Expected life cycle of Surge battery?

[etc22]

I've had my Surge for 22 months and I've worn/used it 24/7 for that period (other than short periods of charging when prompted).

Yesterday when I plugged it into the charging cable I did not get the little charging vibration or the charging symbol next to the battery like you usually get. The screen went blank and I left it plugged in for a period of time to see if that would revive it. It did seem to bring it back to life enough to bring the screen back but no matter how long I leave it plugged in it still shows as needing to be charged. I've tried different charging cables, different charging adapters, tried cleaning the charging port, tried restarting multiple times - all with no results. The best I can get is the charging symbol will flash for a millisecond when I first plug it in and then disappear.

My question is - is this the end? Have I reached the end of the lifecycle of the Surge battery?

Thanks for any input/suggestions. 

[WendyB]

It very well could be its end of life

I would contact support and see what they can do for you

Contact Support
http://help.fitbit.com/?cu=1

[etc22]

I will do that - I'm just not expecting much in the form of support as I'm well beyond the warranty. Just wondering what kind of life cycle others have gotten out of their Surge.

Thanks!

[jackjilljones05]

Based on my knowledge from larger MW as opposed to mW) Lithium type battery installations, a good quality battery should have a life of around 7000 cycles when maintained at 25degC.
Raise the temp by 10 degC and you halve the life. So considering out skin temperature is around 30 to 32 degC lets say we have available 3500 cycles.

I went through 3 or fit bits in 6 months all due to seemingly early battery  demise.
They started with 7 days if GPS not used but inside around 2 months would only have a battery life of around 4 hours!

I received a refund from the retail outlet and bought another surge elsewhere (hoping for a different production batch). had the same problem.

I decided to try a reset on the premise that maybe the electronics was getting confused.

Did a reset when fully discharged and then again immediately after a full recharge. Lo and behold the battery life if not using the GPS went out to around 6 days. Now every couple of months when the charge life drops to around 3 days I repeat the reset cycle and battery life again improves.

Okay my current Surge is not yet 22 months old, only 16 months old but using the reset sequence is correcting the battery situation and suggests the internal electronics for the battery monitoring are getting "confused".

The reset/restart sequence is as follows:

1. Hold the left(home), and the lower right(select) buttons down for 12 seconds.

2. Let go and wait until the screen turns off.

3. Wait ten seconds and press the home button to turn on.

4. A successful restart will display the Fitbit logo.

I have, for better or worse, recently been combining  steps 1 and 2 holding the two buttons down until the screen goes completely blank and that still restarts with the Fitbit logo and battery life for a cycle improves.

[etc22]

I've tried the reset sequence several times - no effect. Oddly though I've been wearing my Surge all day today (including a 1 hour run) with what it indicates is a nearly dead battery and it has worked fine.

Through the lifespan of my SUrge I have had no real battery issues - I have gotten 5-7 days for the most part without GPS on and if I use GPS for a hike or bike ride I can usually get about 6 hours if it was fully charged to start. So up until the past couple days I have no complaints about battery life - just now all at once it seems to have hit the wall.

By your cycle count (3500) I should be no where near that - even charging it every few days (which I haven't had to) after 22 months I should only have a couple hundred charges on the battery - well short of 3500.

[etc22]

I did contact customer service about my issue and to their credit they at least responded. The response was to tell me to reset my Surge which I had clearly stated I had done several times to no avail.

So after dozens of attempts to get my Surge to charge I did get it to connect and charge once 6-7 days ago so I stretched my use out for another week. I have not been able to get it to charge again since and it is now about to go dead again. I got the charging symbol to come on finally yesterday and left it plugged in overnight but it was still not charged this morning (I checked the screen several times to see if the charging symbol stayed on and it did). The times that I can get the charging symbol to come on (and it is a struggle) the cord is literally hanging half out of the port on the back of the Surge on one side - ie. it's plugged in at an angle.

Don't know... at this point it's more work to make it work that it's worth wearing it. I love my Surge - I have worn it 24/7 for nearly 2 years, used the GPS for tracking my hikes and bike rides, summited Mt. St. Helens with it and put 2300 bike miles on it last summer so I'm disappointed it seems to be wearing out after 22 months. The Tomtom Spark 3 Cardio looks very intriguing but I really like the interface/dashboard/features of the Surge.......

[JoanneAF99]

I activated my surge at the end of January 2016. It's had some quirks along the way it was a very good fitness tracker. I used the GPS less as the battery became weaker. Turned off the backlight. I think I finally ran it out. Looking for more hope but just letting people know you can get 5 years out of a Fitbit surge, using it as a fitness tracker. I'm looking to see how many years other people have got out of it. Not just 22 months??

[Williger]

Hi, @JoanneAF99 Surge (and all Fitbits) contain LiPo batteries. These average 3-years usability and can be greatly improved with proper maintenance. People weaken tracker batteries with frequent charges, others exercise their batteries, and they'll last years. Like yourself, I'd enjoyed ?>5-years out of my original Surge. OP didn't mention if they'd used 99% isopropyl for their regular tracker cleanings, so who knows what's really going on there LOL maybe they'll share an update? @etc22 curious (and respectfully realize this post is several years old, it just showed up as new in my feed as it was replied to today), when you'd stated "after dozens of attempts to get my Surge to charge I did get it to connect and charge once" it's indicative of dirty contacts or a flaky cable. Did you fix this? I'm refurbishing a dozen Surges with brand new batteries today, if anyone needs to know how just ask! 🤓

[JoanneAF99]

Over five years old, so I just bought a battery online and I'll be taking
it to the watch shop to have it installed.
Since it didn't have the ability to keep time when it was turned off, I'm
sure this is going to bring my Surge back to life. : )

[Williger]

@JoanneAF99 it should. It's relatively easy to install and generally makes them run like new. I've serviced hundreds of Fitbit Surge, currently experimenting with an upgraded battery *(180mAh, most batteries available online are 120mAh). I'd tried some 160mAh batteries and got over a week charged 🤗 Let us know how it works out.

[JoanneAF99]

The jeweler didn't want to change the battery because it required solder. I don't know how to solder. I looked at the box and I looked at the watch for months. I had already bought a charge for so I finally decided to throw the watch away and get the clutter out of my life lol! I still have the battery.

The original post that was having trouble getting his Surge to charge needs to clean it. I would use a dry toothbrush to brush out the dead skin and a light alcohol wipe afterwards. On both ends, the back of the watch and the connector.