Charge 4 has gone completely haywire

[Markmcg84]

A couple of weeks ago, my Charge 4 started acting up. Here are the ongoing issues:

- sleep tracking went from working fine, to recording only a couple of hours of sleep, only tracking my sleep start time 5 or 6 hours after falling asleep, not showing sleep stages, and not showing sleep scores

- starting my sleep time at random times in the evening long before bed

- the clock randomly skips forward 3 hours, then reverts itself

- after waking up, it tells me I've already walked 1500 steps, burned hundreds of calories, and walked more than 1 kilometre

- calories, distance and steps jump to high numbers for no reason, and show different numbers on the watch face than the app

- my sleep reminder is set to 930pm, but this morning the sleep reminder popped up at 630am instead

- heartrate during a casual kettlebell workout went from 80bpm to 141bpm, them back to 80bpm within a couple of minutes. After a heavier workout, heart rate stayed around 70bpm

This seems to be timed with the latest firmware update. Have had it for 9 months and it was working great until a couple of weeks ago. These problems have rendered it utterly useless. And before support chimes in with the usual responses: I wear it snuggly high on my wrist, do not manually enter sleep data, and keep the sensors clean.

Thanks!

[Em_Tee]

Me too.  Started 25th March.  After three hours driving, told me I'd done 9999 steps.  Time went from midday to 1 a.m..  As I was away from home for hospital visits I was very concerned about not having the right time so I could keep my appointments.  Following day, 6 a.m.  out for a walk, after about 30 minutes it registered as around 8 p.m. the previous day, with just under 5000 steps.  I wish I could walk that many steps in around 30 minutes LOL.  At the end of my walk about 2 hours later, walking up an extremely steep hill, heart rate showing as 81.  YAY  I've turned into an elite athlete.  

When I had a problem with it just after Christmas, Fitbit told me it was a firmware issue that was resulting in my sleep not recording correctly, and as such they weren't prepared to offer any help.  They suggested I should return it to the seller I bought it from.  Anyway, the sleep issue wasn't that important, so I decided not to do anything else.  However, the problems now are important.  I rely on this primarily as a watch, then as a device to measure my activity.  So I'm returning it to Amazon, from whom I purchased it about six months ago.  

[Markmcg84]

Interesting. I think I bought mine from Walmart and they are notoriously difficult to deal with for returns, but I'll consider that if I can't get it fixed. Hoping support can help or maybe roll back the firmware update. Thanks for your response!

[MTDb]

Thanks Marcmcg. Poor Charge 4. I've reached 51 times my exercise goal (which I never set) in 3,090 minutes...wait! now in 7.500 minutes. I've owned many Fitbits over the years. This one, purchased about a year ago, is now completely useless. Has Fitbit acknowledged its culpability/willingness to replace these malfunctioning devices?  I love having a Fitbit. Wirecutter recently rated the the Charge 5 the overall best fitness tracker. Charge 4 has much to live up to. Who's in charge of firmware updates? I still love Fitbit. 

[Markmcg84]

Wow. Congratulations on crushing your exercise goal lol. Miraculously, my
Charge 4 started behaving completely normally again about a week ago. I
didn't change anything, just fixed itself one day to the next. Wish I could
be more helpful, but now I'm just hoping it continues to work!

[mallons1]

My charge 4 went haywire 7 April sleep info completely wrong. no sleep score. Awake abd restless periods showing wrong. graphs changed on read out and  oxygen levels no longer showing. 

[MTDb]

Amazing! I'm going to anticipate the same. I've placed healing crystals and
burned sage over my Chg 4. I'm charging it now after letting it get
"empty." With charging not yet complete, the display looks normal. I'm
thinking I didn't need the sage and crystals!! A happy outcome for my
Fitbit-dependent habits.

--
*Martha Durgy*

[Markmcg84]

Or maybe it was actually the sage and crystals that fixed it 😉 Good luck!