Charge 6 draining and showing false battery status

[Hotdoggable]

Suddenly my charge 6 is producing false battery reading causing unnecessary shutdowns and charge requests. And no, I do not use always on display or any of those typical battery draining issues. This has started suddenly after more than a year of good use. Started about 2 updates ago.   For example, I had a 70% charge minutes ago . Now it's completely out of power.  If I plug it in, in 5 mins it will be 70% again. False. How do I fix this?

Moderator edit: clarified subject.

[ManuFitbit]

Hi @Hotdoggable. Welcome to the community forums. 

Thank you for taking the time to share this information regarding your Charge 6 and for letting me know that this is not a draining issue. 

I'd ask you confirm that you have followed all the points listed in this help article: Extend your Fitbit device's battery life.

[Hotdoggable]

Yes.  It's not a matter of extending the battery. Like I said I'm getting false battery readings.  Another recent example.  I plug it in and it instantly jumps up to 75% from a completely dead state. Then when I unplug it it's dead within minutes.  Then it's 1% again.  It's completely random.  It's as if the device doesn't know it's current charge status.  Then the problem goes away for a few days. Everything seems normal for a 2 or so days then it starts doing a similar thing.  This has become a new issue for me.  Worked fine in this regard before.

[Bill_209]

That is definitely unexpected device behavior @Hotdoggable , so you should probably restart your Charge 6 to see if that resolves the issue.

[iistevejonesii]

Mine is doing exactly the same - lost its power whilst walking yesterday, I charged it when I got home, then over night it switched off, saying there was 2% left. I've put it on charge straight away this morning & it come on with 70% on the screen, now it saying its at 40%  

I used to only have to charge it every 6 or 7 days, now its multiple times a day. 

[iistevejonesii]

Also, I've restarted it multiple times, I've disconnected it from my phone & reconnected it, I've changed the clock face etc. 

To be honest, I'm losing patience & I won't be buying another. Clearly an unreliable product that multiple people are having issue with.

[Hotdoggable]

Tried that.  It would be nice if a simple solution like this actually worked. The product is junk in my opinion. What a disappointment as I've pampered this device the entire time I've owned it.  Sadly I'm likely going to purchase a Samsung device in next.  Half the price and half the problems.

---

As I continue with my frustrating experience I can now provide further information.  After observing my situation for longer periods of time I've discovered that the Fitbit no longer recognizes partial charges.  In other words, if I'm at 50% and I decide to plug it in, when it gets to 100% the device will still think it's at 50% and it will shut off at 0% when in reality there is still 50% charge remaining.  The only solution that works for me is to no longer do partial charging and instead let the battery live out its full life and that is the only way I get reasonable battery life. It's as if the unit is confused with its charge state. Now if someone can give me a solution other than rebooting I would love to know otherwise this will be the last Fitbit device or Google device I buy in the Smartwatch and fitness band space.

[Bill_209]

You may be adverse to doing this but, if a Restart didn't resolve this unexplained battery charging issue, then syncing your device to download all the latest data and performing a Factory Reset of the device is probably the only thing you can do that can potentially resolve this issue.

[SergeyKofanov]

I checked all of the messages in this forum that reported suddent battery drain issues with Fitbit Charge 6. There are several dozens of similar messages from the date when the watch was lauched till the most recent in June 2025. Nobody reported that Reset or Factory Reset helped to resolve the problem. Not a single person did. But the Fitbit people keep advising on this "solution". It's amazing.

The glitch is apparently in the battery managing firmware in the watch. It pops up suddently and can be related or unrelated to any recent upgrade (like in my case). Once it's there, it won't go away, whatever you do. Or maybe it's a virus that infects the watch software, but less likely. The only success stories here are when people managed to replace the watch. We use two, and we are replacing a third one, which means the failure rate is 3 out of 5. 

My guess is that the firmware is coming together with the battery, and the battery is apparently a Chinese low quality stuff, which brings down the quality of the whole thing, which otherwise looks and performs well.

[Mhg13]

I can echo this exactly the same issue for many months and now getting worse. Tried all solutions but still occurs. Called support and despite ordering it from them they can’t find order details linked to my email so won’t help at all. Despite the fact they sent it directly. 
appalling customer service and clearly product is not fit for purpose  as doesn’t bus work for a full day never mind the 6/7 days documented on Fitbit the charge 6 should last without charge . 
many suggestions from Fitbit support ?

[SergeyKofanov]

My wife's Charge 6 suddenly became not holding charge after only 5 months of use. It happened when the watch totally drained the battery when she was sleeping. She woke up and found the watch dead. She put it on the charger. It charged 100% but the watch only worked for a few hours. Any magic dancing around the watch like reset etc. didn't help. So she talked to Amazon and sent the watch back. She immediately bought a new Charge 6, which worked normally, keeping change for a few days with normal use. But then exactly the same thing happened to the new watch, in just a couple of weeks. She went to bed when the watch had very low battery. She woke up and found it dead. After charging it 100% the watch only held charge for 15 hours at best. She kept using it for a few more weeks. It didn't improve. The battery has be protected against deep discharge, right? So I guess it is maybe protected against discharge in a normal way, through the watch hardware. But if a person is sweating at night so the charging contacts get short circuited via drops of sweat on the skin, this is an unprotected way to discharge the battery directly. If this happens, the battery gets damaged permanently. One could experiment to prove if my guess is true, if one has a spare watch and would put it in a salty water after it is fully discharged and keep there for a few hours. Why this didn't happen at day time, one may ask. Because when you are awake, you will notice your watch's battery is low or the watch is dead and put it on the charger as soon as you can.

[w3pranab]

I am also experiencing same recently, initially thout I am not fully charing, but the device gets off suddenly in a day, we connected to charger shows 52%, when disconnected suddenly drops to 12%. The device is barely one year old. Had lot of trust when bought it, never expected this.

[RXDRAVI]

I am having the same issue, upon googling,found out its a common issue, though I was impressed with the product,but seems unreliable hardware; now I have finally decided to move on with Apple watch!!! Bought in April, dead in October!

I also opted for Fitbit Premium, now unsubscribed!

Pathetic from the brand with HIGH EXPECTATION! Totally dissapointed.

Bye bye Fitbit!!!

[SergeyKofanov]

I had an opportunity to use a professional equipment to check radio
frequency radiation produced by the watches. The watches that had full set
of functions like Apple Watch and Google Pixel Watch made the device
immediately start beeping to warn about unsafe levels. Google Pixel Watch 2
exceeded the safety limit by five times. I tried to make the watch to emit
less, and was only able to achieve this when I turned off the Bluetooth on
the connected phone. So apparently the watch communicates intensively with
the phone all the time, so it's obviously unsafe to wear it at night when
the phone is nearby and especially if you have a habit to put the hand with
the watch under your head. Apparently it's also a reason the watch battery
doesn't last long. I checked my Charge 6, and the radiation level was 50%
below the safety limit, so it was OK.