Ionic battery short life

[emilym]

I have had my ionic since October.  I have been getting seemingly 4 to 6 days without charging. Now with all of the updates i have to charge every other day.  Is this a device problem or new firmware problem?

Moderator edit: updated subject for clarity

[MarreFitbit]

Hey there @emilym, it's nice to see you around the forums! Keep in mind that the length of time your Fitbit device operates on a full charge depends on how frequently you use it and various settings. 

Consider these tips when you want to conserve battery life:

• Make sure you're charging Ionic fully each time. It can take up to 2 hours to charge your watch. 
• Turn off All-Day Sync in the Fitbit app because it increases battery drain on both your watch and phone. Note that if you turn off All-Day Sync, certain apps including Weather won't work since data isn't being sent from the Fitbit app to your watch:
  
  1. From the Fitbit app dashboard, tap or click the Account icon > your device image.
  2. Find the option to turn off All-Day Sync.
• Turn off the option to wake the screen when you turn your wrist; instead, tap the screen to turn it on:
  • On your watch, swipe right to the shortcuts screen > Screen Wake > Manual.
• If you don't need heart rate data, change the Heart Rate setting to Off. Note that the green LED continues to flash even if Heart Rate is turned off.
• Turn off call, text, calendar, and app notifications if you know you're going to receive many hundreds of notifications. A large volume reduces battery life:
  • On your watch, swipe right to the shortcuts screen > Notifications > Off.
• Charge your watch more often if you play music, exercise with GPS, complete Fitbit Coach workouts, or use the music controls frequently.
• Don't receive reminders to move every hour. To get fewer reminders, make sure you walk 250 steps each hour, change the number of hours you want your stationary time monitored, or turn off the feature on days you don't need it.
• If you have many silent alarms set, consider deleting some. Each alarm you add up to the maximum of 8 reduces battery life by a small percentage. 
• Shut down Ionic when it's not in use. 

Hope this helps, keep me in the loop! 

[jharla1]

Hi emilym,

unlike all the stock replies you'll see from fitbit admins, a lot of us are in the same boat.  Like you, 4 to 5 days wasn't unusual on a full charge, but since the update I don't even get a full day.

Support was zero help.  They actually accused me of using a third party charging cord... which isn't the case.  So I replied stating that and we'll go from there.

In the meantime, I have a working theory.  Did you update to the latest firmware using bluetooth or wifi?  For the first time ever I managed to get it to update with Wifi.  Now I'm wondering if something got "stuck" and it's constantly on wifi all day and thus draining the battery.

So as of now I'm doing a factory reset (NOT just the usual reset) and am going through the painful process of installing the update via bluetooth.  I wouldn't rec just jumping into that, but hoping that fixes my problems.

Rest assured if you check the boards you'll see numerous people in the same boat.  Hopefully Fitbit actually acknowledges it being a widespread issue rather than just telling everyone to contact support and walking them through the steps to reset, turn off sync, etc etc etc.  All things we know to do anyways (nor should we have to turn off all day sync and notifications etc when they were just working a week ago with no battery drain).

I'll try to report back if I'm successfully able to get this fix to work.  It just completed the update and now I have a full charge to test it.  Fingers crossed.

Sorry to hear about your issues with the battery life, but you're not alone.

[emilym]

Thanks for the tips. I will keep them in mind. However i have noticed
battery life degradation under same useage scenario that i have been using
since i got the watch. Either battery is dying or firmware is less
optimized than it was before. 😐

[emilym]

Hello jharla1. Thank you for your support. I knew i wasnt going crazy.
I recently did a factory reset to fix my notification issue. Reset
definitely didnt fix my battery issue. I think i did update my firmware on
wifi. Let me know if you find anything more out! Thanks!

Em
I

[oceanjohn]

Fitbit support was more helpful for me today.  They mentioned this was an emerging problem so they acknowledged it and gave me a case number since they are still working on it.

Here's to hoping the get it fixed soon!

[MattJ71]

When I first got my Ionic, I could easily get 5 days, sometimes 6 on a full charge.  Now, I'm lucky to get 3.  It's not terrible, but something has caused more battery drain.

On the surface, 3 days doesn't seem too bad... however, if I go on a short trip or to a conference for a few days, I'm not 100% confident that I will make it without a recharge.  Before, I wouldn't even think about bringing my charging cable.

[Crissied]

I no longer have the option to put my screen on manual mode. I’m guessing it’s been done away with

[ChrisNYC]

I've been having the same issue as well. I used to charge my Fitbit Ionic every Thursday and even then I'd have about 10% or so left. I don't use music, I do not have many notifications set, etc. I get roughly 2 - 4 days now. I lost 15% just overnight sleeping. All this started a few weeks ago with the last update. Tech support has been very unhelpful and added to the frustration with the standard line of "battery life is in the expected range for your type of tracker" Umm no, my range was much higher for months. Very poor quality control in customer interactions.

[launton]

Same old scripted responses... and the reason I'm moving to withings, the battery life has taken a drop to 3 days since the update (I've done everything suggested) and it can drop from 40% to 25 in a matter of hours.  Just rubbish. Honestly it's tiresome now 

[mostau]

I concur with the statements in this thread.

I was getting 4 days with the previous release and now consistently get 2 days or less after this update.

To double check I performed a factory reset, left the default clock face, installed no additional apps and still getting only 2 days.

[msjillian]

I am just you to repeat the same and I am tired of the stock bull**ahem** answers.  I got my ionic in January and had to have it replaced in March for a separate issue but now I'm having the same battery drainage issue as stated here and on many places on the Internet.  The customer service is abysmal at best and I'm truly not sure how they stay in business because I know that I will never be a fit bit customer again.

 All I can do is encourage people to stop buying these products because it's truly a waste of money. 

[ChrisNYC]

Update: I started tracking my battery percentage, charging, and time over the past week or so in a spreadsheet. Then this, my Fitbit is completely dead. It won't charge at all. It's only 2 months old. I cannot wait to get back on the phone with customer (dis)service.

[DarekDM]

Hi

How is your test?

[ChrisNYC]

They ended up replacing my Fitbit. 6 months in, no issues. The battery life for me is about 8 days, every week. No issues since then.

[nRobert]

Same problem here, when I got the Watch, used to drop 2% over night, now it's dropping 10%, and cannot get more than 3 days, while in the begining was easily around 5. It's such a nice watch, good features, it's a shame that they cannot provide a reasonable software with it. 

[GeoJeannie]

Yes! I’m experiencing the same problem. I was easily going through the work week (5-6 days) until recently. Now I’m lucky to go more than a day. I’m glad to know I’m not crazy. 

[GeoJeannie]

Hi @MarreFitbit a Thanks for these suggestions. However, most of these already apply to my Fitbit settings. None of these suggestions indicate why a Fitbit would suddenly lost 70% of its battery life (time from 100% battery to dead). Can you help further? Should I call Fitbit with my individual issue or is there a collective solution?  

Thanks. 

[nRobert]

Hi @GeoJeannie, my battery issues turned out to be caused by the clock face. Once I changed back to the face I had before, battery lasts again like before. Give it a shot...

[cuisquare]

Hi!

How did you test go, did you get good results by not setting up wifi ?