Charge 5 experiences/reliability

[KingAndrew]

Looking for thoughts on Charge 5 reliability or your experience so far.

I bought Versa 2’s for my wife and I a little over a year ago. Hers had one warranty replacement and I should have done one for mine several times but have since missed the window. I had several charges through the years with no issue, but the Versa was an absolute trash product. 

thank you 

[dperrin2]

I am so frustrated with my charge 5! I waited to long to send it back and now I’m stuck with a Fitbit that doesn’t track my steps. If I forget to manually sync it with my phone it appears I only had 0-1200 steps. It does not perform the most basic duty of tracking steps reliably. This is not like the Fitbit’s of the past. I have been a user for years and this model is horrible!

[june.h]

terrible experience ever.

battery draining rapidly, only last approximately 3 days.

Customer service agents refused to provide replacement ( I have warranty and free return, I don get why they don’t help me with the replacement)

false misleading advertisement (they claimed battery life up to 7 days in their website)

do not listen or believe their customer service agents. They lie and don’t care about you. 

I am going to return it. do not buy it.

[fattyjeffkee]

I am not pleased with the Charge 5.  really liked the previous models.  currently my screen is blank.  I give the charge 5 very low marks. 

[shimsim]

So far I have had 3 replacements, they all fail in different ways

1st one would not last more than 2 days , 2nd one suddenly would not hold a charge for more than a few seconds and the screen started to glitch, 3rd one froze, then the battery would only last 1 day, then it stopped responding in any way. This was all in the space of 10 months (would have been 8 months but had to wait for replacements every time). Now I am getting my 4th unit, I don't have high expectations for how long it will last and am utterly disappointed with the quality of this device. When it works, its everything I need in a tracker but the reliability, at least more me, has been terrible.

[KingAndrew]

They’re trash products with even worse customer support. Throw it in the the garbage and move on to literally any other watch. I’d have taken a free replacement because I enjoy the app; but Fitbit thought $35 off would suffice. 

[SurferJack]

We are having the same issues.  Bad customer service - to say the least.

[SunsetRunner]

Don’t buy one , I’m waiting for my 3rd replacement , I’m in the uk and customer service is so bad , one replacement was send and delivered to an address in the US , so still waiting I wouldn’t buy another Fitbit 

[shimsim]

I totally get that the appropriate solution when a product fails multiple times and the company seems incapable of addressing it on top of providing a poor customer experience is to simply cut your losses and go somewhere else but I am somewhat invested and perhaps in denial that a company with so much promise (and money) has become so bad. I would really appreciate someone from Fitbit taking the time to address the mounting issues with both the Charge 5 and the sub par customer support experience. 

[Alex_Lane]

Hey there.  I had a dodgy battery, got a replacement and absolutely love it.  I did upgrade the firmware, I do hard reset every time I charge when its on 100% (using the 3 button press on the USB lead method) - and its been bullet proof.  Love the GPS, love the sleep tracking.  Its my 3rd Fitbit model - loved them all.  Loads *hate* the Charge5 - I am not one of them.  Strange times!

[shimsim]

@Alex_Lane in agreement, I love the charge 5, it does everything I need from a tracker BUT and its a big but, having 3 units fail is not something I am happy to ignore or overlook. I want to love it and be able to wholeheartedly recommend it to others, something that's not possible with this many failures. I am trying to get to the bottom of this and know if I can expect more failures, if Fitbit has identified the real issue (because its not firmware related for me) and what happens if it fails again in 3 months when I'm out of warranty. 

I am coming from the super long thread about battery life and having seen the months of posts on that and the type of failures others are also experiencing, I think its a fair question that deserves a 'proper' response from Fitbit. 

[KingAndrew]

@shimsim what happens when it fails again is they tell you you’re out of luck and give you a one time discount code for $35 off another purchase. 

i had forgotten that since posting this thread my wives replacement unit has also begun doing the same thing. 100% failure rate in my experience. 

[Vulkus]

I bought mine  couple of months ago, love it. Hasn't had any major issues so far. Only annoying thing is when I go to look at my screen after sleeping and it doesn't wake up, quickly enough. Supposed to be able to 'roll' your wrist and the screen will come on. Other than that great battery life. Very happy, I'm in Australia. 

[shimsim]

@Vulkus would you still love it if it stopped working next month and you needed a replacement not once, not twice but three times because every replacement also failed after 3 months of use?

As I have stated many times, its the ideal fitness tracker for me, I don't need anything more, but, in my experience and from reading many other customers posting on different threads, reliability is a concern and I would like to get some kind of reasonable response from Fitbit as to why I should have experienced this many failures and what happens if/when this fails again in 3-4months time and I'm not longer in warranty.

[shimsim]

Just wanted to share an update here in the hope more people can share their experiences because I can't believe I am the only one seeing this. So I recommended the Charge 5 to a few people (with a strong disclaimer about my own experience of reliability) and as of a few days ago, both have experienced their devices failing. One of them is the same battery drain issue that was my first problem and the other is the unit becoming totally unresponsive (no way to turn it on anymore), again something i also experienced. Both of these happened within months of owning the device and they are purchased and used in different counties (not that it should make a big difference as I think they are all made in Malaysia and China).

Having had 3 replacements myself in the space of 9 months (I'm on my 4th device now) I have doubted the build quality for some time but with a sample size of one, I still thought, perhaps its just me and I've been unlucky. Now that 2 out of 2 people that I personally know also experienced failures in the space of a few months, I am convinced there are some serious quality issues with the Charge 5. Sure, not conclusive, but what are the odds of that?

I guess there is no way for anyone in this community to really be able to get actual statistics on device failure rate, it's unlikely that Fitbit would want to share that, but for what its worth, if anyone else is feeling unlucky about their Charge 5 dying, DONT, you are not alone!

[fattyjeffkee]

I experienced a complete failure also. My first charge 5 the face
disappeared over time started as a single line then the line got so wide
the face was useless. I got a replacement. The replacement lasted about 8
months. The battery was low one morning. I charged it and within an hour
the charge 5 was dead. Wouldn’t charge or even show it was connected to
charger. I noticed before it died I started losing functions.
I did purchase a new one as a Black Friday sale and this new one is
functioning much better. I have had other Fitbit and had no problems.
Lasted years. The charge 5 hasn’t been a good product.

[Tskuan]

Do you swim with it or do you have the latest Android 13 firmware on your phone? My 1st Fitbit failed after 1 swim after only 2 laps, my 2nd Fitbit failed after 2 swims.  Disappointing and misleading when they advertise it as "swimproof".

It says charge 5 is swimproof here:

https://help.fitbit.com/articles/en_US/Help_article/1598.htm

I recall buying it when it was advertised as swimproof. What a letdown!

-----------

I bought a 2nd charge 5 while waiting for my replacement and it just failed on me today after my 2nd swim with my 2nd charge 5. My first Fitbit also died after 2 laps in the pool. I thought it was a defective model now with my 2nd one (bought from a different source and from the Fitbit store itself) it seems like a persistent issue. It claims to be swimproof...

[shimsim]

@Tskuan never swam with any of mine, nor did my 2 friends that also experienced failures. Could be that water ingress is an issue but none of the failures I experienced should be related to that.

[EastBeast]

Same here! My fourth replacement is coming this week. Bought the Charge 5 8 months ago... Very very poor quality

[Tskuan]

I actually have 3 X charge 5 with me. Bought from two separate sources and used by different family members with different usage pattern. Mine died from swimming, my dad face battery drainage issue such that battery drains within a day. All within 3 months of use. Something is really wrong with this product!