Cancel
Showing results for 
Show  only  | Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Charge 5 brand new doesn’t hold charge

Replies are disabled for this topic. Start a new one or visit our Help Center.

My brand new Charge 5 doesn’t hold a charge. I have all notifications turned off, and only sync it a few times each day. I take off the watch at night, and when I get up in the morning the screen is still on. Thinking of returning if it can’t hold a charge for 2 days, or turn off while not even using features. My charge4 could hold a charge for 4-5 days with constant syncing and notifications . 

 

 


Moderator edit: format 

Best Answer
43 REPLIES 43

Hello, that sounds bad!

 

I just have a quick question, when you say the screen is still on in morning, do you mean without you tapping it or anything?
It might be that you have the screen set to always on, which drains the battery.  In the morning, if the screen is on, before you touch it, is it white?

When it’s set to always on, it has a dim white screen all the time and then switches back to colour when you lift your arm or tap it…

 

If that is the case, you can swipe up from the main screen to settings. Then Display Settings, then scroll down to Always On, then scroll down and there’s a toggle for Always On that you can switch to off.

 

If that’s not the problem, please ignore this.

 

Good Luck!

Best Answer
I went to the display settings and “always on” is toggled to off, everything is default settings, brightness normal, screen wake manual, screen time out is default. So I don’t know what is using so much battery.

Sent from my iPhone
Best Answer

Have you checked if GPS is on?  That can also be a battery drainer.  If you have any exercise shortcuts set, after pressing start, swipe up from the bottom and check that the GPS is toggled to off.

 

The other thing that often seems to work for people with a problem, is restarting the Charge 5 from Settings - it's the last thing after GPS.  It might be worth trying that and seeing if things improve afterwards.  I had a problem early on (I've actually forgotten what it was) and restarted and that fixed it straightaway.  It doesn't always fix things though as I read of people restarting multiple times...

Best Answer
Thank you for that information. I just checked and GPS setting says phone not dynamic. I recharged last night and I’m monitoring how long the battery lasts and if the the watch display is on in the mornings. If no improvement, I will try the restart.

Sent from my iPhone
Best Answer
0 Votes

Try to drain the Charge5 battery totaly and Charge again 

 

Best Answer

Hi, welcome to the Fitbit Community forums, @24needhelp

 

Thank you for your feedback and for all the information that you've provided about the inconvenience that you've been experiencing with the new Charge 5. 

 

Before considering other options, please make sure that you've exhausted all the troubleshooting steps found in this article to improve battery life. The Charge 5 should have a battery life of 7 days, but battery life is affected by use or other settings and actual results may vary. 

 

As @Lymmeln mentioned earlier, some of the feature that can drain the battery more rapidly are: 

 

  • Built-in GPS (Charge 5 can have a battery life of up to 4 day when using this feature regularly, or up to 5 hours if you use it continuously).
  • Always-on display (Charge 5 can have a battery life of up to 3 days when using this feature). 
  • Using an Sp82 clock face (Fitbit points out in this article that you may have to charge your Fitbit device more often when collecting SpO2 data).

I'll be around. 

Davide | Italian and English Community Moderator, Fitbit


Ti invito a partecipare nelle nostre discussioni! Commenti

Best Answer
0 Votes

I have now checked and tried everything that was suggested by all who responded in the forum, including a restart. Last night I charged fully. Took off the charger and went to bed. I checked it see if the face was on twice in the night, and it wasn’t. Woke up in the morning, put it on. And started checking my emails, got a low battery email a couple of hours ago, apparently the fully charged watch died over the night. It is going back today.

Best Answer
0 Votes

It’s good that you did try everything first before sending it back.  It definitely sounds like it's faulty and getting a replacement sounds like the right thing to do.

 

I’m sorry you had those problems and hope that your next tracker (Fitbit or a different brand) works really well!

Best Answer
0 Votes

Well Live in Sweden, but after 2 Battery drain and recharge it have no issues at all after 2 Weeks

Best Answer
0 Votes

@24needhelp Thank you for sharing that you've followed all the troubleshooting steps mentioned earlier. I'm sorry to see that you continue to experience the same inconvenience. If you haven't done so already, please get in touch with the Customer Support team for further assistance; the best way to get help for this problem is to chat with us online or give us a call. Click here to get connected. 

 

@Lymmeln Thanks for sharing your experience with this as well. It's great to know that you're no longer experience this inconvenience with the battery. 😁

 

Have a great day. 

