until recently, I only needed to charge it about once every couple of weeks. Now, the battery lasts maybe five hours. This makes the watch unusable to monitor sleep (the main reason I bought it). I contacted Fitbit Support, they said I'd need to wait for an update.

Note: This was definitely not caused by GPS, notifications, or any other settings. Also, I did a factory reset and it didn't help.

Thankfully, I have an old Charge 2 that still works, so I've been using that. I hope this issue is resolved soon, so I didn't waste money on a watch I can't use.

[JohnDisch]

My Charge 5 is no longer holder a charge either...This just started happening yesterday after 6 months of using it.   Have had it plugged into a standard usb port for the day and nothing ,,, its dead.   It wont even power up now even when its connected to a USB in my Laptop.  Based on the comments in this community on this specific issue - it seems to be a very widespread problem.   Is Fitbit doing anything about this??

This is my third fitbit and all 3 have now had issues...very Frustrating - reluctant to recommend Fitbit to anyone nor do I plan to make this same mistake a 4th time...

[Sarahyogi]

I’m sorry but this is absolutely ludicrous. There is a fleet of customers who are left with new Charge 5’s that are totally unusable. I charged mine 3 times yesterday and it’s dead again. The generic tick boxes of  how to preserve your battery are now insulting as this is a fault and not because someone has their GPS on. Fitbit needs to be coming up With a solution & a set date & how this hasn’t made the national press is beyond me!! 

[Sarahyogi]

Believe me when I say it gets worse! Mine went from 4 days to now an hour. The other day it went from 80% to 4% in one short car ride!! 😳

---------

Any idea which of these updates that apparently fixes the issues has actually made it 10 times worse?

[kimmicocopuff]

Exactly! They continue to sell devices knowing they will not hold a charge, while disparaging existing customers telling us that there's no ETA and chastising us for being angry over our worthless and expensive devices. All while blaming some feature (the GPS) which I've never ever once turned on.  It's unexcusable

[Sierrarun]

My started on Wed this week...short battery life, not syncing with phone and today returning home from a 9 hour drive it recorded me at 400+ heart zone and around a total of 1,000 calories burned??  I have only had my charger 5 for 6 months and take very good care of it.  I have restarted it in settings, Uu-installed and  reinstalled the app, hit the reboot button 3 times on the plug...which it did reboot with no success of working correctly.  It's not recording my heart zone, calories nor steps correctly.  Fitbit...What is going on and when will this be fixed?

[ManjuN]

I also have the same problem . All of a sudden my Fitbit wouldn’t hold the charge and is draining fast . I have contacted Fitbit team and opened 2 cases. If anyone knows a solution , please reply back . Thanks

Moderator Edit: Personal info removed

[mulva]

I cannot keep my Charge 5 up-to-date because the battery won't charge at all.  It's completely dead and I can't pair it to the app.  If there are any firmware updates (which is how this whole mess started) I can't update my Charge 5.  It's the most catch-22 situation ever.  I'm so angry.

[Joelz]

I have exact same problem. Kept a charge for a week now it’s basically only good for a paper weight 

[mulva]

Me too and now it won't charge at all.

[MsN.]

Fitbit claims that they have a ticket open for the known charge issue
(charge not lasting). Best bet is to reset your Fitbit - pressing the
button in on the charger. Turn off your GPS first. GPS is burning up
battery life!

[mulva]

I did that, several times and the battery is so non-existent it doesn't last long enough to pair with my phone.  So I can't do anything.

I made the mistake of un-pairing it, thinking this would be a good reboot, but the battery drained and here we are. 

[Sarahyogi]

My GPS is off and still doesn’t last longer than 2 hours. 😳