Fitbit drains phone battery

[Stindk]

Hi! 

I am a very Happy user of Fitbit and have been for a while. I used to have a first generation Fitbit charge he, and I have now changed to the Alta he two weeks ago. After I started using this device my iPhone battery drains super quickly! Out of nowhere it will suddenly say it has 5% back and sometimes shuts down before I can get to a charger. Getting my new Fitbit device is the only change to my phone. I have of course shut off all day sync and I usually sinc with the app twice a day - morning and evening.

What can I do? Do other people experience the same? It is really a problem with battery drainage!! 

[MaginB]

Hey there @Stindk! I great to see you in the Forums! 

Hmm this sounds pretty weird. The Fitbit trackers and your mobile device works independently and should no affect the battery life of your mobile device. The only instance to use your mobile's battery it's when you sync, when you're using Mobile Run or you have always connected and All Day Sync enabled. 

I recommend rebooting your mobile device and you should also check  if another app is draining your battery.

See you around! 

[SuzyQ72]

I have an iPhone 6, and the battery drains really quickly. You can determine what is draining your battery, by going into Settings > Battery > and battery usage will be at the bottom. My Charge 2 doesn't even show up in the battery usage, which shows the percentage battery power each app uses (full disclaimer, my fitbit app did account for about 3% of my battery usage in the last week). However, at the TOP of my phone's Battery page is a notification that my iPhone battery may need to be serviced. So apparently my issue is an Apple issue, not a Fitbit one. Hope this helps!

[MaginB]

It's great to see you visiting the Community @SuzyQ72! 

Thanks for sharing your knowledge this will definitely will help other users! 

Have you checked our Discussions board? There you can share your story, find some fitness tips, recipes and more! Give it a look!

See you around! 

[Newbutterflythi]

Others have had this issue in the past (see threads from 2016) and make mention of once there was an update the app no longer showing up in battery usage analytics. However; I am experiencing the same as you; my phone dies multiple times a day since having the app and I don't have all day sync. I'm uninstalling the app. 

[AndyCh]

Same issue for me. In last 24 hours battery usage shows as 1 minute on screen and 2.2 hours of background activity for Fitbit app. Is there a solution to this? Fitbit also seems to take much longer to synch than it used to?

[MarcoGFitbit]

Hello @AndyCh, thanks for joining the conversation, it's always a pleasure for me to welcome new members to the Fitbit Community. 

I appreciate you have taken the time to report this. At this moment I would like to gather some information from you so I can check this further:

1. iPhone model you're using.
2. OS version running on your phone
3. App version currently installed on your phone. 

Thanks for your patience and understanding, I'll be waiting to hear from you. 

[AndyCh]

Hi Marco

Info as requested:

Charge HR v122
iPhone SE running IOS 11.4.1
Fitbit app v2.78 (785)
Background app refresh is switched off.

Problem is that Fitbit app occasionally just goes ballistic and can drain phone battery in a few hours. When I check battery usage it’s always fitbit app running in the background. No pattern to the behaviour which I’ve yet managed to spot.

Kill all apps and re-start phone, then it’s ok again for a few days until it does it again.

Thanks
Andy

Sent from my iPhone

[MarcoGFitbit]

Hello @AndyCh, I hope you're doing well, thanks for taking the time to reply with the information requested. 

At this moment I would like to ask you to update the Fitbit app to its latest version (2.79) as we have just released it. Then, keep monitoring the battery on your phone and let me know if you're still experiencing this issue. 

Thanks for your patience and understanding, give it a try and keep me updated. 

[SunsetRunner]

I just got the Charge 3 and my Iphone is just drained - have to leave it plugged in all day to keep it charged - only change has been installing the Fitbit app.  Can the fitbit watch run without the app?  How do you turn off the items others have mentioned like "all day sync"?   I need my Iphone more than I need the fitbit.

[LeeEvans]

I have the same issue, only seems to be since iOS 12?  iPhone 6s here, rapid loss of battery power and each time settings tells me it’s the FitBit app?

[MarcoGFitbit]

Hello @SunsetRunner, I hope you're doing well, it's nice to see you around the Fitbit Community. 

I appreciate your participation in the Forums and for sharing your experience with us. Please note that All-day Sync has been tested and has been confirmed it will not drain the battery on your phone or tracker faster than usual. If you've noticed the battery on your iPhone is draining constantly, please force-quit the Fitbit app and only open it when you're about to sync or use the app. 

I hope this can be helpful, give it a try and keep me posted in case you need anything else. 

[Tucson13]

how do you force guit the app?

[MarcoGFitbit]

Hello @Tucson13, thanks for joining the Fitbit Community, it's great to have you on board! 