Davide | Italian and English Community Moderator, Fitbit


Ti invito a partecipare nelle nostre discussioni! Commenti

Best Answer
0 Votes

I’ve had my five for about a month. I’ve followed all the tips on saving battery life. No GPS, no SPo2 installed. Latest firmware. Notifications Off. A full charge at 8am. By four PM its 67%. Wake up at 7am and it’s at 32%. Go for an hour hike, it’s at 18% and posting a low battery warning. Fitbit points users to some tips on saving battery life and lists the discussion as Solved.. 

Do I have a bad battery or is Fitbit buying time trying to fix the problem. How could a problem like this been missed if the product was extensively tested prior to release? 
Again, do I have a bad battery and should Fitbit replace my five.  Please don’t point me to some tips page. I’ve got it running in bare bones mode and still have no battery life over 24 hours.

BTW - I also had a chat session about how to turn off the motivation messages. Although, the person tried hard to figure it out, it didn’t happen.

Best Answer

If you've done all the things suggested; restart after complete depletion of the battery etc. it sounds to me like you've got a duff one and should send it back.  Mine was on 56% when I did the update on Tuesday and is now on 37%, so losing ~10% a day which sounds about right.  It uses more if I use it to track exercise.

Best Answer

Hi, welcome to the Fitbit Community forums, @SunsetRunner.  

 

Thank you for sharing that you've been experiencing the same inconvenience with your Charge 5 and that you already tried all the troubleshooting steps suggested in the forums. 

 

I've sent your information to the Customer Support team for further assistance with this, but was informed that you already have a case created or that you already got in touch with them and it seems they've sent you further instructions. 

 

Have a good day. 

Davide | Italian and English Community Moderator, Fitbit


Ti invito a partecipare nelle nostre discussioni! Commenti

Best Answer
0 Votes

My Charge 5 hold for7 days just barly but I wonder for how many. Recharge iteration ??¿

 

 

Moderator edit: format

Best Answer

Called into support two days ago. Followed their instructions to sync/log my charge five every few hours so they could see the battery drain.

I synced every hour.  Basically, my five would lose 3-3.5% charge per hour. For some unknown reason, it would occasionally lose 6-8%.

after doing what was requested. Support approved sending back my five for a replacement. I sent my five back this morning. We”ll see how the replacement works out.

 

----------------------------

 

Based on the charge five spec that lists a seven day battery cycle. The five should lose no more than 14.25% per day. Of course, that means not using the GPS and other functions known to drain the battery. If your five is making it six days on average. I’d say you have a winner….

Best Answer
0 Votes

Sorry to hear. I also had to return mine for the same reason. I went back to Charge 4.


 

Moderator edit: format

 

Best Answer

@SunsetRunner Thank you for sharing all your feedback and experience about the battery life of your Charge 5. it's good to see that you've be receiving a replacement soon. Let us know how it goes with the new device. 

 

@24needhelp I'm sorry to see that you had to return your Charge 5 due to this inconvenience. Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback as well. 

 

Have a good day. 

Davide | Italian and English Community Moderator, Fitbit


Ti invito a partecipare nelle nostre discussioni! Commenti

Best Answer
0 Votes

I am having the same problem with the Charge 5 battery lasting just over 1 day. I’ve had it for a week. I went through all the tips here/in link. Everything has been and continues to be off - I don’t use it for notifications etc anyway. What is the least draining option on GPS? Dynamic or phone? I’ve tried a couple days of each. The only thing I haven’t done is reset it, which I will do this morning when it is charged up again. Huge disappointment - like others - I was very happy with Charge 4, battery lasted a week including wearing at night. Band broke and couldn’t quickly find a replacement at retail so ended up buying the 5 figuring it’s got to be an upgrade anyway. Nope. If reset does t work I also will try to return the Charge 5 and find a replacement band for the 4 online. 

 

 

Moderator edit: format

Best Answer

Welcome to the Community forums, @shoey22

 

Thank you for sharing that you've been experiencing the same inconvenience with your Charge 5 and that you already tried a few troubleshooting steps.

 

I'm sorry to see that you're still having this problem after the steps that you've tried so far. In this case, I recommend that you get in touch with the Customer Support team for further assistance. The best way to get help for this problem is to chat with us online or give us a call. Click here to get connected. 

 

Thank you again for taking the time to share all your feedback about the product. 

 

Have a great day. 

Davide | Italian and English Community Moderator, Fitbit


Ti invito a partecipare nelle nostre discussioni! Commenti

Best Answer
0 Votes