Fitbit Battery Life

[Sire01]

Hi, I've had my Ionic for a couple of weeks, and I love it. I bought it over the Apple Watch was because of the battery life. However, after charging it on Saturday night, I noticed that by Sunday Night the battery life was down to 49%. Then when I woke up Monday morning (7 hours later), it was down to 11%!!

Why is this happening? Has the watch developed a fault?

[WendyGB]

Welcome to the forums!

Please clean the contacts
http://help.fitbit.com/articles/en_US/Help_article/My-tracker-s-battery-isn-t-charging/?q=not+chargi...

Then Do a Restart
http://help.fitbit.com/articles/en_US/Help_article/1186/?q=restart&l=en_US&fs=Search&pn=1

Also See this thread for charging best practices. If you are not charging it correctly you could be damaging the battery
https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Charge/Fitbit-charge-battery-problems/m-p/1323307#M53291

How can I Improve my Fitbit battery life?
http://help.fitbit.com/articles/en_US/Help_article/2004/?q=improve+the+battery&l=en_US&fs=Search&pn=...

Check out the discussions boards! A lot going on and I'm sure you have some contributions as well!
Hope to see you around!

[Sire01]

Hi Wendy,

I don't think the contacts are the problem as it was charging fine. The watch showed 100% charge. It was 49% charged when I went to bed last night and this morning it 11%. 

Also, I only ever charge it using the cable provided and by plugging the USB in my MAC.

I've noticed the battery life is still going down too fast, so I've restarted it to see if that helps.

[WendyB · Accepted solution]

If it does not help after restart then contact support

http://help.fitbit.com/?l=en_US&cu=1&fs=ContactUs

[Colinm39]

@Sire01I don't use GPS I'm getting 7 days between charges wearing it 24/7..

These are my basic settings to achieve that battery life, which gives you an idea of what is possible. I use Workout 

All day Sync is off as is "Always Connected". I prefer to manually sync.

I have the Fitbit Ace Digital clock face, viewing set to manual, all notifications are on and working including the phone. .  I use alarms. Fitbit pay is used extensively.  I don't use music and have removed the Apps not used.  I do my morning sync via PC Connect on the Windows PC and then during the day I manual sync via the phone because I'm wearing the Ionic and Fitbit One in concurrent mode successfully.  So "on demand" syncing is probably saving battery.

I'm left with Exercise, Relax, Weather, Alarms, Timer, Coach, Wallet and Settings.  I don't use Coach.

Like you I charge from the USB PC when the battery gets to about 5%.

My earlier Ionic started discharging rapidly at 4 days and with emailing Support with the continual dialogue, with the evidence they replaced my Ionic in 3 working days to Australia.. A great job. So I started the graphs with the faulty Ionic and have continued them as below.  I'm now into my 4th month with this Ionic.

This what very retired Engineers do because we love our baselines etc.

[Sire01]

Hey Wendy, the reset seemed to do the trick. Thanks for the tip.

[Colinm39]

@Sire01If you hold the left button in, you should be able to swipe right to left and see the Screen Wakening and Notifications settings.

On mine it shows the Fitbit Pay screen and then the swipe RH to LH shows the settings.

[Sire01]

Got it, thanks, Colin! I got confused when the pay screen came up.

[Colinm39]

@Sire01 Thanks for getting back to the Forum.

Your success will help many using the Ionic..

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@Sire01 wrote:

Got it, thanks, Colin! I got confused when the pay screen came up.

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[WileyMan]

There are a number of things that can be done to maximize Lithium-Ion battery life. Here are a few:

• Never charge overnight. Too much heat is the enemy of long-term battery performance
• Never let your battery get below 25%
• Never charge your battery beyond 85%
• Don’t use third party charging cords. They may be cheaper, but their charging parameters may not be right for the device. OEM cords perform optimally for the device

If you want to read more on the subject, check out these expert articles:

https://batteryuniversity.com/index.php/learn/article/charging_lithium_ion_batteries 

https://smartphones.gadgethacks.com/how-to/youre-doing-wrong-3-bad-habits-are-ruining-your-phones-ba...

Happy Stepping!

[SantiR]

@Sire01 I hope you're doing well! Thanks for posting the situation you experienced with your Ionic's battery. I'm really glad to see that you found great support and help here at the forums. I'm glad you are back on track now. 

@Colinm39 @WendyB @WendyGB @WileyMan I wanted to jump in to thank you all for sharing the help and experience on this thread. I'm sure this will be helpful for other users too.

Also, take a look at the Discussions Board as you will find a lot of interesting things there. Feel free to post on any thread you want. If you are looking for Fitbit friends to compete with on challenges, check this thread to add some! 

See you around!