Phone battery drain due to Fitbit app

[Davecm]

My Android phone battery now drains much more quickly since using the Fitbit app in conjunction with the Inspire HR, which replaced a faulty Fitbit One. Even with All Day Sync and Always Connected settings turned off, a Fitbit background process continues to run and typically consumes 30% of battery drain. If I force stop the app, or turn bluetooth off, battery life returns to normal. The background process can still restart for no apparent reason.

I can see that some features of the device are an extension of the phone messaging and notification functions, which require a constant background process in order to work, but with Always Connected turned off, you might expect these functions to be disabled. Alternatively, a new battery saving setting could be added, which disables all background processes, for use when saving battery power for phone calls etc. is the priority.

[AlvaroFitbit]

@Davecm I hope you are fine and sorry for the delay in my reply.

Let me help you with your Fitbit app draining your phone's battery. Which version of the app do you have? Is it up to date? If it isn't then update it. If the app is up to date try uninstalling and reinstalling the app.

Let me know how it goes.

[Davecm]

I did all that twice. Also created a support ticket prior to that. Was
posting here in case other users had same issue and had discovered a
solution.

[FGDux]

Hi Davecm, I have the same issue, with the same fitbit product but with an iphone, have tried everything you have with the same lack of success, has your issues been resolved and if so what did support share with you? Thanks!

[Davecm]

I do appear to have found a solution hopefully, but Fitbit were no help really. My phone (Samsung Galaxy S7) has a battery life optimisation function. After running that several times over a couple of weeks, with various combinations of bluetooth on or off, and Fitbit always connected setting on or off, the phone itself now appears to have resolved the issue. That's apparently by inhibiting the Fitbit background process from running when not needed, along with a few other apps it also optimised.

I don't know if an I-Phone has a similar function.

I should also say that I don't need to use the Fitbit as an extension to my phone functions, e.g. to read text messages etc. as I bought it specifically to monitor sleep patterns. So I imagine that these functions may no longer work if the phone prevents the Fitbit background process from starting.

[FGDux]

Thanks for taking the time to reply Davecm, much appreciated!  Looks like, from what i can see, my iPhone does not have the same function as your Samsung, spoke with FitBit support, their recommendation is to turn off Bluetooth on my phone and turn on when I need to sync, works but.........doesn't seem to be the most elegant solution 😂 😂😂

[Davecm]

I might also have added that I tried syncing to my Windows 10 laptop instead of the phone, as a possible workaround, as I don't use the connected phone features. That also came with it's own issues, with a Fitbit background process running all the time on the laptop with high CPU usage, causing the fan to run at high speed. Turning bluetooth off, or killing the process in Task Manager was required to avoid that.

I've owned a total of 5 Fitbit devices over a 10 year period, the earlier ones all being Fitbit One models. None of those lasted more than 2 or 3 years before the bluetooth radio failed, and 2 of them were replaced under warranty.

None of them, including the Inspire HR, would sync sleep data reliably, often requiring 3-5 attempts, regardless of the type of device I'm syncing to, laptop, phone or tablet. The Inspire HR has failed to sync sleep 6 times since 1st December. I suspect possible server overload might be to blame, if tens of millions of users are attempting to sync simultaneously worldwide, as it seems completely random, sometimes works first time, sometimes not at all.

In fact, as the Inspire HR is a recent purchase, it's going back to the retailer tomorrow to be exchanged for a Garmin. I had hoped that a new model would not be plagued with the issues of the old one.

[PKDBBD]

I have the exact same problem with my Inspire HR and my Samsung Galaxy S8. I also have a Flex 2 that is synced with my phone, and never had this problem.  When I chatted with Fitbit online, the person just was not understanding what I was trying to tell her. She told me it must be my phone or the service providers fault if the problem is the phone battery. She did not get that there was no problem until after I added the Inspire HR. I finally gave up and ended the chat. The CSR ended up sending me a follow up email to help my Inspire HR battery to not drain so quickly!  Nothing I do changes the battery usage. So far today, Fitbit has used 27.3% of my battery. Over the last week, my battery usage was 177.2%. Does anyone have any real answers??

[Davecm]

My solution was to return the Fitbit Inspire HR to the retailer, even though I'd had it some months. Under UK law if an item is unfit for purpose, the retailer is liable to replace it.

They exchanged it quite readily for a Garmin Vivosmart 4, which is the nearest equivalent model, and told me several other customers had returned theirs for the same reasons. In fact the salesperson said the different Fitbit model she was wearing at the time had a variety of issues and she was not at all happy with it.

The Garmin has a number of additional functions, much better PC and mobile apps, and is better in every way. There is still some phone battery drain, but not excessive. The Garmin has never failed to records sync sleep data, other than the odd occasion when I failed to charge it and the battery died overnight.

I hope you manage to read this before a moderator censors my post.

[FGDux]

Will take a look at the Garmin, thank you!

[FGDux]

Thanks for your post, I now sync with my iPad, could not resolve the draining the phone battery issue, have noticed that it requires several attempts to sync and in the end I have to disconnect and reconnect the Inspire Bluetooth connection to the iPad to resolve the problem, that’s probably what’s happening to our phones, defeats the object having to manually intervene every time you need to sync! Stuck with a problem product, I don’t like wearing an activity tracker as a watch, have taken the strap off the Inspire and use it like the old Fitbit Zip…..now that was a great product!!!

[Davecm]

I seem to remember that force stopping the Fitbit app and/or only turning on phone bluetooth when really needed, e.g. in the car, minimised the battery drain issue, but it's months ago since I exchanged mine for a Garmin. The not fit for purpose reason for returning it was more to do with the random but frequent sync failure, which I suspect may be due to Fitbit's server capacity not being increased in line with sales of devices in a timely manner. That's purely a guess, but I did used to work in IT, so familiar with possible causes, and our mainframe computer did used to grind to a halt from time to time when operators failed to clear down system log files often enough 🙂