Charge 5 stopped working

[Mcurrans2021]

My charge 5 stopped  working. I purchased from fitbit.

Moderator Edit: Clarified subject

[Blehblah]

Same here. The screen shines bright blue, flashes to the clock screen, and then turns off. Very difficult to wake it up again. Fully charged too.

[Txgraywolf]

Mine refuses to sync at all! 

[MarreFitbit]

Hi there, @Mcurrans2021. Thanks for stopping by in the Fitbit Community Forums. I'm sorry to hear that your Charge 5 has stopped working. I will do my best to help you with this.

To better assist you, would you mind giving me more details of the issue? Is your Charge 5 not charging, not syncing? May I know if you've tried some troubleshooting steps so far? Looking forward to hearing from you. 

@Blehblah Welcome on board. Thanks for the details provided in your post, I'm here to help you! 

Please restart your Fitbit device as suggested here How do I restart my Fitbit device? If the restart doesn't work try to change your clock face. If this fixes the issue, you can change your clock face back to the original clock face. 

Hello, @Txgraywolf. Thanks for stopping by! If your Fitbit devices refuses to sync, please make sure you've followed all troubleshooting steps provided in this help article Why won't my Fitbit device sync?

[Pixie3112]

Hi Marre

I had a similar issue, I tried restarting it, charging it for 30 mins, etc.but the device won't start. I had received it as a replacement for my previously faulty device in October'23. This is hardly 6 months old and it is no longer working

[tjheath730]

Same here, it just stopped holding a charge randomly last Friday, 4/12/24. I tried to reset it using the button on the charger and nothing helped. I didn't do anything out of my oridinary routine, and it just stopped working. It's only about 18 months old too! 

[SGreer12]

Mine has also stopped working last week. I have tried the button method and looked into the recommendations in these forums, and nothing has worked.

[Jkreim]

My Fitbit charge 5 stopped working, will not respond to a restart and doesn't power up at all.

[Carla6]

me too 

[tjheath730]

I spent considerable time with FitBit yesterday on Chat and by the end of the second chat session of the day they said they would look at my warranty and send me my purchase options. In other words, they had no idea that what was wrong and the only option left is to buy another one. Not great customer service, and this is the type of situation that will cause them to lose long-term customers to Apple or Samsung smart watches.  I don't want either of those smart watches, I just want my fairly new FitBit to work. 

[tjheath730]

I also noticed that the Charge 5 has been discontinued, my guess is there is a bug they can't fix and they are just letting them all die and have owners replace with a new device.  They did email a 50% off coupon good for 30 days, but to be honest, the purchase of a new FitBit is not in my budget - I'm a single mom with 2 sons in college... so yes, $125 does make a difference. 

[JennyFear]

Mine is doing the same thing!

[tjheath730]

Personally I think there is a bug, intentional or not, that is causing the failures of the Charge 5, which by the way has been discontinued.  It feels a bit like what Apple does to their older iPhones, where they slow it down so much you have no choice but to upgrade / buy a new one. 

[christinas_7]

My fitbit stopped working. It stopped tracking steps, stopped tracking heart rate, everything. The only thing it is doing is showing the time. There is no green light for the heart rate, no way to turn of water lock, nothing. Another post instructed me to do a factory reset (which did not fix it). The tracker is only 2 years old. 

[Nancydaf]

My fitbit is refusing to charge. At first I thought the charger was broken  I got a new one and it still doesn't work. I've tried charging on my laptop and the USB socket and nothing works. Seems the battery is completely flat. When I pit to charge the fitbit logo comes on n disappears and the charging screen doesn't come up. How can I fix this please?

[MontesJr]

I purchased my fitbit charge 5, 2 years ago….in this timeframe I changed 3 bracelets. All of them had the same symptoms. They all died after a fast battery drain. This last one had 47% yesterday afternoon and I felt it was a bit unresponsive. In the evening it was dead and unresponsive, black screen. Checked the app and after last sync it was down to 20ish % in couple of hours. AOD was off….i never used it. Maybe tried it for couple of days. This last charge 5 died just a little under a year. Given the fact that I don’t use AOD, the battery life was around 8,9 days. After a simple  calculation I can draw a conclusion that this bracelet was good for approximately 50 charges. Horrible product, absolutely abysmal.(I usually charge it once it gets to 10%.). I tried to restart it with the cable button procedure, it didn’t work. Tried multiple chargers, nothing works. Just another dead charge bracelet. It’s not normal to change 3 bracelets in a 2 year span. And after warranty expires you are left with an almost broken product that only worked for a couple of months outside warranty period. In 2 years Fitbit was unable to fix these **ahem** bracelets, it’s a faulty product and there should be some laws for selling a defective product with hidden faults.

[shellz]

same here one day working next day no charge and it was also last week. i came here to see if there was some odd update.. just quit

[shellz]

i see your point i am looking at everyone form last 10 days that just stopped working....

[SunsetRunner]

Since 2022 I have had 2 Senses - both just quit under warrantee.  I'm not that into smart watches anyway so I opted for the Charge 5.  It worked great for around a year then stopped cold a few days ago.  The green light was on but my phone couldn't find it and the screen was blank.  Actually the only reason I came here was to read the forums and see if there were other incidents like mine, although it didn't /doesn't matter as I had come to the conclusion that Fitbit was the best fitness tracker, but the products just aren't durable.  I saw an issue about the charge 6 that sounded similar to mine, so just for grins I plugged in the charge after not having had it on for several days (because I have been using my new iWatch SE second gen) and !WHAT!, it started charging with a normal display.  Let it charge up to around 20% and yep, it sync'ed.  I had forgotten about the reset button on the charge cable.  I never pushed it.  I'm assuming it reset itself when the charge ran completely out.  SO ---  Guess that I have both for a true comparison.  One thing I do like about the Apple is there is no subscription service to get the use of your device.  They do have one if you need / want the exercise coaches, meals, etc., but I don't.  I didn't know Fitbit had a free software; I've been using Premium all the time.  Probably going to let that slide.  For you who haven't been able to get your beast to re-set, maybe try letting it set a week to run down and see it it finds a second life.  

[MontesJr]

Talking about a second life. The last(3rd) charge 5 that recently died came back to life for a couple of hours. Charged it to 99% and in a few hours it died again. Meanwhile the touch screen was not working. Charged it again the second day, same thing happened....died in a few hours with almost full battery and touch screen not working.