Fitbit Sense refusing to charge after 1 year and 3 months

[Fitterfitter]

Well, I'm not sure if anyone else is experiencing this but I bought two fitbit senses, one for myself and one for my wife. In the first month my fitbit was only getting a day of battery life so I got a replacement under warranty. This held charge for 2 days, not the advertised 6, but it was an improvement over just one day.

Fast forward to last week and my fitbit sense has stopped charging at all. Now I am being told that the best fitbit can do for me is offer a 35 percent discount off of a new device. Uh, no. I am not paying upwards of 200 dollars for a device with an irreplaceable battery that lasts less than a year and half and gets 1/3 of the advertised battery life.

Fitbit I don't know who or why you think anyone would want to purchase your products when you don't support any reparability or sustainability with your products. A year and a half is all it took for you to lose yourself a customer permanently. I hope no one else is having their sense battery die on them in less than a year and half. If anyone else has though and knows how to replace the battery some advice would be greatly appreciated because right now all I have is an expensive paperweight. 

[Hmh7076]

My Fitbit is 1 year and 3 months old and I was told the same thing. This is the second one that has done this so we will not be purchasing any Fitbit products again.

[Clove6060]

@Fitterfitter @Hmh7076 

Have both of you all checked the charging cable to make sure it is not defective? There is the possibility of a faulty pin on the charging cable. Make sure all 4 pins are of equal prominence. It renders the cable useless if one retracted. If you’ve already checked  this and all is well, i’m sorry to hear your watches failed.  Mine is still going strong since 11/2020.  I’m keeping my fingers crossed. 

[Laura0823]

My Fitbit Sense was only 9 months old and when I put it on the charger, the battery actually drained. Took them 2 weeks to send me a replacement (and of course they won't pro-rate my premium membership to reflect the time I wasn't using their device) and now the replacement they sent me is showing signs of the same problem after having it less than 3 weeks...they really don't value their customers at all.

[Fitterfitter]

Yeah that was actually one of the first things I checked. I really wish they sent out an actual properly vetted charging brick to go with the cable. I have no idea if there is a specific voltage or something the sense is designed to charge with and the battery might be fried because the of the charging block I'm using perhaps.

The cable works with my fiance's Fitbit however which was purchased at the same time. It's definitely makes me think it's a defective battery situation. I did find a YouTube video showing how to replace the battery and it actually looks relatively simple. I just bought a replacement battery and am going to try fixing this. The other option is getting a Samsung watch. They're running a trade in on all smart watches for about 100 to 125 dollars towards a new Samsung watch. Which is way better than 35 percent off a new Fitbit that I would assume to only last a year and a half. 

[Hmh7076]

Thanks for the info about the Samsung trade in!

[LeeAK]

My Sense stopped working also. I followed all the YouTube posting about the Sense (which there are MANY!). I cleaned it every which way. I even bought a child's toothbrush to clean the 4 points to no avail, it is just a paper weight. I just gave up, and am using an old Versa 2 (the one with the 4 copper points on the back). It works perfectly. I can walk with it, and it works fine - 326 calories and walked 1.03 miles. Tonight I was on an elliptical for 375 calories. I don't think I am going to waste any more times trying to get it to do something.

[FitQueen59]

Same thing has happened to mine and my husband's very expensive paperweight indeed, very disappointed in our fitbit product