Another dead Fitbit?

[jt_stl]

I have had this Charge HR about 4 months. It is my third (10 and 16 months on the first two). It was working fine until this morning. Or mostly fine, it seemed to have been reporting needing a charge more often the last couple of days. Today, again it needed a charge, but instead of seeing the bars that run across the screen as it charges, I am seeing a lightning bolt symbol or text that says something like CHEERS or BON JOUR or some other message.

The FitBit acts like it is working, but is also reporting no charge. The contacts seem clean and I tried a different charging cable (brand new- from one of the other fitbits I had purchased).

Anyone seen this? It sounds to me like  a bad connection. But apparently not the cable.

When I got the third FitBit I had just completed 20,000 floors and said I wasn't sure the FitBit would last to the next goal of 28,000 floors. I'm just over 25,500. Sadly,  I may have been right!

[WendyB]

Can I ask how you are charging it?

See this thread for charging best practices. If you are not charging it correctly you could be damaging the battery

[jt_stl]

I have the USB cable (supplied by FitBit) plugged into my laptop.

I used to leave it charging for a few hours. Now as soon as I get the notice the battery is low, I hook it up for about 40 minutes. It lasts 2-3 days that way. Though lately it seems seldom more like 1-2 days.

[jt_stl]

After a couple hours plugged in, it started to charge. It said it was fully charged after about a half hour.

[jt_stl]

I thought I would update this message with the latest status of my FitBit.

It seems if the charge gets really low you see that lightning bolt. What has worked twice now is to reset the Charge HR (hold button maybe 20 seconds). Then it shows it is charging again.

However, as of today 10/7/2019 I am working through a new problem. It got to the lightning bolt because I took a trip and left it home. It was dead when I got back. I charged it and things seemed OK. But a couple days later I noticed it had not synced in several hours. That was at the end of the day and I ignored it until the next day. As a result I was greeted with the lightning bolt again. Again, it seemed like it would not charge, but resetting it switched it to acting like it was charging.

However, the time it was displaying was from the day before (it is currently 14 hours behind the correct time). Many attempts to sync it have failed and I have restarted it multiple times and tried syncing both when attached to the charge cable and on my wrist. Also, yesterday, the charge lasted only 8 hours, so I charged it overnight.

So I did make 28,000 floors (over by 500 now) but I am not sure this FitBit will last much longer. It is starting to act like my last one just before it died. So 10 + 16 + 8 = 34 months from three FitBits. If it really is dying, I am pretty much done with FitBit.

I will know tomorrow if an all night charge gets it back to lasting 2-3 days. I have no idea how to deal with the inability to sync. It seems to be a really common problem. I have seen times when my FitBit would not sync for 4-5 days then suddenly start syncing again. So I am holding out some hope. But I am rather discouraged at what seems like a never ending string of problems with these devices.