Display and battery issues with Charge 5

[kathleenjames]

Suddenly many people are dealing with sudden loss of battery and black screen with no possible way to fix it. Could this have anything to do with the update? It seems not so coincidental it's all happening at the same time.

Moderator Edit: Clarified subject

[bbunge]

My Charge 5 quit syncing last night. Tphone got the app update and after a three button push restart and a full charge the tracker is syncing this morning! Good thing as we are on vacation with a lot of walking planned for the day!

[digitrev]

Adding my feedback to the pile. My Charge 5 suddenly had its battery life drop. It even died overnight. I woke up this morning and started charging it. It went from 85% to 81% in less than three minutes.

Given that Fitbit's official response seems to be a) nothing, b) replacement under warranty, or c) a 35% coupon, I'm going to stop using my fitbit for the time being. Maybe I'll see if the 194.61 firmware update does anything, but if it doesn't, then I can't see myself getting another fitbit. I've lost a lot of confidence in these devices ever since my Charge 3 stopped working and I needed a replacement Charge 5 less than 6 months after my initial purchase. And now this, when the replacement is only 13 months old? Unacceptable.

[Glitchaholic]

What's really interesting is that Googling this issue brings up an old FB community thread from like 2021 saying the same issue was happening to Charge 5 back then. I almost posted my issue there instead of here until I looked at the date. 

[digitrev]

Replying to myself to report that Fitbit's official response was indeed the 35% coupon. I don't plan on taking advantage of it, since I cannot imagine spending $150 every year to replace an irreparable tracker. I can't even buy an extended warranty in Canada to mitigate my risks. This has completely soured me on Fitbit and I cannot imagine recommending one to anyone going forward.

[Rach7turtle]

My fitbit has been dead since tuesday evening. I had a quarter of a charge and then all of a sudden nothing. I have charged it on the charger and it shows 99%but as soon as i take if off the charger it is dead and wont turn on. I put it back on the charger and it shows 1%. 

Im getting so frustrated and its not that old.  I looked in my app and still have the old software. I am thinking if it doesn't get corrected I may jump ship from fitbit and go to a different brand/company because this is ridiculous. I cant afford to replace an expensive watch all the time. 

-------

Yes the exact same. It charges to 99% then as soon as it's taken off the charger it drops to 1% and is unusable. I've tried all the recommendations and to no avail. Also have had mine for 1.5 years now. Seems fishy to me 

[anon765272]

I reached out to support and the best they could do was a 35% off coupon. Why should I have to buy a new device when an update bricked it!? Needless to say, I did not buy a new device. 👎

[SunsetRunner]

Yesterday spoken with Customers support as same problem here. answer sorry cannot do anything and having the watch for less then two years no quarantee anymore given me 35% discount to buy a new oneis a joke.

[Bluemoon7836]

Sharing my frustrating experience that ended positively—

I started having the battery drain issue in late June 2023. I never experienced the stuck logo problem. After a couple weeks of tweaking my GPS, display brightness and various other settings to optimize battery life, I followed the reset instructions in the “Answer” post. After another day of quick drain, I contacted support about the battery drain issue. (I forgot to write down my firmware version to save for later.) Support told me they were pushing a firmware update, but my tracker was only 25% charged, so I couldn’t do any updates while on the chat. I left my tracker charging and put it on the next day. I didn’t see any firmware update available, so I just put the tracker on for daily use. It was back to normal battery operation.

Current firmware version is 188.58

[GaetanoVB]

I received the email about the new app... meanwhile, I had to restart my Charge 5 last week by pressing the button three times. The next day I got the red circle with the white x. I reset it again and now the battery runs out within 12 hours.  It's definitely not a coincidence that so many people are having the same problem. My firmware is still 188.58.

[Biguns3388]

It has everything to do with the update. Before the update I did not have an issue 

Those fixes are very temporary. Why does Google just tell the truth that there is an issue and they don't know how to fix it. I have had mine for months no problem. My husband had one for over a year, no problem. Now there is an update and everyone has a problem. That is just common sense. 

[Jerrym806]

I am reaching out to the many many Charge 5 owners whose Charge 5 has frozen at the Fitbit logo and the 3 button push reset using the charging cable has failed and the Charge 5 is out of warranty.  Is anyone aware of any pending plans by Fitbit/Google to replace Charge 5s or allow us to send a frozen Charge 5 to Fitbit Support to have it "unfrozen" and returned to us?  I have tried to monitor the Community on this Charge 5 disaster which I feel has been caused by Fitbit and not by my fellow Charge 5 users and wanted to make sure I did not miss any proposals from Fitbit/Google.

