Charge 3 won't stay connected to gps on my phone

[Bryannaj]

I can't get my charge 3 to stay connected to the GPS on my phone. Has anyone else had this issue? When I get on the app on my phone and click over to allow it to connect to gps, it will click over to allow it to, but after I leave the screen and come back, the allow button has flipped back to off, and when I try to start a run on my fitbit it say Phone not found. I'm no sure how to fix it.

[MarreFitbit]

Hey there @Bryannaj, it's nice to see you here! Thanks for taking the time to share the situation you experienced when GPS tracking a run with your Charge 3.

Have you checked if the mobile phone you're using is included in our list of supported devices? 

Your Charge 3 uses connected GPS which works with the GPS sensors of your phone. Probably, your phone lost the connection while you were running. This may have happened as a result of different environmental factors such as tall buildings, dense forest, steep hills, or a thick cloud. That may interfere the signal. 

I'd recommend turning off Wi-Fi on your phone when using GPS for a better experience. 

Also, try the following:

• Open the Fitbit app to reestablish a connection with your tracker.
• Reboot your phone.

There are also some requirements you should check out. Please take a look at this helpful article for more details on this. You can also check Charge 3 User Manual (page 36) for information on tracking GPS exercises with this new device.

Hope this helps. Keep me posted! 

[Kayekayelee]

Mine does this too! I've only had it about a month and the first time I ran it worked fine then I think after the firmware update it stopped working. It connects and disconnects from the phone gps about every 45 seconds and I've reconnected it to the phone and rebooted the fitbit too. 

[MaddieRuns]

I am having this issue too! 

[Anne_tonia]

I have the same problem! My phones GPS signal is not disconnecting but the charge 3 looses Signal.

[LouiseWilliams]

Same problem with mine too. I try to set up biking and it just says gps not found - have worked a way around it though. I set up an exercise direct on the Fitbit app on my phone to track it and it works fine. Only thing is I cannot see a biking option - just run, walk and hike! But at least it tracks the distance. And of course it proves that the gps on the phone works fine!

[Soco11]

I'm having this problem too.  I cycle to and from work and Fitbit loses connection to my phone every couple of minutes.  It's not a problem with my GPS as I can track the ride accurately using Strava on my phone.

Anyone managed to finds a solution? 

I've tried the everything Fitbit have suggested - rebooting Fitbit, rebooting phone, turning off WiFi, making sure the app keeps running in the background, turning off battery optimisation, etc..

[RiseAndShine]

I had similar issue, and was able to resolve it after a lot of testing. Used 2 phones and in general found out that bluetooth v5 is keeping connection much better than v 4.1. Environmental factor matter... a lot  - biking on a trail rendered way better connection when in the city streets. Some things that worked for me:

1. Wi-fi should be turned off when using GPS tracking

2. No other Bluetooth devices should be connected to the phone (that's a bummer because I like my wireless headphones... now I use auto bike tracking option when I want to listen to the music and don't need GPS... don't like wired headsets when I'm on a bike).

3. Map settings - wi-fi only option should be turned off

4. Fitbit app - all permissions should be granted in phone settings

5. Location should be turned on with high accuracy

6. Power Saving mode on the phone should be turned off (this is what was causing inaccurate map reading, syncing and additional connection issues in my case).

It's rare when I get disconnected now during the ride. Hope some of it will be helpful. You can also search other posts in this forum  - there could be other solutions. Overall, if GPS functionality is of critical importance  - on-board GPS is a better option as it eliminates dependency on bluetooth connection altogether. As it was mentioned above, run, walk, and hike can be tracked directly from the phone via Fitbit app. Best of luck!

[LeoRamos]

Having the same issue here: my charger gets stuck at 'connecting' and never finds the GPS. The only way I found was unpairing and pairing again, bit I need to do it every time I want to cycle. It's horrible.

Did Fitbit say something about it? I have already talked them in Twitter, did all rebooting and tips from articles...

