Charge 5 exercise tracker crashes mid-exercise

[MysteryBee]

My Charge 5 is about 3 months old. Been using the built-in run/bike exercise tracker. The first few times it worked fine, fun even. But it has now begun to drop out mid-exercise. Among the minor problems of life, this one annoys me enough to post about it. On a 1.5 hour ride, I restart the exercise 3 or 4 times, and of course the app summary is then broken down into 3 or 4 separate exercise sessions. This is its only job, to track the exercise, and it is failing. I read about its GPS maybe disconnecting because of hilly terrain, but that doesn't explain what is happening. It is dropping out in common exercise environments, with my phone in my pocket. Today the screen became unresponsive mid-ride. Black screen with a red dot at the top. A month ago, when it was working fine, I laughed when my brother told me his fitbit broke after a few months, thinking he probably abused it. But I'm kind of pissed about this now! Think I'm going to buy an Apple watch, very disappointed.

[DavideFitbit]

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

Thank you for sharing all your feedback and that you've been having this inconvenience with your Charge 5. 

If you continue to experience the same behavior and your GPS is getting disconnected, make sure to try following the steps listed in this article to complete a restart, as this has been useful for other users experiencing something similar. 

If the GPS is getting disconnected during your activity, the Charge 5 may track different information for the the distance. Before considering other options, make sure to follow the steps suggested in this article. 

All devices with GPS sensors require a direct path to GPS satellites to calculate location. A weak GPS signal might affect the accuracy of your route and other activity data. Your device uses your step count to calculate distance until it finds a signal, so the total distance calculated for a workout may be slightly less accurate when GPS isn't available for the entire time. In particular, please make sure of the following: 

• That you are in open sky and moderate trees
• Adjust how you wear the tracker when you want to use GPS 
• Make sure the Location in your phone settings is set to Always or All the time for the Fitbit app (if you're using connected GPS)

I'll be around.

[MysteryBee]

Thank you for the reply. I have tried the remedies in the referenced article. The exercise app worked better at first, which points to a problem with the watch, not how I use it. Anyway, for the record: Battery after yesterday's blackout was at 37% once it was rebooted, generally I've been going out with strong battery, though not always over 80%. The connection with the phone is fine, background refresh is on, access is set to always. The watch says "connected", and stays connected for a while. GPS setting has been on "dynamic", but I'll see what happens if I switch to "phone GPS". That might be a bug, though yesterday the watch was within one foot of the phone at all times. I understand that tree cover and uneven terrain can affect GPS connectivity, but one shouldn't have to be in Nebraska for the exercise app to work as advertised. It has been disconnecting on open, slightly hilly terrain. My guess is that this is the problem, though it doesn't explain why it worked better initially. Maybe it's just weaker and too unreliable to track outdoor exercise. My son has a Garmin for years, and he has had no trouble over the terrain I cover.

The fitbit works well for sleep and heart rate, but it just seems like it's not really made for active exercising, and maybe fitbit should be up front about that. There are a lot of good reviews for it by official publications online, but under the surface there are a lot of complaints from athletes.

[DavideFitbit]

@MysteryBee Thank you for your reply and for confirming that you already tried all the troubleshooting steps suggested. 

In this case, if you continue to experience the same behavior, I recommend that you get in touch with the Customer Support team for further assistance with this; they will let you know how to proceed.  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 your feedback about the product. 

Have a good day.