My experience with Charge 5 and Customer Service

[Rinco]

The fact that my Fitbit Charge 5 broke is due to the firmware update that was released last weekend (February 22 to 23, 2025), which caused my Fitbit screen to go black.

It seemed like it was still charging, but I couldn't do anything with it.

With help from customer support last Monday, I was able to install the firmware update.

The support team quickly indicated that a firmware update was necessary, so I assume that Fitbit Google was already aware of this issue.

After the Fitbit started working again, the heart rate measurement still didn’t function. Even restoring it with a factory reset (on Tuesday), as advised by customer support, did not work.

The conclusion from customer support on Wednesday, February 26, was that my Fitbit is apparently defective. I agree with that conclusion—the Charge 5 is not functioning as it did until Saturday afternoon when it was still working fine.

Then, the Fitbit/Google solution comes: a 35% discount on a new Fitbit, since the warranty expired just 1.5 months ago.

In my opinion, a Fitbit should last longer than the warranty period plus one month. Otherwise, Google Fitbit is just making low-quality products.

Apparently, offering more than a 35% discount, even though the warranty has only just expired, is not an option for Google Fitbit.

This is, of course, ridiculous.

My Fitbit did not break due to improper use, dropping it, or anything else I did to it.

My Fitbit broke because of the firmware update that had to be installed, which suddenly caused the screen to go black last Saturday.

So, this issue was caused by Fitbit Google and not by me.

I find it completely unfair that I now have to bear the costs and that Google Fitbit is trying to resolve it this way. It’s truly a disgrace!

The fact that my Charge 5 has already been replaced multiple times over the years also indicates that it is not a good product—this is probably why it is no longer available for purchase in the Google Store.

I would like my issue to be resolved.

Moderator Edit: Clarified subject

[MarreFitbit]

Hi there, @Rinco. It's nice to see you around the Fitbit Community Forums. Thanks for bringing this to my attention and for the troubleshooting steps you've tried. I'm sorry to hear about the issues with your Charge 5. We‘re taking your comments and sentiments in regards to our products and services into consideration.

Thanks for your question about why we offered a discount towards a new Fitbit product instead of a replacement of your existing Fitbit product. Our limited warranty provides repair or replacement of products that have a defect while still in the warranty period. Your device is out of the warranty period, and therefore is not eligible for repair or replacement, but we want to offer you a discount to thank you for your loyalty to Fitbit. For more information about our warranty, see fitbit.com/legal/returns-and-warranty.

Even though I truly appreciate you took the time to come here and express your feelings towards your experience with your Charge 5 and also want to find a resolution to your issue, my best advice is to keep the conversation with our Support Team. Note for this kind of inquiries/cases/process, there's not so much we here in the forums can do for you as this is something that our team handles based on our policies. Thanks in advance! 

[K.Z.]

I have a similar/same sudden problem. My Fitbit Charge 5 was working ok and the battery would last about 5 days to a week. Then suddenly, yesterday, the battery display went from 100% to displaying 4% within 3 hours after taking it of the charger saying the battery was critically low and needed to be recharged.
So I connected it to its charger. 
An hour later I synced it with the app and on the app, it showed a 100% charge. Which was strange since if it had been really down to 4% should not have recharged that quickly.
Then, throughout the day it seemed to lose varying percentages of battery power. A few times it went down between 10% to 40% in an hour.
I tried restarting it withing the Charge 5 menu, as well as resetting with the button on the charging cable. No luck. It even displays a loss of several percentage points when on the charger after just resetting it with the charging cable button.
It almost looks more like a software issue than a battery one. Especially since there was no gradual battery deterioration before this started, and the drain and recharge seem so erratic. 
I just checked it again, and while typing this reply it went down from 100% when I took it off the charger down to 92%. And it couldn't have been more than 10 minutes.