Charge 3 too dim screen and other problems

[warkior]

One and a half years ago I saved up and got myself a FitBit Charge 3. I had done a bunch of research and felt that it had the best balance of battery life and features that I was looking for. INITIALLY I loved it. The device was exactly as advertised... at first.

A few weeks into owning it, it froze. Black screen. Unresponsive. A few hours later it was fine again.

This happened several more times, and eventually I discovered I had to plug it into the dock and hard-reset to start it up again.

Then I noticed that the heart rate tracking was sketchy. Especially when I was active and heartrate was up. When my actual rate was 130-140, the watch would say it was at 90. Didn't seem to matter how I wore it either. Occasionally it would work, but more often than not the rate during exercise would be off.

More recently I noticed the screen was getting quite a bit dimmer, and actually discoloring on one side. Recent "software updates" have changed things to put notifications in a small, darker font such that they are completely unreadable on the watch. And today it's so dim that it is unreadable in daylight or even in a brightly lit room. I have tried setting brightness to Auto, Normal, Dim... Auto seems best, but is still unreadable outside.

It also has a "night mode" which is completely invisible except in utter blackness. Totally useless since it has to be SO dark that I can't see where my finger is touching on the device to turn OFF night mode.

When I reached out to support they took me through the process to set brightness to auto, but apart from that told me there was nothing they could do since the device was older than 1 year. (1.5 years)

Terrible customer support.

Terrible product.

Very bad over-all experience.

I will never buy myself another Fitbit and I recommend others avoid them too. Look at all the complaints in here about the Charge 3's. If this was a car, they would have done a massive factory recall and there would have been lawsuits.

Moderator Edit: Clarified subject

[AlvaroFitbit]

@warkior Welcome to the Community. 

Sorry to hear about your Charge 3 not working correctly and thank you for reaching out to our Support team. Support does follow the guidelines described in the warranty so if your device is outside the warranty period they won't be able to replace it. Still thank you for sharing your feedback.

I'll be around.