Strange battery issue

[courtarro]

I have a recurring problem with battery failure after charging. I have a Fitbit One running v6.60 of its software/firmware. The process goes something like this:

1. The battery on the One gets low
2. I plug in the One and it charges overnight
3. I detach the One in the morning and it says it has a full battery
4. A day later, I notice that the One is dead. I press the button and it flashes "FITBIT 6.60" before dying again
5. I plug the One into the charger and it starts charging from a completely dead battery.

The first few times this happened, I thought it might just have been a problem with the contacts, and that maybe the charging never happened. However, the latest time I charged it, I confirmed that the battery was fully charged (according to the meter on the Fitbit itself) before disconnecting it from the charger. When I went to check the sync a day later, I noticed it was dead and was failing to fully boot, as described above.

Normally, when it works correctly, I get about a week of charge out of the One. When this glitch occurs, it makes me wonder if there's something in the One that is getting stuck in "charging" mode and is eating up a lot more battery than normal.

Any ideas?

[WendyB]

Have you restarted it?

Do it at least 3 times.

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

Do you have a lot of alarms sets as it will drain the battery. How old is it?

If restating doesn't help then contact support

http://help.fitbit.com/?cu=1

[courtarro]

When the battery dies, is that not equivalent to a restart?

I don't use it for alarms. It's about 6 months old. The battery works fine most of the time: it will last about a week. Then this happens and it dies after a day.

[PureEvil]

Hello @courtarro,

Welcome to the community!

Have you left the Fitbit App on your phone with the display on?...  Perhaps while you're running on the treadmill or working out on the elliptical?

The Fitbit was designed to sync periodically (about every 20 minutes or so) and the estimated battery life is based on it working this way.  However, you can run the Fitbit App with your stats and is happy to keep a constant connection and display every single step you take while you're on the treadmill.  However, when you run the app this way, it keeps a constant connection with your Fitbit and this will drain the battery in a day.  Don't do that.

I hope this helps.

[courtarro]

Hmm, no - I haven't left the app open, but I imagine it's possible that the app was doing something on my phone that kept it stuck trying to talk to the Fitbit, which could mean that it's the app's fault for the battery drain vs. the Fitbit itself. That's another thing I'll have to test.

I'm not currently confident that I can reproduce the issue on demand. Next time the battery gets low, I will do a test of my procedure and see if I can reliably get it to drain as quickly as it did the first time.