Sense battery life

[wookietim]

Lately my Sense has been going from getting down to around 39% after 4 days to, today, probably ending that 4 days at 20%. It only started happening recently and I noticed that it seems to coincide with more movement and longer times of movement.

Is it possible that the battery drain is not a hardware problem but simply because the HR tracking is kicking in more often and that Fitbit's drain faster if you move around more?

Moderator edit: updated subject for clarity. 

[N8teGee]

@wookietim There are quite a lot of different factors which could effect battery life. This ranges from clock faces, use of apps and even having the spO2 app installed.

As far as I know during normal usage, the fitbit records HR at a frequency of 5 secs, if you start a workout this then changes to every 1 secs. I guess if the device auto detects you as doing exercise (smart track), this could also happen here too.

[wookietim]

That was my question since I started doing several longer walks during the day just as i noticed that the battery life is diminishing... I suspect it's because the HR tracking is kicking in and I assume it has to hit the battery. Also it has been kinda hot recently and I know batteries don't like heat... my area has been reaching 100 degrees reliably for a few weeks.

[N8teGee]

I usually use my overnight battery drain as a benchmark, perhaps you could start doing similar to rule out any daytime activity tracking. My Sense usually drains by around 12-15% during the night. Although from what I've seen the battery percentage doesn't seem to be linear, with the lower percentages draining quicker than the higher end.

[Dave_sense]

Do you have spO2 enabled? My Sense only last 24 hours and 8 hours on the full charge.

I'm started to disable sp02 and snore report it seems to improve battery life. 

[AndreaFitbit]

Thank you for sharing your Sense battery life inquiry @wookietim and for your advise @N8teGee and @Dave_sense.

As @N8teGee mentioned, battery life can change depending of the use you give to your watch. You can check help article: Can I extend my Fitbit device's battery life? You can also check the advise our friends gave to us.

Keep on visiting the forums. 

[wookietim]

No - TBH it made no sense for me since all it ever said was I veered between 98 and 97% SPO2 saturation so I turned it off.

[AndreaFitbit]

Thanks for getting back to us and for your comment @wookietim. Are you using GPS when you perform your exercise? That could drain battery faster. 

Keep on visiting the forums.  

[wookietim]

I was able to experiment this last weekend. In an informal way, at the least. My parents were visiting and therefore exercise was mostly verboten - I certainly can't take 80's year olds on multi-mile walks or anything. And voila - battery life was massive extended.

So I can say with some certainty that battery life is affected by exercise. Which makes sense - it has to hit the battery if you are kicking off HR monitoring a lot. So just as a word to the wise - if you suddenly see a reduction in battery life that isn't big enough to be hardware it might be that you are just exercising more. So take it as a compliment rather than a problem.

[AndreaFitbit]

Thanks for getting back to us and for your comment @wookietim.

You're right, shorter battery life should be a compliment since you're exercising more. 😀

Keep on visiting the forums.