Charge 5 battery is draining quickly

[Stahawk]

Around a week ago, plus or minus a few days, my Charge 5 battery life seems to be about 6 hours.

I've reset it, I've turned off the Buetooth on my Android phone, turned the Bluetooth back on, re-paired the Charge 5, changed thr watch face from Target, and the problem is still there.

Before this sudden issue, battery life seemed to be days (6?), though I typically topped it off every 1-3 days.

Could this be an issue that arose from some update or new feature/change, perhaps the new metrics like cardio and target loads?

I welcome tips on how to fix this or notes that others have experienced this recent change, too.

Moderator Edit: Clarified subject

[kslade88]

I appear to be having the same issue, started over the past few days! I have tried resetting it too but no luck. 

[Mare01]

• Same problem 🤬 from nowhere it just dies after 6-8 hours

[MarreFitbit]

Hi there, @Stahawk @kslade88. Welcome to the Fitbit Community Forums. Thanks for bringing this to my attention and for the troubleshooting steps you've tried. I'm sorry to hear that the battery of your Charge 5 devices keep draining. I understand your concern, I will do my best to help you with this!

Since you mentioned that this started happening after the update, please try to logout of the Fitbit app and swipe off the active face on your phone and turn off the phone's Bluetooth, then hold the watch button for 10 seconds till it vibrates and the logo appears and wait for it to start. In this disassociated state the battery should last as before.

Nevertheless, please bear in mind that as all rechargeable batteries age, they deteriorate to some extent and an older device will need to be charged more often than a new one. The best way of minimizing this effect is to avoid deep discharges of the battery. To maximize the overall life of your Fitbit device's battery, ideally keep it between 20-80%.  Many people find that a daily battery boost works best ( e.g. giving it a 15 minutes charge while you are showering in the morning).

Additionally, please make sure that you've tried all tips and recommendations provided here Can I extend my Fitbit device's battery life?

[RiekoC]

Hello @Stahawk . @Mare01 , @kslade88 

When my Charge 5 started having rapid battery loss, I restarted and recharged my device multiple times over several days. As soon as I saw a rapid drop in battery, I restarted my Charge 5 and put it on the charger until it was back to 100%, often doing this multiple times in a day. Eventually, this process got my device "unstuck" and the battery went back to lasting 6-7 days. Although there's no guarantee that this will work for you, it might be worth a try.

[Sanvis]

Ook ik heb dit probleem sinds gisteren. Hiervoor ging hij 6 dagen mee, van de een op de andere dag. Probeer nu elke keer tot 100% te laden en dan opnieuw op te starten...

[Mare01]

Right now I can not even restart it…

[RiekoC]

Hello @Mare01 

This help page describes the 3 ways that you can restart the Charge 5 (<-- click link)

[Stahawk]

Hello @MarreFitbit ,

Thanks so much for your reply! I have some clarification questions about the process you suggested.

• After logging out of the Fitbit app, what do you mean by "swiping off the active face on your phone"? Do you mean to switch to a different app or the phone's home screen with the intention of not being in the Fitbit app anymore?
•  
• After that, you advised that I turn off the Bluetooth on my phone and then restart my Fitbit Charge 5 by holding down the watch button for 10 seconds.I have two questions here: 1) I don't think there are any buttons on the Charge 5, but if the goal is to restart the Charge 5, I am guessing that one of the methods from @RiekoC 's post pointing to the ways to restart the Charge 5 (https://support.google.com/fitbit/answer/14194938?hl=en&sjid=15668272133280438383-NC#zippy=%2Ccharge...) will do?  2) When is okay to turn the Bluetooth on my phone back on? Are we doing that just during the FitBit Charge 5's restarting process, and I can turn the Bluetooth on my phone back on after the Charge 5 is done restarting?

It sounds like part of the intention here first is to leave the Charge 5 unpaired with the phone and the app (staying logged out of the app during this testing period) to see if that lets the Charge 5 batter last the way it did a couple of weeks or so ago.

Once that is established, is the next step then, that we would consider what might be wrong in terms of being paired and me logged into the app?

Thanks!

[kslade88]

Did you manage to sort it? Mine ended up taking ages to charge and in the end just seemed to die. I contacted Fitbit as I only had it 6 months and they are replacing it.

[Stahawk]

No, not yet. I've been leaving it on the charger instead of wearing it, for a lot of the time. With some more clarification from MarreFitbit, I'll hopefully be able to follow her process and maybe also RiekoC's and get it to work as it should... *fingers crossed*

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Hey @RiekoC  ,

When you were restarting and recharging your Charge 5 multiple times to get it unstuck, did you have it paired with the app on your phone and yourself logged into the app?

