Fitbit Charge 5 Hectic Warranty Process

[SunsetRunner]

For the past several weeks, I've been having problems with my Fitbit Charge 5 GPS. For the first couple of months, the watch worked great, but all the sudden the GPS functionality stopped functioning properly around mid November.

I spent several hours troubleshooting on my own, and with no success, I decided to finally call Fitbit support. We troubleshooted further (checking permissions on my phone, restarting my Fitbit device, doing a factory reset, ensuring that the Fitbit app is able to run in the background on my phone, making sure the app is up to date, etc.), and still no luck.

Fitbit support then requested me to submit a video and pictures showing proof that my GPS wasn't functioning. I sent over the video and pictures, many of my pictures showing the broken maps that were generated during my running activities, and I provided a detailed explanation of my watches issues, but they wanted to continue to troubleshoot. They told me to do things that didn't make much sense, such as "restarting my phone." If I'm not mistaken, the charge 5 has a built in GPS mode that can work independently from your phone, so I was quite confused by the request. I do understand that you can use your phone and connect it to your watch via Bluetooth to provide location services; however, I'm not sure how restarting my phone would fix the problem. Nonetheless, I tried it and went out on an exercise using my Fitbit watch and phone GPS, and more often than not, I get a GPS Signal Lost notification 10 to 15 minutes into my run with a red icon appearing in the corner screen of my watch. Sometimes, I will get an accurately tracked map, but its less than half the time now. 

I decided to call today and ask what the next steps are, and they requested to do further troubleshooting: They asked me to go out and do another run to see if the GPS tracking gave a different result (even though I've provided them with 5 different workouts I've recently done that clearly show somethings wrong with the tracking, including a run I did from yesterday).

Has anyone else had a similar experience dealing with Fitbit support? They seemed so reluctant to acknowledge the problem, and finally I told them how ridiculous this was. It seems they agreed, and finally offered to honor the warranty and send me a replacement device (after I send in the Charge 5 that's having problems). I just have a few questions now...

1. Is it common for a Fitbit watch to break down within 4 months of owning it?
2. With my warranty being used, will they actually send me a new device, or a used / refurbished one?
3. Has anyone ever owned a Fitbit watch that lasted longer than 2 years?

[Odyssey13 · Accepted solution]

Hi @SunsetRunner  Fitbits are like any other product in the marketplace - some never have an issue and some do. I had a printer that lasted a week after the one year warranty and it died. Got the identical printer and it's now going on nine or ten years past the warranty period.

What you receive as a replacement is based on what's available in the warehouse when you've made a request. Sometimes it is a new device and sometimes it is a refurbished. They will only send you the pebble portion of the Fitbit, so don't send your band or charger back to them. https://www.fitbit.com/global/us/legal/returns-and-warranty 

Yes, many have reported their Charge device has lasted several years. I think the oldest I've seen post on the forum was close to six years of use.

[SunsetRunner]

Thanks for the response.

[CS101]

I got a Fitbit Charge 5 in July 2022.  After 8-9 months the screen went black and there was no synching with the app on my Huawei phone . Called the support and went through a number of steps. Nothing helped and I was given a new one under warranty. It was delivered to my daughter in USA at my request and i went on holiday in July and received and set up the new device. In December (this month) - after 5 months the same problem occurred in the new Fitbit. I called the support centre, went through the same process. Nothing helped and I received an email which explained that there was no longer a warranty on the replacement Charge 5.  Very poor quality product as neither lasted even a full year ( 9 months and 5 months each) and the company does not take responsibility to replace. 

[Odyssey13]

Hi @CS101 the warranty policy - click to read - clearly states the warranty period is one year (USA) and any replacement device is for the remainder of the original period, not extended. It's been like this for the whole time I've been using Fitbits, over ten years.