Battery Drain FItbit Ionic

[seaveyj]

Just got my new ionic. Really like the watch so far; upgraded from a chargehr so big upgrade for me. After initial setup I put it on the charger until 100% before wearing it. I turned off all day sync, turned off gps, turned off live data, set screen brightness on dim, turned off notifications, etc - I mostly want it for the heart rate and sleep tracking, and perhaps later for the onboard music (though I havent put any music on it yet). The first day the battery lasted about 24 hrs to 21% and I chalked it up to charging it before it had run all the way down, 2 firmware updates, trying a couple different clockfaces, etc. I put it on the charger at 10 am and 21%, and at 10am the next day (24 hrs later) the battery is about 61% so I am on track for a two day battery life. Are there other settings I should change to bump this up? Do other clockfaces use more juice?

[elot]

The clockfaces are different indeed.

Try at first one of the Fitbit own clockfaces.

If you keep the brightness on Auto, GPS off (also off in the activities), you should be able to last about 4 or 5 days (seeing your use).

I can go without charging for 4 days without any problems, and i have brightness to Auto, No GPS, No music, but i do use the stepcoounter, heartrate monitor, etc.

Maybe you should try a soft-reset of the watch, it might help.

Press left-button and at the same time the right-lower button and hold untill the logo appears.

[SunsetRunner]

I'm on 55% battery after 4 days.

I chose a clock face that doesn't have data that changes extremely frequently (like bpm, seconds on the clock, energy usage), I happen to be using a watch by Moji Dokei, and shose it to use steps instead of bpm (bp flashes temporarily anyway after any exercise).

Likewise, I have also turned off the auto-sync, always connected and constant widget in the phone app. I still get all notifications, and my steps are synced whenever I manually open the fitbit app on the phone.

[seaveyj]

Thanks for the tips!

I set the clockface back to the factory default guages and set brightness to auto; I also set wake up to manual. I also did the soft restart you mentioned.

After charging it last night I went to bed and batery was at 99%; woke up this morning and it was at 82% which seems crazy, unless sleep stages drains a lot of battery. I hate to ask because I like that feature, but is there a way to turn that off too?

[SunsetRunner]

It does sound very different to my experience. I have the 'Screen Wake' set to Auto, Brightness to Auto, Backlight Delay 10 secs, Vibrations Strong, Heart Rate on, and I've just connected Bluetooth Classic so I can control music on my phone and I last charged the phone on Thursday, so it's about almost 4 days and I'm now only on 54%.

[AUKerry]

It sounds like there is something malfunctioning with your Ionic. I use mine for running and find that GPS drains it a bit faster but I still get 3-4 days from mine.  It’s a great device if everything is working as described in tech specs. 

[seaveyj]

That's kinda what I'm worried about. I didn't want to jump to conclusions without making sure I had all the settings right first though. One other thought I had was wifi... I do not have it connected to any network right now so it's not using power. If I need to update it I connect, update, and shut down. But maybe it is using power searching for a network? It seemed crazy it used 18% battery while I was asleep.

I also checked and I am on the latest firmware update. Not looking forward to having to talk to tech support... wanted to avoid going down that rabbit hole. It is syncing and everything just fine... if I didn't have a battery concern I would love this watch.

[seaveyj]

Yes it is different I think. Do you wear it for sleep tracking?

I did a soft reset after charging last night.

[seaveyj · Accepted solution]

So I contacted Fitbit Support. They had me do a battery drain test and determined that it didn't meet their quality specs; they volunteered to send me a replacement so it should be here in a week. Have to say that tech support was great to work with; bummer that this happened but seems like they care about getting it right. Will post another update when the new one comes.

[Sarienne]

I have same problem with my Ionic but much much worse. My battery lasts only for 5 hours. It drains battery like 20% per hour. And this I noticed just two days ago. It has been working perfectly before. Keeping battery for about 4+ days.  😕 I bought mine in January.

[Ray21]

I got same problem this morning 100 percent...battery now 1.25pm i got 46 percent ...i did allready 4 factory restart ....and have starting problem with chargining ...all ready changed  charging cable  still have troubles ...a bit disapointed for this expensive device ...so.much trouble with software....