How do I turn off the GPS completely?

[Talyda]

My brand new (2 day old) charge 5 is using 77% battery in one day. I am going to get in touch with support, but in the meantime, looking through all the troubleshooting I think I need to turn GPS off, and that might help?
How do I do that? In settings there is only "built in", "dynamic" and "phone" I have it on dynamic at the moment. Should I set it to phone? I don't use location/GPS on my phone at all, so is that going to be a problem? (in however many years I have been using a mobile phone, I literally turned location services on for the first time the day before yesterday to sync my watch to the app =P)
Thanks for any help!

[Talyda]

Oh, I think I might have figured that out, but if someone would confirm, that would be nice!
So if I switch GPS to "phone" and it doesn't find my phone GPS it will just stop trying? And that will help my battery life (I hope!)?

[Wibby]

Hello,  I rarely use GPS because of the battery drain.  On mine, in Settings, I have it as Dynamic.  The only time I would use GPS is for jogging.  In Exercise, for activities that might use GPS, there's a toggle that you can switch to off.  Mine for Run is always off.  On the rare occasions I want to record my run, I swipe up and switch the toggle to on.

I go jogging and with the toggle set to off, and dynamic in the settings (I'm not sure if that's relevant though), GPS doesn't come on at all and my battery lasts for much longer.

[Jessica-Rabbit]

Thank you. Will also try this tomorrow.  

[Talyda]

Thanks! I think maybe setting it to "phone" for me turned it off, cos the only two changes I made yesterday were that, and turning of the spo2 thing and this morning when I woke up battery was still at 93%. Gonna test tonight by turning the spo2 back on, and see how that affects it 😃

[Talyda]

Oh! I also restarted it after I charged it, cos I read on another thread here that that might help 😃

[Rich_Laue]

GPS is only turned on when the user request GPS to turn on. 

It will only be turned on dieting the recording of a few exercises, walk, run, hike, bike. 

Before starting the exercise, go into the exercise setting and set GPS for on or off 

[Talyda]

I haven't used it to track any exercise though Rich 😃 So haven't asked it to turn GPS on - it seems (from my small tests so far) to have just been on. 
I think switching GPS to "phone" is what helped me, as last night I kept the spo2 thing on, and this morning the battery is at 86% - unless it was that odd thing that someone else has found, that you need to restart the watch after charging it up to make it keep charge properly!
Guess I can test that next!

[t.parker]

@Talyda then it isn't GPS what drains your battery. You will know when GPS is on because the tracker will tell you that. If you didn't use exercise tracking I see no way the GPS would be enabled. GPS isn't used for anything else but exercise tracking as @Rich_Laue mentioned.

[Talyda]

Well I am really confused then! It literally used 77% battery in one day.
It did do some auto track exercise thing when I was mowing for an hour or so - how can I tell if that used GPS @t.parker ?  Sorry, really very very new to this (as is probably obvious =D)

[Rich_Laue]

Simple @Talyda open the recorded exercise. Do you see a map? 

My sis likes to mow the lawn and it usually gets recorded as a bike ride. 

[Talyda]

@Rich_Laue It did record it as a bike ride! And no, I can't see a map 😃 Thanks for that! I guess my next test will be to recharge it and not restart it, and see if that is the cause!
Thanks for all the answers BTW people 😃 Is helping me a lot with troubleshooting!

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It's very disappointing when you get a new toy, and it doesn't work as you expected it to! LOL!

[Peter-C]

I had the same problem when I first got my Charge 5. It went through the fully charged battery in a day. I was thinking I’d need to return it. Having got 7 days out of my Charge 3.

Then I re-charged the battery and restarted it via the settings on the watch and it’s fine now, I got just on a week out of a charge.

I use the gps for my bike rides with my phone, it was set to dynamic, but the first time I used it it obviously didn’t find my phone, so used the in-built gps instead, which ran the battery down. For me it’s hard to tell which gps it’s using. I now have it set to phone only gps and works fine.

[Wibby]

Hello again Talyda.

So now you should check what activities you have loaded onto your app, and therefore your Charge 5.  Go through each of them and scroll up from the bottom and check that the GPS toggle is switched to off.  That way you shouldn't be able to inadvertently set it off by doing an unconnected activity that your Fitbit thinks is one of those.

If you're not planning on using any of the activities at all, you could probably remove them from your app.  You don't have to have 6 loaded if you don't need them or plan to use them...

Good luck!

[GotChu · Accepted solution]

From the Fitbit App 

Click avatar

Click third party apps

Click Manage third party apps 

Sign into your Fitbit account if it ask.

Click settings

Click Charge 5 under “devices”

Scroll until you see GPS 

Hit off 

Recommend sync and restart on Fitbit.

[Rich_Laue]

Your user manual does recommend charging the tracker after using the GPS. Also many phones will also need to be charged after using its GPS. 

The question then becomes, which device do you want to charge. I prefer to use the GPS on the tracker since it lasts longer then the I phone would.. 

Fun fact, GPS uses more current then any other hardware in your phone**

**My brother was involved in collecting data for a study that monitored what apps used how much data. 

[Rich_Laue]

@Talyda after choosing bike, before tapping start, check the settings. See if the GPS is on for the bike exercise. 

[Talyda]

Thank you all for the help! I have turned it off completely for now - if (when!) i get fit enough that I think it will be useful for me, I at least know how to turn it back on now! 😃