Charge 5 has stopped tracking my distance

[CSPR66]

My Charge 5 has suddenly stopped tracking distance since yesterday (19/07/24). All the other metrics are fine (steps, heart rate, calories etc.). I've restarted it through both the device itself and the charge cable, but no luck. Has anyone got any idea how to fix this? Will be going out for a run later this morning, so will see if it tracks my route.

Any suggestions much appreciated! 🙂

UPDATE: It tracked my run, so is now showing my run distance. Will be interested to see if it tracks my distance for the rest of the day...

Moderator Edit: Clarified subject

[Pamoss]

I've been having this same issue over the past week.  I've just turned off the stride length after reading this post and will see if this helps as apparently my walking pace is  this morning was 189'33" per km!!!  Not very good at all when recording walk/run pace was the main reason for investing in a  Fitbit in the first place! 👎🏻 

[Gerard12]

I'm having the same issue. I am scheduled to do a presentation on Fitbit to a national heart survivor organization and I don't feel comfortable promoting fitbit or any google product. Ever since googke took over this product is worthless.

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Why did they break it to begin with. Testing testing testing.

[Luigiciro]

Same issue with my Charge 5 since yesterday: not working the km done in my homepage, but if I start a running session the GPS is working fine and the Kms done are right. Please fix this! it's really annoying seeing the presentation of the new pixel watch :watch: and not solving the software problems for older and cheaper devices...

[Mari0n]

Well final edit for myself... I just stopped trying or hoping for any improvement, asked for a refund, got it and moved to Coros. Congrats fitbit, you just lost one more client. 

[Manly]

https://www.techradar.com/health-fitness/rip-fitbit-smartwatches-an-end-we-could-see-coming-a-mile-a...

The answer to our questions sadly 

[Gerard12]

So what do we buy?

Gerard

[Cubby14]

This issue with the distance was happening to me too, started end of July. After trying several suggestions from the FitBit team, I bought a Charge 6 to see if that mattered. It doesn’t. The problem is somewhere in the software on the Google end of things and not with the devices. Worst of all, I was informed by the store where I bought the new watch that I could not return it - Fitbit has changed the return policy and now all sales are final, exchange only. To say this whole situation is frustrating is an understatement.

[Cubby14]

Same same 

[jriordon]

I did the reset on my phone Fitbit App to no avail, BUT then went into settings (the little Cog) on my Fitbit Charge 5 watch, and changed GPS to Dynamic (which uses more battery but has somehow been shut off, completely, during a software update. Once I changed GPS to Dynamic setting, my watch started counting my miles, again.

[embey]

This exact same thing is happening to mine too. It repeatedly tracks 0.07 mile total distance while my step count could be over 10,000 for the day… I tried restarting my FitBit, updating my app, and I just tried this toggle of the stride length.

Over the past few days it has only tracked the distance I accumulated through tracking my run with the watch. All other walking throughout the day was not included in this distance.

Has yours returned to normal now?

[Gerard12]

Mine seems fixed now. Turn off automatic stride length and put in the manual number. You can measure using a line on the sidewalk walk ten steps put a line again. I used toe to toe. Then divid by 10= number of feet then divide again by 12 for inches. Or is using metric use meters and cm.

[JimC2]

Good article, and accurate.

When I got to this part, 'UPDATE, 19 August: A Google spokesperson reached out to provide TechRadar with the following statement: "We are very committed to Fitbit, and..."' I laughed and threw up a little in my mouth at the same time.

My Charge 5 is logging about 25 to 30% excess distance in both walks and runs.  I've tried different combinations of using the fitbit GPS, the GPS in my phone, automatic stride length vs manual stride length, none of it makes any difference.  I even figured out that when it's using (erroneous) GPS distance that it pro-rates my steps, logging a proportionately excess number of those too.  The GPS snail trail looks a little drunken (as somebody described earlier in the thread) but certainly not zig-zaggy enough to add THAT much distance.

What I'm saying is if I cover a given stretch of ground of about 2 miles and I record it as a walk, it'll say about 1/2 a mile longer than that or more than that as soon as I finish the recording.  The weird thing is the hundredths and tenths of a mile are accurate in real time, but as soon as I press the finished button then it adds this crap, wtf?!?  And it adds steps.  If I cover the same ground but I don't record it, it will accurately add steps and miles to my day's totals.

I'm sure some Fitbit forum official person will reply with sone non-answer like "blah blah, we at google are sad that the product didn't live up to your expectations, have you tried clearing your cache?  Maybe there is military gps jamming going on in your area.  Did you walk under trees?  The trees hide the GPS satellites blah blah blah."

At this point I've decided to tell all my friends how BAD this product is.  Sadly, the current offerings from Garmin aren't quite where Fitbit used to be even 3-5 years ago- hopefully they catch up and fill in the niche, because there is a ripe market for them!

I already got a nastygram for using naughty words on this forum, so I'll keep it PG-rated this time, lol

[Monea1]

My Fitbit no longer tracks my steps/distance either. And it blacks out a lot

[Tony-boy]

I got the same thing, that they took my post down when we are just saying the truth. I got a Enomir smart watch and it works great. 👍🏼
Sent from my iPhone

[Slvrwrx]

I've had issues with my Charge 6. Since the beginning of time, I've always logged my runs on the fitbit app. Start New Exercise >etc. I also at the same time start a standard workout timer on my Charge 6 to account for my workout duration all together. The app has never had an issue following my routes.  The last few times It stopped recording on the app 1/2 mile into my run. I don't get any more cues, and only when I get back to where it stopped does it start recording again. This run was 1.95 miles, but fitbit recorded it as only 1 mile. Very annoying...

[Ameliamf]

Hi, my Fitbit had suddenly stopped tracking my distance. The issue seemed to occur after starting a run for the first time. After starting that run and tracking it, no more distance in terms of walking has been tracked. I'm meant to be tracking my walking to raise money for a charity month so this is extremely inconvenient. 

[Buckeyemes]

Any word on the fix? Is should be able to track with the auto stride?

[JimC2]

lol, the "fix" is we all spend more money on a Google branded tracker and throw away our old Fitbits.

[ChrisVon71]

Hi 

I don't see the issue as closed - something is not working as designed in the last firmware update (20001.194.91) - some of us have not had succes with measuring distance after toogling/changing the setting on stride length.

Solution needs to be either an new firmware release or the possibility to revert to the former version. 

It would also be cool if you updated your test / release procedures to avoid that users are subject to bugs - alternatively provide a feature that enables people to stay stable firmware releases.

[DorothyL96]

My Fitbit stopped tracking my distance just yesterday - will try the work around they are suggesting but not happy with the issue