Charge 5 battery in a matter of an hour

[Shivparsh]

My Charge 5 is about 11 months old. Since yesterday, my battery discharges from full charge to 6% in a matter of an hour! It used to run for 6 full days till yesterday. Customer support just forwarded some useless links and hung up.

Any suggestions? I do not used GPS or any know battery consuming apps. Also even with them, charge won't drop do fast anyway.

Moderator edit: subject updated for clarity

[DavideFitbit]

Hi, thank you for sharing all these details about the inconvenience you've been having with your Charge 5 and for confirming that you already tried a few troubleshooting steps, @Shivparsh. 

Keep in mind the Support team always needs to make sure that all the available troubleshooting steps have been exhausted. I've proceeded to send your information to them again, but I've been informed that you already got in touch with them and it seems they've provided you with more instructions. In this case, they will let you know how to proceed. 

Have a good day. 

[skatardrummer]

Hi DavideFitbit, I just posted about this as well, and I noticed many other people have posted about this in the last week as well. My fitbit is 5 months old and also just started doing this a couple days ago, despite not having changed any settings on my fitbit or phone. I think there must be something on Fitbit's end that is causing this. I have the latest firmware update 1.171.50. As of about 3 days ago, my Fitbit Charge 5 had been lasting 7 days on a charge. All of the sudden about 3 days ago the batter is draining from 100% to about 4-6% in less than 12 hours. I have a display. It is synching with my phone. I confirmed the displayed battery charge with synching on my phone. I've never used built in GPS on it. I have restarted it.

[Kazza05]

Yes all what mine has done.
Yep sounds like it. My heart rate and sleep isn’t working either now.
I am in talks with the support team see where I go from there.
I have done all their help links on everything but nothing is working. Mine was brought for me last October given to me as a Christmas present all very frustrating

Sent from my iPhone

[Shivparsh]

I have since received a link through which I submitted a replacement request. Hope to receive it soon as I have grown too used to it.

As for support, I understand all steps have to be followed. However, providing links that lead to a generic help page - well that's not my idea of support. I would expect specific steps - 1,2,3 ..., example - turn off GPS, restart etc. Not go and read documentation.

If I am wrong, my apologies.

[Oma22boys]

My charge is 3 months old and is doing the same.  draining overnight very frustrating.

[skatardrummer]

I contacted support and their response was that it's the charger. This makes literally no sense, as it's charging my device to 100%. So they're sending a new charger. I will test it immediately when it comes and if this problem persists, will reach back out to fitbit again. I'm not even confident device replacement would fix the issue if so many people are having issues. It really does sound like a firmware problem on Fitbit's end if so many people are suddenly having problems after stages of the last firmware rollout. This is extremely disappointing. I regret not getting the extended Asurion warranty. I expected better of Fitbit's quality and longevity than 5 months. Extremely poor performance for an expensive product. 

[Kazza05]

This is my 3rd Fitbit and the only one that I have had this issue with it has to be the firmware as so many are having problems. Disappointing currently as not tracking anything I do at the moment still waiting support to get back to me after I have tried all there having you done all the trouble shooting .

Sent from my iPad

[Shivparsh]

They told me the same thing. Charger defective, when it was charging 100% fairly in time. The unit warms up on charging now, but I have no display coming up. It does not sync anymore. I was told it does not charge up to the required voltage, so it drains out quickly. Couldn't quite fathom that. I do not know if they are sending a charger cable or the device as a replacement. I am pretty sure the battery is kaputt. Let's see.

[chesanova]

The same thing suddenly started happening with my Charge 5, which is around 10 months old. About a week ago, it went from lasting about a week on one charge to dying in just a few hours. If I charge it overnight and put it on when I go to class, it’s dead by 10 or 11AM. Today, after I had left it charging all night and it had reached 99%, I took it off the charger and did not put it on. 20 minutes later, it had reached 70% by just sitting on my table. I have done a factory reset and have not used the GPS since this issue began with no luck, so it’s not any settings causing the problem.

[Kazza05]

Just seems to be the firmware update just feel that need to admit it’s the problem before all of us turn away from fitbits

Sent from my iPhone

[skatardrummer]

Agreed. Unless it's a batch issue causing mass failure of chargers or batteries, which isn't really likely they all kick the bucket at the same time, it makes more sense that there's some issue with an update. Especially if all these devices were purchased at different times and it's taken months before any of them went. I don't know, we'll see what this new charging cable does when it arrives. 

[Missie39]

Hi I have been having the same issue for about a month. I contacted customer support this morning to let them know I have tried all of their trouble shooting steps. If they can prove you have exhausted all troubleshooting they will approve you for a replacement or 50% off a new one. I went with the replacement because it will be free. 

[skatardrummer]

The charger cable arrived today. The Fitbit had already been sitting charged on the old one. So not really sure how it knows that it's a new charging cable, but I plugged it into the new one and "charged" it for a while. It will not go past 99%. Since taking it off, it has lost 10% in 2 hours. So expecting it will be dead in 20 hours at the current rate. I guess I'll try charging it up from 0 when it gets there with the new charger and see what happens.