Summary: About 4 days ago my Charge 3 wouldn't hold a charge longer than a day. Then on Sunday it would not charge at all. When plugged into the charger, would not get the charging indication. I tried 2 different charging cables (my wife has a Charge 3 as well), and multiple different USB sources. I cleaned the terminals on both the charger and the Charge 3 as indicated in the Troubleshooting section. I tried the reboot (from the device before it died) and the button push reset, including the long 15 second reset. The device would not reset with the button push as it appeared that it did not think it was attached to the charger. In any case it is now dead and won't respond to any charging or reset attempts.
Detail: This is the third Charge 3 that has died within the last year. I bought 2 Charge 3's directly from Fitbit as Christmas presents for me and my wife in December 2018. Both of those units died almost simultaneously in July 2019. Since they were in warranty we were sent 2 new units, however Fitbit would not extend the warranty. So now one of those 2 units has died 11 months later, outside of the original warranty. I called Fitbit and spoke to a manager, but the best he would do is 25% off of any Fitbit device EXCEPT the Charge 4. Based on my experience and the volume of problems posted on this forum, the Charge 3 obviously is a flawed device. I might have purchased a Charge 4 with a deep discount just to get the GPS function, but that device is excluded from offers, and in any case 25% is not enough to get me to trust Fitbit again. This post won't dissuade anyone from purchasing a Charge 3 or 4, if you've gotten to this forum you have probably already parted with your money. My recommendation is to make sure that you have a device failure before your warranty is up, and get a new one. Maybe you will get 2 years out of it, maybe not. I will be taking my money elsewhere.