[RiseAndShine]

@LeoRamos, that's frustrating... I had this issue when I had Power Saving mode on the phone enabled. My Charge 3 was not connecting to the phone unless I was triggering sync from Fitbit app (force-syncing would make the two connect). Power Saving was also resulting in incorrect map reading. I know I already mentioned that at the top... just to confirm - do you have Power Saving mode on the phone turned off?

[LeoRamos]

@RiseAndShine thanks for replying!

Yes, it is turned off. I never cycle or run with Power Saving mode.

The strange thing is, if I unpair and pair it, it works once. I don't if it is a memory or sync problem, but it seems software, not hardware.

My Pixel 2 is running Android 9 - any incompatibility you may aware of?

[RiseAndShine]

@LeoRamos, that's strange... I do see Pixel 2 on a list of supported devices - thus there should be no compatibility issues. (I'm still waiting on my Android 9 upgrade - hopefully, within a week or so - cannot personally attest yet how C3 works with the newest Android version ). Also, do you have all permissions for Fitbit app granted in phone settings? If this is not the case, it could cause issues as well (even though since you were working with Customer Support - they probably have checked it).

Pairing and unpairing device before each ride is not a good thing... If all else looks good, wonder if something got 'stuck' in Fitbit app cache? Have you tried clearing app cache (from phone settings) or - if it doesn't work - maybe reinstalling Fitbit app altogether (plus restarting a tracker... to clear its cache as well)? Wonder if this would help with connectivity improvement... 

Just in case, here's a link to a help article Why isn't GPS working on my Fitbit device?

Please, keep us posted!

[Aagee]

I've done a little bit of testing myself, as I was gutted my new charge 3 did not work out of the box.

I use a Galaxy S10+ with android 9, and the gps is not tracking as it should. Then I found that the S10 was not supported, but S8 and S9 was supported, so I tried my old S8+, also runnning android 9. No go, the exact same problems. Then on to an old S7 running android 8, no problems at all.

So there seems to be a problem when our phones are running android 9.

[MarkoP]

I realised that my Fitbit Charge 3 is able to keep my iPhone's GPS only when the phone is awaken (the display is on). It looses GPS connection approximately 10 seconds after the display shuts off. I have all permissions for Fitbit granted (localisation services set to always), but is does not help. This repeats after each software update of iPhone. Then Fitbit after certain time (usually months) fixes this issue and after each new update this issue appears. Sometimes helps removing Fitbit Charge 3 in application, logging out, rebooting iPhone, logging in and reconnecting it again. But it really works only sometimes. This issue is very frustrating as it keeps repeating for more than 2 years and Fitbit is still not able to fix it. As some of you already written, from the application only run, walk and hike can be tracked. If you want to track your bike rides, it is simply not possible without the tracker (only auto tracking of outdoor bike is possible to allow in the application, but it is without map and all thereto related information). This bug makes the tracker useless for bikers.

[somegirlinfl]

I have a Samsung Galaxy s10. I had the same problem. I just realized that I had the permissions set to allow location only when app is open. 

Once I set it to always allow, it's working like normal. Hopefully this helps someone else.

[RogueAndroid]

Which app did you set the allow background gps for?

[MarkoP]

In Fitbit app (iOS) check All-Day Sync and on iPhone in Settings / Privacy setting / Localisation services / Fitbit check "allways".

[Dollis]

I see the exact same problem on mine. Tried all the things in this article 😒nothing seems to help. Wonder if I should try another brand 🤔

[migintyuk]

Exact same problem here.  Been using my Charge 3 for the last 18months with no problems but in the last few days it has decried to no longer make use of the GPS function.

Very frustrating and basically makes the tracker useless.  Been cut long everyday for the past 4 months since Lockdown started, and then since 2 days ago it has decided to stop tracking my distances.  I’ve looked into Strava and probably should be using that anyway, but it defeats the purpose of having a GPS supported fitness tracker that cannot make use of GPS!

[Magda82]

I need to uninstall it several times a day to stay connected. It's very annoying. Every time I am going on a walk or run need to keep checking if it's connected. Don't know what else to do.