Charge 3 Broken After Attempted Firmware Update

[Anahlia]

I finally decided to try doing the firmware update for my Charge 3 that my Fitbit app had been bugging me about. I tried the update, and it failed. I attempted the update another 5 times or so, and it failed repeatedly. The screen on my Fitbit is black, and it no longer shows a clock face or anything else. It still vibrates when I press the button, and a green light on the back of it also turns on when I hold my finger close to it. Clearly it has power. Even so, I left it plugged in for another 15 hours just in case it wasn't charged "enough" and tried again. Same behavior.

After reading various troubleshooting threads it was suggested that if the update was failing, I should try to remove the device from my Fitbit account (and thus, from my phone's bluetooth pairing) and re-add it.

After removing the device, I attempted to re-pair it with my phone's Fitbit app, but could not do so because the pairing process requires you to input a code displayed on the watch face into your phone. I can't read anything off the watch face because it is black and does not display anything. Because I am unable to pair it to a device with the Fitbit app, I can no longer attempt other fixes that require using the app, like trying to change the clock face.

After reading more troubleshooting threads, I tried repeatedly to do two different reset procedures for the watch that I found online:

1. The "soft" reset, where you connect the Charge 3 to the charger and then hold down the button for 8 seconds. A smiley face appears, as it is supposed to. After the smiley face disappears, the screen goes black again and stays that way. Nothing else happens, even when unplugging it and plugging it back in. The button still causes the watch to vibrate and the green light on the back still turns on.

2. The "hard" reset, where you connect the Charge 3 to the charger and then hold down the button for 15 seconds, without the smiley face appearing. You then unplug the device from the charger, and the smiley face appears again when you plug it back in. This smiley face also appeared, as it is supposed to. After the smiley face disappears, the result is the same; the screen goes black and stays that way, etc.

Looking for help or feedback; the behavior of my device seems slightly different from many of the threads I've read.

[kathyknute]

look at the screen in the dark--hopefully you can make out something--then go to settings and turn your light to auto--it worked for me but the charge 3 still is not tracking anything after I did the update 2 days ago--fitbit told me it is no longer under warrant and they offered a discount towards a new purchase which is a bunch of crock because it worked perfectly fine before the update!

[PurpleTink68]

Same for me too... No longer connects to my phone after the update! 

[Gizmouse26]

That happened to me, I had to reconnect to my phones bluetooth. 

[KathleenPatrici]

Yes, I updated to the new filmware version a week ago. My Charge 3 no longer tracks my steps or responds when I move my wrist.  I have to push the side button for the face to light up. I have tried everything resyncing, soft reset, hard reset, deleting from my fitbit app and bluetooth and reconnecting, resetting the stride length, and resetting the clock face. Nothing has worked 😞.  Don't feel I should have to purchase a new device when it was working fine before the update and clearly the update is the cause.  If anyone comes up with a solution to fix this problem, please let me know. Thank you 😊