My charge 5 died in the middle of the night. I had charged it to 100% previous morning, the next morning it wouldn't turn on with the wrist rotate.
Putting it on the charger convinced me the charge had somehow dropped to 0%. It took a charge, but would not properly communicate with my phone (no sync, etc), even after several resets on the fitbit.
It's not a brick, but wouldn't complete the setup with the phone, so it may as well be a brick since all it displays is the charge level.
I am very kind to my fitbit, no banging it around, it doesn't go in water at all, etc.
I also only use my charge 5 for text/call notifications from my phone, the timer function, and the ECG capability.
My charge firmware version is 57.20001.188.58
I tried a lot of combinations to get it back up, and this was what worked. Ultimately (in theory), what you are trying to achieve is that your phone knowns nothing about the fitbit, and the fitbit is in the state it was when I first came out of the box. I didn't have to delete the fitbit app on the phone though, so all that information was there when the fitbit got restarted.
Specifically I did these steps (I have an android phone, not sure how the bluetooth stuff works on iPhones...)
On the phone:
- Unpair the charge 5 bluetooth.
- Disable Bluetooth.
With the charge 5:
- Put the charge 5 on the charger cable, make sure it is charged up to 100%
- Reset the charge 5 via the charger cable three button sequence (link down below if you don't know how).
- Leave fitbit on the charger cable
Back on the phone:
- enable Bluetooth.
- Pair with the charge 5 and complete the fitbit setup.
No guarantees this will work for you but I tried a lot of variations before this and it finally worked.
It's now been 4 days and my battery is at 53%, and it is all working as it should.
Postscript -- you may be wondering why go thru these steps? It is because some data stored in either the fitbit, the bluetooth, or even possibly the app has caused the fitbit to get into a bad "state". The only way I know of to clear out all that data is to reset the fitbit and bluetooth with these steps.
---
Resetting the charge 5 with charger cable three button sequence
Moderator Edit: Clarified subject
