Ionic battery short life

[SunsetRunner]

I bought my Ionic during the first week it has been available, and up until now, it has been working just fine.  I have been taking it off and charging it when I have gone into the bathroom to take a shower, every morning before I head out for the day and every evening before I head to bed.  Usually, after a charge to 100% in the evening, it has been down to the mid-90's in the morning -- 94 or so.  During the day, after a charge to 100% in the morning, it may be down to around 90% or so in the evening.  Bottom line, it was always quick and easy to get it back to 100% while I was in the shower.

But just a few days ago, I started seeing the battery percentages in the low 80's.  Then the low 70's.  Yesterday, after a 100% charge in the morning, the battery was DOWN TO 51%.  If this keeps it up, my Ionic will not last a full day without needing to be charged.  At which time I might as well toss it in the trash and move on to some other company's technology.  I am NOT happy to see this three-hundred-dollar purchase utterly die as I watch it over the course of one week.

I have NOT been doing anything strange that seemingly made this happen.  It didn't happen "right after a firmware update" or anything like that -- I have been updating things as they have happened, but the last one was months ago.  I did NOT install any new apps or anything like that.  It was just functioning normally, and then it went to hell in a handbasket one day, and it just keeps on getting worse, every day.

I have been doing daily "reboots" with the Ionic.  I have uninstalled every app that I could uninstall.  I am using a very simple watch face.  I have fully uninstalled the Fitbit app on my phone, and reinstalled that.  Nothing has helped.  It simply appears that my Ionic's battery is going to die within the next week or so.  By all means, if you can suggest anything else I could do, I would appreciate it, but I think I've gone through the gamut of what can be done with the thing, already.  I can tell you one thing, though -- if this thing dies on me, I sure won't be buying a new Ionic, given how this thing hasn't lasted much more than about six months.

Moderator edit: Updated subject for clarity 

[Colinm39]

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@driver111wrote:

An 8hr sleep with DND mode on shouldn't use 28% battery

@driver111I agree, but I have my phone switched off.. I have "no notifications while asleep set"..

Since my last 100% charge I'm now on exactly 3 days and have consumed exactly 75%... 25%/day.. While asleep  it's normally about 1/2%/hour but I will leave the phone on tonight and I don't have All day sync set.. Just the Always Connected .

[SantiR]

@driver111 I hope you're doing well! Thanks for providing this information regarding the battery life on Ionic.

I went ahead and created a case with customer support in your behalf for further assistance. Please keep an eye on your email inbox for next steps.

Keep me posted! 

[Colinm39]

@driver111 Great that there is some action for you. My test last night for about 10 hours with my phone left on only consumed 4% of the Ionic battery. That's about the norm for me.

This included notifications coming in when I had bathroom breaks and probably when my Ionic had me "awake" during my sleep period even though I have the notifications off when asleep.

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@driver111wrote:

An 8hr sleep with DND mode on shouldn't use 28% battery.

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[Tony.r]

@Colinm39 good to hear you are now fairing better with your battery, definitely do not want to go through the process of factory resetting, so going to soldier on for the time.being. My next step will be to try turning off all day sync and see how we go with that.

@N8teGee I'm definitely in line with your thinking that the issue is not hardware related, thinking if it was I would have had a much more rapid depletion of the battery than I have experienced and after all I did get 81 hours out of my last charge.

[driver111]

Cheers. But not looking forward to the tedious & repetitive generic troubleshooting process:

"have you reset your fitbit"

"have you reset your phone"

"have you updated your fitbit"

"have you updated your fitbit app"

"have you done a factory reset of your device"
"have you tried syncing with a different phone or pc"

Its been 22hrs since its last charge, now sitting at 65%

[Colinm39]

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@sk8erchic925wrote:
Wednesday night at 8pm I took my Ionic off the charger at 100% and by
yesterday night around 11:30pm it was 34%. So it used over half of my
battery life in 27 hours!! The past month it was lasting 4-5 days! Now that
I think of it I think my issues started after that firmware update.... 😠

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@sk8erchic925How is your battery life now ?  I'm back to 4+ days but no real heavy use of the Ionic.. Just a HR, sleep tracker and Pedometer at the moment because I still can't connect the GPS. In my environment, the Surge connects immediately..