Thanks!

[RiekoC]

Hello @Stahawk 

Yes, my Charge 5 was paired to the app and I was logged in when I did the restart & charging process.

[Recentyak]

I spent 120£ on my versa 4 for 4£ I got a quality watch all I can tell you are they are like casino watches with 3 buttons I had as a boy

[CDNUser]

I am having the same issue.  I've had my Charge 5 for a year (Dec. 31,2023) and it was working perfectly until 2 weeks or so ago.  All of a sudden the battery started depleting rapidly within hours. It goes from 100% charge to 0% in only a few hours. The sensors have stopped working now as well.  Up until this time, one charge would typically last 4-6 days. Nothing happened to my device. I am very careful with it and have never had any issues. I do not wear it in the shower or swimming or expose it to extreme temperatures. I tried all of the 'fixes' including restarting it, un-pairing and re-pairing it. Force stopping the app and resyncing it. Uninstalling the app and reinstalling. Restarting the device again. I even performed a factory reset.  Nothing works.  It's basically useless. No heart rate monitoring, no step monitoring, and less than a day's worth of battery.  I contacted Customer Support who said it is 1 year old and out of warranty so it is now trash and I just need to buy a new one.  No explanation for the global issue that all Charge 5 users are having right now.  Just an offer to spend more money on a new device (that might spontaneously die after a year as well?)  This is my first FitBit and I can't say I am excited to run out and buy another one after this experience.  My mom bought this for me as a birthday gift in December 2023. She has been a loyal FitBit customer for years.  She has never had one fail or malfunction before and is disappointed to hear that this is happening.  Prior to this, I had zero issues with it.  It worked perfectly.  Great battery life (4-6 days).  Reliable step and heart rate tracking.  Notifications from all my apps.  Now it's a glorified watch that dies within a day.  What a waste.  I just want my FitBit to work again.  I don't want to pay for a new one when this one was perfectly good!

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This is a ridiculous answer.  All of us are having the same problem spontaneously in the past 2 weeks. Clearly something happened with the firmware or software or whatever it is that runs the FitBit Charge 5.  Rechargeable batteries don't go from lasting 5 days to 5 hours overnight.  Not to mention the sensor issue! 

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Lucky for you @kslade88 !  I'm having the same issue but since mine had been activated for 1 year + a few days I am out of warranty. 

[ukwebfan]

@MarreFitbit

Thanks for your reply but what happened to the sensors? Although the display works fine when charged, nothing is being monitored as well as the battery draining quickly with a bright red light. Btw, I don't even have the update. My last update was 2 years ago.

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@RiekoC

I can't say yet whether your fix is a battery solution but when I did what you suggested then unpaired and re-paired my Charge 5, the sensors are working again and the back of the device no longer has a bright red flashing light. Progress!

In addition, I went into Settings | Device Info | Clear User Data as suggested on a help page. This process prompted the decision to re-pair.

Another difference might be that my Charge 5 sat in the box for the better part of 2 years until I was able to upgrade my phone to Android 14. Back in 2023, a support rep would no longer help me until I had the latest version of Android.

[SunsetRunner]

This started happening to me 2 days ago, it is clearly a software issue as batteries do not degrade like that. Anyone managed to get an actual fix (i.e. new firmware) out of the support team?

[J-Mark]

I have the exact same issue, which started around January 12.  Battery life had been 5-6 days.  Suddenly it dropped to 2 or 3 hours.  I just restarted the device and will report back on result.  As mentioned by others, back had a red light glowing.

Update:  still rapidly losing battery even after reseting device.

Further update:  battery drained from 100% to 0 in about 3 hours, even after reset.  This appears to be a firmware issue.  Super frustrating that Fitbit is not all over it.  If it's not fixed soon, I'm done with Fitbit!

More update (1/20):  I have now restarted the device at least a dozen times.  I have restarted multiple times each with my phone app on and paired and with it off.  There is no improvement.  I will only stay charged for about 3 hours.

[RiekoC]

Hello @ukwebfan 

Thanks for the update. I'm glad to see that my suggestion might have helped and that you've made progress with your Charge 5.

Please keep us updated on how things are going.

[J-Mark]

Still rapidly losing battery, even after reset.. Other ideas?

[ukwebfan]

@RiekoC

I'm sad to report that the battery issue remains a problem and after another charge, the sensor that counts steps no longer works.

Last night I noticed I'd lost 65% of the battery in about 8 hours time. After charging back to 100%, I'm sitting at 58% after 5 hours.

On the 4th charge of my Charge 5 battery in the last 2 days.

The good news is the flashing red light is gone, it's still syncing and navigation works well on the device itself. If only it worked as intended. 🤔