[slim2357]

Has there been any resolution to this? My wife's charge 5 has started losing battery power from 100% to 10% in just a few hours. Up until a few days ago it was lasting about a week! Once it started happening I looked online and found articles about this bad firmware update and then this thread. IT'S BEEN HAPPENING FOR A MONTH and they are still pushing out this update!?!?! WHY?!

That makes it seem like they are TRYING to brick old watches so they can sell more. Otherwise they would have STOPPED sending out the update when all the problems happened.

This is insane and count us as 2 more customers that will NEVER buy another Fitbit.

[AMusketeer]

Same here. Got a boilerplate response from warranty. There's no reason a 1.5 year old battery on these should just quit holding a charge. And a 35% discount to buy another isn't a solution. The company ought to repair or replace at their expense, especially since they caused this issue.

[Cobbycobb]

Update: I have had my replacement (free) for about a week now and haven’t had any issues. I did have to disassociate the bricked one then delete the app from my iPhone and reinstall upon initial setup. I’ll try and keep this thread updated. Surprisingly the new Fitbit is using the same version update that bricked the old device. 

[slim2357]

Well I went on live chat and they were totally unhelpful. Just pre-written responses that never addressed the issue that this battery problem has come on overnight. Restart it, did that. Turn off Always on, it has always been off. Sync it, done that. Oh have you tried uninstalling apps that use the battery??? WTF? I use those apps, I bought the watch based on those apps. Oh you should contact the people you bought it from.... but YOU ARE THE ONES THAT RUINED IT!

They take no responsibility, they don't admit it was their update. It literally worked fine and lasted 5-7 days just a few days ago, how the hell can it be the settings, THAT HAVEN'T CHANGED, causing it to suddenly last less than a day.

Seriously, no one should ever, ever, ever use this company again. Zero trust now. Their customer service is TERRIBLE.

[xG4x]

I also had the same issue. Working fine lasting 5-7 days, then a couple of weeks ago suddenly it froze up with black screen for no reason, eventually only a few hours later would switch on and recharge again when plugged in (battery drained to 0), but now it holds charge for less than 8 hours and the ECG, heart rate monitor, sleep monitor and other metrics also don't work. Tried restarting, factory reset, etc. but still not working. Firmware is still ...188.58.

OK, so I contacted Fitbit via chat and detailed the problem. Turns out it was less than a year since I got the device, so I'm still in warranty. They acknowledged I'd taken all reasonable steps to try to resolve and after confirming I was in warranty, immediately offered a replacement. I got an email within minutes to apply for this, and confirm details, now just awaiting confirmation of replacement. I would guess from the swiftness of the response this is a known/accepted issue and so since I was in warranty, they immediately offered a replacement. Hope others get a good result also, but clearly this shouldn't have happened in the first place...

[Kdor]

Just FYI - I was in the same boat a month ago, replacement was ordered in early July. I still don’t have even a ship date for the new device. I’ve been told it’s on backorder. I’ve contacted customer service at least 5 times and still can’t get them to tell me when I can expect my new device and my warranty is still ticking away… customer service has been complete unhelpful and has refused to just give me a refund (which I requested when they couldn’t even tell me when I might expect the replacement). It’s infuriating.

[Claquesous]

This is happening to me too. I updated to 188.58 on Saturday and immediately experienced issues where my Fitbit would turn off after a couple hours of inactivity. I turned on always on display and that prevented more shutdowns for a night, but the next morning I woke up and the screen was off again. I plugged it in and the charging screen showed momentarily then the screen went black and hasn't turned back on since.

I was experiencing significant battery drain even on the previous firmware version before I attempted an upgrade. About a month ago it started draining 35% a day instead of the typical 12% or so.

[DaVinciUA]

My Charge 5 suddenly shows the same battery issues after an update and I am not happy at all.

But, I also do not want to change to another manufacturer and loose years of valuable fitbit data.

Is there any other fitbit model that works better and without any issues ?

[frich]

My mother and my FitBit Charge 5 are less than 8 months old, were working fine, both are bricked at this point (battery holds a charge for a few hours).

No doubt this is Google actively destroying the FitBit brand to get folks to migrate over to their own Google devices which run on Google's ecosystem/OS https://www.techradar.com/features/googles-slow-destruction-of-fitbit-is-everything-wrong-with-moder...

Despicable... there should be a recall. I want my money back so I can go buy an Apple or Garmin watch.