[sk8erchic925]

I took it off the charger Friday morning at 100% and it lasted through Monday, so it lasted my normal 4 days like before the firmware update. I took it off the charger this morning at 100% around 8am and now 14 hours later it's at 89%, using workout tracking once, and my normal pedometer, HR monitor and sleep tracking, I usually don't use any workout modes that use my GPS. It seems to be back to normal for now at least, we'll see....

[Colinm39]

@sk8erchic925, Looks like you're back on track like me and with the same usage profile.

I just did a forgetful thing and left my Walk GPS searching for the Connection for 83 minutes and that consumed 18% and with just domestics. At least I know the draining rate for a no connection is about 2% for 10 minutes.

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@sk8erchic925wrote:
I took it off the charger Friday morning at 100% and it lasted through Monday, so it lasted my normal 4 days like before the firmware update. I took it off the charger this morning at 100% around 8am and now 14 hours later it's at 89%, using workout tracking once, and my normal pedometer, HR monitor and sleep tracking, I usually don't use any workout modes that use my GPS. It seems to be back to normal for now at least, we'll see....

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[Colinm39]

I was back on track with 4+ days battery life...

12 hours ago I charged the Ionic to 98% and a full domestic day and the only change has been the App update to V2.69 .

Off to bed and I checked the watch.... battery 50%, so I checked back.. The last sync was 5 hours ago and the Dashboard, battery level high.. so I synced now the Dashboard says battery medium.  So somehow I dropped about 40% watching the TV and evening meal.. now It's dropped another 2% while I'm examining and typing this.  All day sync is not set.  Just a sudden unexplained drop in battery like others are posting.

At 6 pm tonight I received an email from Fitbit with a link to FedEx with the shipment details of my replacement Ionic because of the GPS not working.. Due in 4 days hopefully because it is in transit....

[Colinm39]

Last night as I posted that my Ionic battery was 50% and on going to bed I now post my battery was 39%. All of that after it being charged to 98% earlier in the day.

I woke up an HR later and it was 37%. Nothing to lose, so I restarted the Ionic and that has got the battery back to normal discharge for sleeping. Now at 34%, only 3% loss over 6 hours.

The only odd thing that happened yesterday was a Fitbit Pay in the late afternoon on a terminal that always works displayed, "insert card" after my Ionic vibrated and did nothing.

That may have triggered an odd incomplete situation within the watch and the more I think of that that's what happened the week before in another Cafe and sudden battery loss, again fixed by a restart.

I will keep an eye on that. because the restart slowed the battery usage back to 0.5%/hr from 4%/hr..

[DeeK2b]

Mines awful it was lasting 4 days but I have to charge it every 2 nights now 

only had it 2 weeks 

I’m having nothing but problems with it it keeps sayIng cant sync /connect with iPhone 

I wish I had stuck with my charge 2 lots of people are having problems 

[Colinm39]

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@DeeK2bI feel it was the latest update that's causing these issues.. I used to get my 4+ days between charges and now I get the odd problem and if I leave it too late it's a 2 hour charge like yourself.

Since me my last post I have dropped 3% from a full charge.. So I'm back to 1/2%/hr and this is typical domestics and activity.

@DeeK2b wrote:

Mines awful it was lasting 4 days but I have to charge it every 2 nights now 

only had it 2 weeks 

I’m having nothing but problems with it it keeps sayIng cant sync /connect with iPhone 

I wish I had stuck with my charge 2 lots of people are having problems 

[DeeK2b]

Mine has only been since the update too it was working fine until then

Notifications are on but I don’t get anything through

It keeps saying can’t sync with iPhone

Gps does not work unless I have my phone with me it just says connecting
Until I put my Bluetooth/data on then it connects

My heart rate goes from 118 walking and then rapidly drops to 84-90 within seconds even though my pace hasn’t changed so my calorie burn is well off

So deflated with it I wish I hadn’t bought it to be fair

Sent from my iPhone

[Colinm39]

@DeeK2bMy replacement Ionic is on the way... Hong Kong today.. If I have battery issues with this one and the GPS works I will post. Now down 4% in 7 hours so we are still on track...

