Charge 3 exercises stopped on its own

[SunsetRunner]

Yesterday, during a Weights exercise, the tracker "stopped" the exercise on its own. (?!)

One moment it was working, the next time I flicked my wrist to check my HR, it was back to the regular clock face without me ever ending the exercise explicitly.

I immediately started the exercise again and continued working out. When I checked the Fitbit app afterwards, it had logged my first exercise as if I had ended it myself, and the second one (again a Weights exercise), as if it was a run / bike exercise, since it shows a pace and distance. (?!?!)

Screenshot from the Fitbit app after the issue with my Weight exercises

This issue, couple with a myriad more I encountered over the last few days, made me put the tracker in the drawer. I'm now back on my trusted Charge 2. I will wait for a week or two, and if these issues are not fixed in a software update, I'm shipping this half-baked product back. This is unacceptable from a major brand like Fitbit. Embarrassing.

Moderator edit: updated subject for clarity

[Dmcdoug]

My Fitbit stopped during the middle of a circuit training workout. Luckily I looked at the watch and restarted it. This is about the third time this has happened. 

[Outsidecenter]

Hi - the firmware upgrade seemed to resolve the issue. I have not experienced any issues with the Charge 3 ending tracking during a workout since upgrading.

[gabeparra]

Yes!! Me too. Took FOREVER but this seems to have remedied the issue!! 🙂

[Jonmick]

Unfortunately it happened to me again today. My charge 3 is fully updated
and so is the app on my phone. Also I restarted my phone and charge 3 prior
to my run.

[badasolref]

I've been having similar issues with my Charge 3 lately. Went for a run this morning, set a target distance of 5 km, checked the device near the halfway point and saw that it was around 2.3 km, kept running, checked again a few minutes later and it said I'd done 1.34 km. No idea why it reset, and completely lost data for the first half of my run.

I updated to the most recent firmware whenever that was announced. I was running in the rain (which shouldn't be an issue), but I don't understand how the device could have reset the tracking entirely and 'dropped' 20 minutes of running. Very frustrating.

[Beej63]

Customer service finally replace my fitbit after I asked to speak to a supervisor. Unfortunately, my new fitbit has the same problem. It seems to happen less frequently than my previous one - perhaps once per week instead of 3 or 4 times per week. I'll be adding a new tracker to my holiday wish list soon. Too bad because I really enjoyed their products up until now.

[new.user]

I am having the same problem with charge 3  as all the other people in this thread.
Today it's so bad that on a 45 minute bike ride I had to restart the exercise program 6 times and when it still stopped by itself I finally gave up. I see in the app now that it registered only 1 minute activity each time.

I see this thread is one year old and so far no solution. The last response from the Fitbit team was several months ago.

• Should I just find another brand of smartwatch? I guess it's under two weeks since I bought this crap, so I should still get my money back...

I'm contacting customer support as well but it doesn't look like this problem is going to be fixed. Or that they are even working on a solution.

[Lighty123]

Hi. I’ve got a charge 3 purchased Dec 2018 and it began to end exercise randomly several months ago. At first, like a lots of users, I thought it was something I’d done but, over the past month, it’s been happening more frequently. In the past 24 hours it’s  recorded 12 minutes of a 45 minute spin class and 29 minutes of a 45 minute weight workout. This is totally unexceptable . I’ve rebooted as suggested but it’s definitely getting worse. This is even more annoying as I purchased one for my husband at Christmas.something I now regret doing.

surely Fitbit should be replacing these devices as you obviously cannot offer a solution.

any thoughts?

[wfdTamar]

Charge 3. Seeing this issue mentioned a lot going back years and Fitbit haven't fixed it yet! Luckily I'm within my Ebay Plus return window. I tried all the fixes mentioned and none worked. Just basically a faulty design. Shame as I liked it otherwise.

[Edwardbuckets]

Mine is brand new and kept stopping itself during a run today. Old inspire hr did not have this issue. 

[wfdTamar]

I suspect this is a flaw which they can't fix and rather than admit it and face replacing all those they have sold with a new design, they just give the perpetual 'we are aware of the issue and a fix is imminent' story as they seem to have been doing for years.

[KrisNZ]

I’ve tried resetting and it hasn’t happened. I’ve been keeping track of weight loss etc with this app and so I would really like to keep that data. Is there a guarantee the factory reset will work?? 

[wfdTamar]

If you sync the Fitbit all the data is i the 'cloud' (on the Fitbit servers), so you can safely reset the Fitbit and delete it from the app. Then when you set it up after reset and add it to your app again all the data is loaded on it again. Easy, but I think you'll find the reset does not fix the issue. Eventually it will reoccur. This is a permanent design flaw it seems. Fitbit have been aware of it for years and not fixed it.

I returned mine. I really liked it, but if it can't perform even this basic function it's not much use.

[KrisNZ]

That’s a real shame I agree it’s one of the main reasons I got it. Otherwise it’s really just a watch pedometer 

Mine does this too. I thought after the long restart maybe it would be fixed because it’s been ok the last week or so but it did it again this morning. I was doing swimming exercises 1 hour 10 mins and it only picked up the first 9 mins which I only realised when I stopped and checked my watch 😡😡😫😫. Id only just turned it on when I was finished with my bag and started the warmup so I didn’t forget when I got in the water. 

 

Moderator edit: merged reply

[Lbotti]

Happens to me all the **ahem** time!  So frustrating!!

[SunsetRunner]

Same to me. Did a  without spinning workout specifying an objective, found that it stopped by itself after a while. This happened twice this week.

[Thazel]

Same problem.  I threw out my old 3 and bought a new one thinking that would solve the annoying problem ... no luck.  Time to switch to Apple or Garmin.

[SunsetRunner]

Problem doesn't (seem to) happen to me when I set a time target for the
exercise session, even if I overshoot the declared goal.

[mad-gw]

Will restarting/resetting it erase all of my past data? I use this to track my mileage over months for running.

[RocksSoxBills14]

As long as you've been syncing it with your phone or computer, you won't lose any data. All of your steps, miles, workouts, etc., are stored on FitBit's servers, not in the device itself.