I have had a Charge 3 for exactly 3 weeks today. Until last night the battery life was very good. I charged it yesterday evening and went to bed with somewhere close to 100% charge, but it was dead when I woke up this morning. The last heartrate reading was at around 7am and I went to bed at 00:30 which would indicate it fully drained in less than 7 hours.
I charged it fully when I got up this morning and followed the restart procedure here https://help.fitbit.com/articles/en_US/Help_article/1186 but it continued to drain rapidly, so I attached it to the charger again and did another reset. I took it off the charger at 11:50am at 100% battery, and now at 2:20pm it's at 78%. This is about as much battery drain in 2.5 hours as I've previously been seeing in 2 days!!! All I've been doing during this time is sitting at my desk working. I've only switched the screen on to check the battery 2-3 times during this time (I have quick view disabled). At this rate the battery will be dead again by about 10-11pm tonight.
I tried to contact FitBit customer support via Live Chat and am frankly disgusted with the conversation I had. They basically gave me the following 5 things to try and then promptly ended the chat even though I tried to emphasise these clearly aren't the issue.
1. Turn off or reduce your use of certain features. (I bought it to use specific features, why would I turn them off?????)
2. Avoid charging your device in extreme cold or heat—below 32°F and above 113° F (I don't live at the North Pole or a volcano)
3. Prevent the screen from turning on each time you turn your wrist. If you move your hands a lot, your device’s screen may turn on more often than you realize (I already have this switched off, the battery continues to drain rapidly without the screen being on at all - roughly 1% every 5 minutes)
4. Dim the screen or turn on auto brightness on Charge 3. In the "Settings app" on your device, find the brightness setting, and tap to change it. (as above, it's draining roughly 1% every 5 minutes with the screen completely off)
5. Turn off notifications you don’t need, including alerts from apps on your phone, alarms, and reminders to move. (I don't use any notifications or reminders at all, but in any case it's a feature of the device and I would expect the battery to last more than 10 hours even if I did use them?!?!?!)
Is there anything constructive anyone can actually suggest? Is there any reason I shouldn't just go back to the shop and refund this clearly faulty device?
