Versa won't turn on - My experience

[robertotaylor]

Well, my wife and I purchased 2 Fitbit Versa's on February 2019. My wife's Versa completely died a month outside the 1-year warranty after going into the pool and not having it more than a couple of feet underwater. We contacted Fitbit Support, and they basically said, "Sorry, you're out of warranty."

Well, mine was still working great until last night. We went for a walk around our neighborhood, when I tried checking my heartrate and noticed that the screen wouldn't turn on. I knew that was odd because I had just left it charging the night before, so it was fully charged yesterday morning. I had noticed that for the past couple of weeks the battery life didn't seem to be as good as it used to be. It was now using about 50% battery life every day, so I had to charge it every 2 days instead of every 3 days. As we continued our walk, I could feel it vibrating as if I was getting notifications on it or something, but the screen was still off, so it's at that point I knew something was wrong with it.

When I got home I tried to power it on/reboot it by holding down the back button and the bottom button, but nothing happened. I then put it on the charger and started to do some research. I came across a couple of posts where people said they held down all 3 buttons at the same time for upwards of 3 minutes to do a full reset on the watch. Well, I gave that a try, and the only thing my watch would do was turn the backlight on (screen still black), and the heart rate sensor light on the back would start flashing.

I left the Versa charging all night last night, and tried again this morning, but it was the same story. Backlight of screen on, heart rate sensor flashing, but nothing else. At this point I'm just going to assume that it's never going to turn on again just like my wife's Versa.

The point of my post isn't really to look for technical support. It's to point out the fact that we purchased the Fitbit Versa thinking they were great products from a big name company, and that's why you pay a premium price for the watch. It's said to see my wife's Versa died after only 13 months, and mine only lasted 20 months, and Fitbit doesn't really care since they continue selling their product fooling people that they are premium products. 

At this point, I can say that my experience with Fitbit hasn't been a good one. We don't ever plan on purchasing another Fitbit product, and will never be able to recommend them to anyone. 

By the way, for anyone thinking this is an semi-isolated incident, just do a simple Google search for "Fitbit Versa won't turn on", and you'll see that this is a widespread problem with their products. We are not the first ones that have been fooled by their advertising, and we certainly won't be the last. So for anyone reading this (if it doesn't get deleted), stay away from Fitbit products. 

Moderator Edit: Clarified subject

Moderator Edit: Content - Promoting 

[RicardoFitbit]

Hi @robertotaylor, welcome to the Community Forums!

Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts and personal experience with your Fitbit device, I understand your situation and how frustrating this matter can be for you. I'd like to let you know that we are always striving to improve the Fitbit experience with our products and services, therefore, the feedback that's shared here in the Community Forums is always appreciated and really helpful for us to evaluate our procedures and make sure that we are delivering what our users want and need. 

In regards the issue you're experiencing with your Versa and yo better assist you with this, can you please let me know if the heart rate sensors are flashing or is your device completely unresponsive? If you haven't already done so, I recommend you to check our help article: Why isn't my battery charging on my Fitbit device? and let me know how it goes. Such article includes a restart process which can be really helpful for this situation

Please keep me posted, I'll be waiting for your reply so we can move forward.

[robertotaylor]

Hi Ricardo, thanks for your reply. I have already tried resetting my Versa holding down the back and bottom buttons, but nothing happens. 

However, if I press and hold down all 3 buttons down, I can see the screens backlight turn on (screen remains dark), and the green light from the heart rate sensor will flash a few times and the device will even vibrate a couple of times, but that's it. 

My wife's Versa is 100% unresponsive. No backlight and no heart rate sensor light will turn on whatsoever. 

I just find it upsetting that neither of these watches more than 20 months. I mean, they're not super expensive, but I still find them to be at a premium price point for what they are. As I mentioned, we replaced my wife's Versa with a $30 watch that does almost everything the Versa does for a fraction of the price and has 3 times the battery life. 

I know people that are still wearing their Apple Watch Series 1 (6 years old at this point).

Anyway, unless there's anything else that can be done, I'm just counting this as a learning experience and not purchasing or recommending Fitbit products again. If this was an isolated incident, I would understand, but the fact that both of our watches died and there are countless other people with the same issue tells me that there's something wrong with the product.