Experiences with Charge series and request for recommendations

[Amoslurie]

I have been using the Charge series since July 2022, starting with the Charge 5.

I like the combination of activity and sleep tracking, and the NFC. 

The first device survived 9 months and went completely dead.
After a couple of weeks of investigating the issue with the support,  it was replaced under the warranty agreement.
The second one survived until May 2024 and failed the same way—completely dead. It was no longer covered by the warranty, but I received a 50% discount on the Charge 6, which was fair enough.
The new Charge 6 survived exactly 12 months and 1 day.
On June 1st, just one day after the warranty expired on May 31st, the device failed in the same manner as the other two. 

It happened after I had taken it to the pool, not before activating the water lock.

I regret purchasing the 12-month premium plan, as it feels like a useless application now.
What would you recommend as an alternative?

[pjpjr]

Only sharing my experience with the Charge series.

I purchased my Charge 5 in May 2020, without any extended protection.  I primarily utlized my Charge 5 for Mountain Biking, Cycling, Walking, and collecting all the biometric/health data.  On the advice of a friend, I almost constantly wore my Charge 5, including while showering.  The only issue I experienced was rare failures of my Charge 5 failing to sync with my Android phone.  I eventually determined that most of those sync failures could be resolved by deleting the "Fitbit application Cached Data" on my phone.  A few of them required restarting my phone and my Charge 5,  I am confident that fewer than 4 times I had to re-pair (Forget/Pair procedure) my Charge 5 with my phone.

In January 2024, due to a situation outside of my control, my Charge 5 ended up at the bottom of a hotel luggage bin, with all my luggage on top of it.  After that, my Charge 5 face would no longer illuminate.  However, all other functionality continued normal operation.  In April 2025, my Charge 5 Reminders to Move stopped vibrating, but my Charge 5 would still vibrate at all the other expected times.  Then in May 2025, and I was still wearing my Charge 5 constantly, I submerged my Charge 5 in some food service grade sanitizer and it would no longer charge.  I suspect the luggage bin incident is what caused the face to fail and alao damaged the diaphragm for the altitude sensor.  Still it appears my Charge 5 functioned as expected, with the damaged face and diaphragm for significantly over 1 year.

So far my new Charge 6 is functioning as expected, with the exception of losing bluetooth connectivity with my phone.  Intially it appeared the workaround for this bluetooth connectivity issue required the Forget/Pair bluetooth procedure as cached data clearing and no order of restarts would resolve it.  Recently I discovered that a less intrusive workaround is to restart my phone and Charge 6 at the same time.  I have 2 successful validations, for 2 attempts, using this same time restart procedure.  Also, the frequency of the loss of bluetooth connectivity has dropped significantly.  I am confident I will eventually identify the cause of the bluetooth connectivity issue and even the same time device restarts will not be required.

[SHMbak]

The longevity of my Charge 5s (1 failed under warranty, one lasted almost a year) and Charge 6s (1 under warranty, currently on month 11 of the replacement) is very similar to yours.  The first three failed by discharging rapidly and refused to charge on more than one charger.  I figured out that the last failure reset itself after completely discharging for a month.  (I'd set it aside to take to e-waste.  After sitting for a month, I put it on the charger just as an experiment and it came back alive!  But it had been deactivated by Google because I received a replacment.)  Anyway, current Charge 6 stopped auto-waking in early May.  Wouldn't turn on by tapping, either.  Reset button and changing clock face didn't help.   Intermittently it would come back for a while (a few weeks the first time, then a day, then an hour, etc.)  I was resigned to not recording weight training sessions and being able to read the time, but at least I was still getting sleep data and auto-recorded exercise. I could see a thin, faint red line whenever I raised my wrist as if to auto-wake it, so the sensor was doing something.  So when the screen showed up again after I awoke one morning, I changed the setting to manual wake.  Lo and behold, it's been 6 days and I can see the time when I manually wake it.  I speculate the switch that turns on the screen after auto-waking has worn out or something.  Anyway, I'll keep using it until it stops working completely, then set it aside and see if I can resurrect it after it's totally discharged.  After that, I may get an Inspire 3.  Doesn't have an EKG thing, but I never use that anyway.  My husband has had one that's last several years now.