I appreciate you have posted your question about how to force-quit the Fitbit app. If you have an iPhone 8 or an older model, you can force-quit by pressing the home button on your phone twice, you will be able to see the apps currently open in your phone, locate the Fitbit app by swiping left or right and swipe up the app to close it. 

Now, On an iPhone X or later, from the Home screen, swipe up from the bottom-left corner of the screen and pause slightly in the middle of the screen, then swipe right or left to find the app that you want to close and finally, swipe up on the app's preview to close the app.

I hope this can be helpful, if there's anything else I can do for you, please feel free to reply. 

[LarryInSeattle]

I also encountered the problem with the Fitbit app draining my iphone battery, but have found that Marco's suggestion about force-closing the app took care of it for me.

I'm running an iPhone 6s with the latest IOS updates.  For several months my battery has been draining very quickly, and when I checked under "battery" in the iphone settings, it always listed Fitbit as the top user of battery charge, often saying it was responsible for 50% or more of the battery drain, with the next biggest battery user down in the 10% range.  Turning off background app refresh didn't help a bit.

But then I started force closing Fitbit immediately after every use, and viola, Fitbit's battery drain immediately dropped to less than 10%.  So now I start up the app to sync, check on my challenges, maybe add some foods I've eaten, and then force close it right away (on the 6s I double click the home button, then flick the Fitbit app up to force close).  So I guess as long as it's running in the background, it's gonna suck battery power.  So - start it when you want to actually do something in the app, then force close.  Works for me!

---

@MarcoGFitbit wrote:

Hello @Tucson13, thanks for joining the Fitbit Community, it's great to have you on board! 

I appreciate you have posted your question about how to force-quit the Fitbit app. If you have an iPhone 8 or an older model, you can force-quit by pressing the home button on your phone twice, you will be able to see the apps currently open in your phone, locate the Fitbit app by swiping left or right and swipe up the app to close it. 

Now, On an iPhone X or later, from the Home screen, swipe up from the bottom-left corner of the screen and pause slightly in the middle of the screen, then swipe right or left to find the app that you want to close and finally, swipe up on the app's preview to close the app.

I hope this can be helpful, if there's anything else I can do for you, please feel free to reply. 

---

[AndyCh]

Or maybe Fitbit could fix their dodgy app?

Sent from my iPhone

[LarryInSeattle]

This conversation has got me wondering just what the Fitbit is actually doing in the background to put such a drain on the battery.  My other apps run in the background without this level of battery drain.  Is the Fitbit app feverishly uploading our data to a server somewhere?  Considering all the aspects of our lives that Fitbit tracks, it could conceivably be very busy when running in the background, and could be compiling quite an extensive trove of information on Fitbit users.  Might raise privacy concerns with some.

In any case, force closing it seems to stop it draining the battery so severely, and I assume stops whatever is going on when it's running in the background.

Any ideas?  Moderators, can you shed some light on this?  Just what is the app doing when it's running in the background that uses so much juice?

[SunsetRunner572]

Same problem here I have charge2~ running plus~ ITunes and I keep screen brightness very low and stop and turn 0n/0ff when water break and after 1 hour, shuts off dead.. And when I get home and charge it and in  five minutes it said 88% charged! So why does my phone shut OFF

[LarryInSeattle]

---

@SunsetRunner572 wrote:

Same problem here I have charge2~ running plus~ ITunes and I keep screen brightness very low and stop and turn 0n/0ff when water break and after 1 hour, shuts off dead.. And when I get home and charge it and in  five minutes it said 88% charged! So why does my phone shut OFF

---

Sounds like the same stuff that was happening to me.  It helped for while to turn off background app refresh completely in my iphone 6s, but it still occasionally did that thing where it shuts down because the battery can't keep up with the demand.  I'd replaced the battery about a year ago (took advantage of the Apple deal to get 6s battery replacement for $29), and it was better for a while, but for the past two months or so it's been doing it again, barely making it through the day on a single charge and sometimes crashing down from 100% to 10% in about a half hour and then just turning itself off.  I eventually solved this by giving up and getting another iPhone.  My 6s is now history (I did get a nice $125 rebate for it) and now I'm using a new iPhone 8 which goes all day, and even if I'm using it heavily is only down to about 70% by bedtime when I hook it back up to the charger. Yes, it's costing me more -- my 6s was all paid off, and now I'm paying $25 extra each month on my cellular bill for two years -- by I'm no longer plagued by the battery issue.  All this leads me to guess that it's more an iPhone problem than a Fitbit problem.

[lrigatti]

The fit bit app doesn't have to be open for Bluetooth to connect to your fitbit. This means "FitBit" wouldn't show up in the battery usage screen, so this is not an effective way of proving that the fitbit isn't draining the battery on your phone. i rarely have the app open, but i have all day sync on and my tect messages come through to my fitbit all day.