I'm reticent to change too many things because everything I use else works for me.. GPS to me is just an interesting adjunct and I prefer the phone tracking for that when I do that...

[SantiR]

@Colinm39 I hope you're doing well! Thanks for providing all of that helpful information and for sharing your experience. I'm glad to hear that your replacement unit its on its way. 

Please follow these replacement set up steps once you receive the new unit. Let me know how that one works! 

@Tony.r  Hope you're doing well. Are you still experiences battery issues? 

@driver111 Did customer support got in contact with you? Any solutions from them? 

@sk8erchic925 Glad to hear the battery is now working properly for you. Please let me know if you need any more help. 

@DeeK2b Thanks for reporting this. I went ahead and created a case with customer support for you. Please keep an eye on your email inbox. 

Keep me posted! 

[Colinm39]

@SantiRNew Fitbit arrived and still setting it up correctly but the GPS works as designed.. GPS still defunct on the original Ionic.  Great service from Fitbit, 3 business days to Australia.

Battery on the original Ionic is at 57% after 3 days.. average 0.61%/HR and... also from the first full charge on the new Ionic is at 5% after 12 hours.. All the new Ionic used was a quick GPS, sleep and domestics, therefore @0.48%/HR

The recent two instances I had with massive battery loss @10%/hr was after two problematic Fitbit Pay's, where the Ionic vibrated and no action, I had to use my card and these were terminals I have used before... As if the Ionic may have been in a state of unfinished business.. A restart immediately had the battery back to normal 4 day usage..until the next charge..

I'm now charging at 30% usage.

[Tony.r]

@SantiR I am well thanks Santi.

I am currently not using all day sync like I was before so cannot comment how my battery is performing under that.

I have not yet completed a full charge cycle without all day sync turned off yet, although my gut instinct is it is performing marginally better with this turned off.

I still beleive my issue is definatley firmware related as opposed to hardware as my issues with battery drain only occurred immediately after the current firmware update.

Prior to this I was acheiving in excess of 96 hours with all day sync and GPS usage.

I have also noticed a couple of other users also reporting a drop in battery performance since the firmware update in another thread in this forum.

https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Ionic/Battery-life-after-firmware-update/m-p/2340561#M18725

As I was discussing with @N8teGee my intensions are not to go  for a full factory reset in case it makes things worse than they currently are and to wait for the next firmware update.

[Colinm39]

@SantiRI'm well also... and relaxed...all green....

The Battery on the "old" Ionic has reached 4 days and at 40%, back to  what I was getting before the update..0.64%/HR and wearing it 24/7

The "replacement" Ionic is faring better and averaging 0.42%/HR, again wearing it for 24/7

I have just cut over the replacement Ionic as my primary and will complete the testing and then recycle the "old" Ionic.

Excellent service from Fitbit... 3 business days from overseas and I'm back working with GPS, Fitbit Pay and all that matters.  This setup took just on 4 hours but it was seamless and a perfect update. This was done on WiFi via my Android phone in a home environment which has a 100mbs download fibre connection.  The "old" Ionic only took 29 minutes...

[driver111]

I did a factory reset and a full charge yesterday.

Since then I've done a 45min gym workout with screen set to "always-on"
Now currently sitting on 75% after 24hrs of use

Looking better. As it normally chews through 25% in an 8hr sleep.

[Colinm39]

@driver111That's was a lot of battery during sleep.. I switch my phone off at night so maybe that's why I only consume about 0.5%/HR while asleep, a typical normal use...  It will be nice to see how your battery usage went on your next night's sleep.

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@driver111 wrote:

I did a factory reset and a full charge yesterday.

Since then I've done a 45min gym workout with screen set to "always-on"
Now currently sitting on 75% after 24hrs of use

Looking better. As it normally chews through 25% in an 8hr sleep.

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