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?

[ypevie]

The company has contacted me and said to ensure I download the firmware when the update is prompted on my c5. I’ve never seen the prompt and my device is supposedly up to date. In the meantime, I’m to troubleshoot with the provided tips. I’ve done the trouble shooting prior to contacting them and to be honest my needs on this device are pretty simple so I don’t have a lot of the bells and whistles utilized and never did. So, I’m in limbo waiting for an update that probably won’t work and a company that isn’t standing by its product and fixing this mess. There seems to be quite a few customers with this issue! My c5 is lying in the nightstand having missed a three day kayaking event, hiking and running. I was pretty excited with the idea of using the stats to push myself even harder to do things and get more fit. Disappointed doesn’t cover it. I really loved this thing when it worked! 

[ypevie]

I have never used the gps and I troubleshooted all the tips prior to contacting the company. I don’t use many of the bells and whistles. The device charged to 2-3 days when I got it for Christmas and I thought that was normal since I’d never had one before. Now it dies within 2 hours. I’ve missed stats on so many events this summer. I’ve never been prompted for an update in 7 months. Extremely disappointed with this product as is my family who gifted it to me. 

[tharp]

Apparently that isn't the case
*Tammy Harpin*

[jenny05]

LOL at this being marked resolved.  My battery draining issues started a couple days ago.  Fully charged in the morning and dies overnight when I'm sleeping.  I contacted support and they told me to charge it fully, gave me a reference number, and told me to contact again when the battery dies.  99% (doesn't get to 100%) at 9:50AM this morning.  It's 1:08PM now and I'm at 81%.  Glad to know it's not just me but at the same time it's super frustrating that there is no fix when this has been a known issue for almost a year!

[kimmicocopuff]

Here's the latest update in my case. After months of all this nonsense and runaround. During one of my four million interactions with support, one asked about my screen. I mentioned it has malfunctioned in the past, and bam! Replacement. I forced support to stay in the chat until I got the replacement link. New one works perfectly. Haven't had to charge since I got it. Frankly, I'm terrified to even plug it into the charger since that's all I did with the last one before it became worthless. I haven't updated to the new firmware bc I don't trust it for single second that this one won't immediately stop working. I already have my Garmin picked out. 

[Notrunner]

I've had 4 chats with the unhelpful help desk at FitBit...and am told to wait for the firmware update (though my FitBit can't install the existing Firmware update).  For those of you who received replacement devices, has FitBit said how or why the new Charge-5s won't have the same problems?  

[foreversoul]

I've been following this thread with great interest to see if the promised firmware update would fix the battery drain issue. After a prolonged wait, the firmware update finally released and its clear it hasn't fixed the issue for most users and has even introduced new and more severe problems. I'm giving up on the C5 and will now be unsubscribing from this thread. Good luck to all! 

[tharp]

Nothing is said; you send yours back they send you another one.
*Tammy Harpin*

[akm510]

I was very hopeful but I'm on the latest firmware and just had the battery issue start again. It's very odd that most if the time I've had the Charge 5 the battery life has been great but this is the third time that the battery just starts to fail and now once again the charge only lasts a couple hours and then drains down to zero. Very disappointing 

[sean44]

This may not work for all….but I put GPS to phone and that is the only option I disable because I rarely use the GPS. I also restart my watch, using the watch touch screen  to after I charge it ( once disconnected from charger) or when I think it may be draining too fast and haven’t had the battery issues I initially had. I did this before the update and was worried the update may mess this up after reading comments but it hasn’t. 

I realized this method because I noticed when my watched drained to zero percent and it shut off I would charge it after and it be fine but when I recharged it before it lost power the drain would occur. So I started this restart process and it work. Needles to say it is ridiculous I have to do this so I don’t fault anyone who just wants to return the watch. Hopefully this helps. 

[GDSchulz]

@tcat007 That has mostly been my experience too.  C5 using only 7%-8% of a full charge most days.  I did have one incident where C5 did start to drain much faster again.  That occurred one day after I topped off the charge when it didn't really need it and then didn't restart.  Immediately started seeing a drain of almost 25% per day.  NOTE: This was *after* the new firmware update!  Charged to 100% again and rebooted this time and it went back to 7%-8%.  That one-time incident followed three days earlier when I fully charged to 100% and didn't restart, and saw no change in battery usage.  The battery's fine, but I'm back to restarting after charge.  Guessing there might be some strangeness in the hardware/firmware involving calibration of the battery charge statistic, but that's only speculation.  I can live with restarting after charge if necessary.  Nothing but a minor inconvenience.

[Busy3]

That’s their standard line… when you receive the prompt to update your
program! Well there is no UpDATE!!!! 😡😡😡

[Brihill23]

Have there been any new updates on this? Just this week my C5 started draining in a few hours. Before this i would get a week out of it easily. now i just charged it to 100%, and lost 10% in 5 minutes. I absolutely adore this tracker and i am devastated that it appears to be useless now.

[kimmicocopuff]

Yep. There is zero guarantee. Hence why I'm afraid to even plug the replacement into the charger. And I ONLY got a replacement bc my "screen didn't work properly" not because they destroyed my perfectly good device with their updates and firmware. So they will still refuse to send you one because they broke it. I'm having serious heart things happen that I need to be able to watch. I really can't have this one go black too. But I have every suspicion that it will. 

[Brihill23]

I also have a heart condition, it was the only reason I upgraded my charge 3 to a 5.

[Smccain1962]

They are awful to deal with! Complete and total rip off

Sent from my iPhone

[Brihill23]

I will never use apple. But there are other smart watches I would consider

[iubrian]

Back in November I went on an 8 day trip, forgot the charging cable, and was still able to go the full week (I did disable auto wake, but that was about it). That was my consistent experience; I would get up, charge the C5 while I took a shower, and that was about all I needed to keep it adequately charged. Then sometime this spring I noticed the battery drain issue when my C5 was drained and my alarm didn’t go off; I imagine it started happening after the EKG update. I was able to apply this most recent update and fingers crossed I seem to be close to where I was when I first got the C5, which is excellent multi-day use without a charge. I would add that is with all features enabled, including GPS (but not always on, just autowake). That’s what makes support’s advice about disabling features frustrating - I am aware that this device is capable of excellent battery life with all features enabled. I’ve had Fitbit Charge’s since 2016; I hope they get their head back in the game.

[KlausVanderson]

Finally, after about my 7th interaction with customer support they've agreed to replace my tracker. Seems to be just a matter of getting a sympathetic representative. Once the new one arrives we'll see how long it functions properly.

[delawareBirder]

Now that I have to charge my Charge 5 four to five times a day, I wonder if the battery life is being shortened.  I previously was charging it once a week, now probably around 30 times a week.  How many charge/discharge cycles are these batteries good for?  When a new firmware version comes out that fixes this issue, I wonder how negatively my device has been impacted.