My sense Fitbit is not holding a charge & is now taking forever to charge

[Misty77]

My sense fitbit used to stay charged for 5 days. I received it in October 2021. Now I have to charge every 2 days. Today I noticed that it has been charging for just over 2 hours and it's only 7% charged. My husband did buy the extended warranty for it. Should I contact the company and get a sense fitbit with the warranty I have?

[Guy_]

@Misty77  -  unless you Shut down the Sense it is always on, just the display may be blank, so it will be measuring all the time.

Did you inspect the 4 holes on the back of the watch with a magnifying glass to make sure they are truly clean [and that the charge cable is in order] because a Sense that takes more than an hour and a half to charge from completely flat has a charging problem.

If you can't fix the charging problem or this discharging problem with the information already provided contact Fitbit support.

[Guy_]

Hi @Honulii  - on a Sense you can turn GPS off for an exercise, if you swipe up there is a setting on the watch.

Did you check all the draining issues in How to resolve the Major issues causing short battery life. It should be possible to get 6 days from a watch before charging.

It works ok with the older firmware 44.128.5.38 and Android Fitbit App 3.51.1. A you say it could be an issue with later versions as quite a few people are reporting a recent problem.

The original Versa didn't have GPS on the watch.

[Honulii]

I'm glad you've found it useful.  Just to let you know, after a tennis workout today, the battery drained from the 90% to 25% within a span of a handful of hours so I contacted customer service again.  They had me do a reset (hold the left "button" for 10-12 seconds until you see the Fitbit symbol then the rep also noted that I kept getting a low voltage warning on my Fitbit while charging.  I had mentioned to him that I always get that message, no matter what adapter I use or which outlet I plug it into (or even a computer).  Long story short, he said that my Fitbit was obviously not working as it should, but it was outside the warranty period so a replacement was not an option, but they gave me a discount off a new one.  

He said any charger adapter with "UL-Certified" on it should work - so any used for cell phones can be used as well as long as it has that certification on it.  He also said that low voltage charging can also affect the battery life.  Something interesting I thought I'd pass along.  Maybe that's already common knowledge, but it wasn't for me.

I really like Fitbit, but it seems like these newer versions are just not lasting like the old ones do.  I probably will stick with Fitbit, but maybe I'll look into that extended warranty like you have.  Best of luck fixing yours!!

[Honulii]

Per the Customer Service rep, you cannot turn off GPS for exercise.  I can't find it when I swipe left, it just gives me the sleep, DND, Always on, volume, brightness and screen wake options.  In the app, there is only an option for me to set exercises to auto recognize or not.  

With my old Versa, I was able to GPS my running sessions, but I realized that was with my phone.  So you are correct that it did not have GPS in the tracker, but the ability to use my phone's GPS or not to track my exercises was an option.  

After troubleshooting with customer service because my battery drained from 90 to 25% in a span of a handful of hours, that something is wrong with the tracker.  I have to say that I had this same issue with the battery draining several months ago and coincidentally it was right after an app update as well in Oct 2021 so it just seems odd it happened again.   They sent me a replacement last time, but now I'm outside my warranty period so I'm SOL right now.  Boo.

[Jodyjg]

Sorry brain f---. Yes I  have a charge.🙃

[Guy_]

@Honulii  - On a Sense

• Swipe the watch face to the left and select the Exercise App, eg Walk,
• Swipe the watch face up and turn off GPS.

There is no guarantee that the replacement watch you received was new and it may already have had a fault that is coming to light now.

However it is important to address all the issues relating to battery drain, as it is far more likely to be a setup issue than a watch issue..

[eezeepee]

@Honulii @ After selecting an exercise that uses GPS (I did walk) scroll down and you'll see the GPS option.

I'm curious, but during that tennis session, was it 90% at the start and 25% at the end, how long was that for, was GPS on, was always-on display on, what's your screen brightness?

[Honulii]

@eezeepee  Ok, I see the GPS option in walk.  The customer service person made it sound like GPS was ALWAYS on for any exercise and "Bootcamp" is the only one that I will manually turn the exercise mode on, the rest I leave to auto recognize (walk and tennis it recognizes it as an "aerobic workout" or "sport").  

I had it charged at 100% when I went to bed last night and when I got up 6 hours later, it was on 67%.  Last week I would still be in the mid to high 90's when I got up and maybe in the mid 80's by the end of the day even with a recognized bootcamp workout.  This morning I did a 1 hour hike and a HIIT session this morning with auto recognition turned off and did not turn exercise mode on (so no exercise recognized by the Fitbit) - in the span of 4 hours without recording any exercises, it drained the battery another 25%.  Less drain than if I had my tracker recognize a workout activity, but still a lot more than normal.

My watch is NEVER on always-on display and brightness is at normal.  I do HIIT workouts several days a week and activate it before class as I always do.  Home screen has been the same since I got the tracker (Bitmoji) - I can honestly say it's not any settings that have changed or the way I'm using it.  Unless settings were automatically changed when I updated the app, the settings on my watch and app are exactly the same as I always have and was able to go DAYS without having to charge.  Now it's dying on me in less than 24 hours, that is not right.  Even if it was using the settings everyone is saying to make sure is turned off.  Perhaps it's just coincidental that my watch is dying on me the day after updating the app, but I seriously think it's the app.  Or a faulty tracker.  

[eezeepee]

@Honulii Something's definitely wrong. I've been using always-on while at work the last two days and 12 hours drains around 18-20 percent and over night with sleep mode is 8-9 percent over 7 hours. Your situation sounds like something is either draining the battery constantly or the battery is shot and not holding charge anymore which sounds too soon for that.

Curious, do you have "Sense Controls" for music and calls. Turn that off because that can cause a constant Bluetooth connection.