In November 2022, I purchased two Fit Bit Charge 5 fitness trackers as Christmas gifts, one for my wife and one for myself. Part of what prompted this was that my older Charge HR was starting to have synching issues with the app and my wife was wanting something to track her steps and sleep. Costco had a killer Black Friday deal on the Charge 5 - $89.95 each and they came with an additional wrist band.
10 months later, my wife's become unresponsive. It would not charge up and would simply display the FitBit logo when connected to the charger for 1-2 seconds before going blank. We tried all the troubleshooting steps to resurrect it and no luck. Luckily, it was still under warranty and Google (the new owners of FitBit) replaced it (which took almost two weeks for them to ship a replacement).
Two weeks ago, my Charge 5 started doing the same thing. It would not charge and became unresponsive. Interestingly, when I did a search on Charge 5 becoming unresponsive, my search was flooded with hundreds of fairly recent customer complaints of exactly what I was experiencing, with Google either unresponsive themselves or offering a measly 30% discount of a regular priced FitBit device from the Google Store. When I contacted FitBit support, they had me go through the troubleshooting steps again, and when it was still dead, they offered a 50% discount on a new device. That may sound great, but the regular price for a new Charge 6 is $159.99, currently on sale for $119.99 on the Google Store and $99.99 as part of Amazon Prime Day. Hoping my coupon code would see the current Google Store sale price and offer the 50% off that, I was quite disappointed that the price changed to $159 before taking the 50% off. So, if I purchased from Google directly, it was just under $90 with an estimated delivery of July 30th. If I ordered from Amazon, it was $99.99 plus tax and would arrive next week.
But here's the thing - do I really want to spend another $90-$100 for a new Charge 6, knowing that it will likely die shortly after the 12 month warranty ends and need to be replaced for another $100+?
My Charge HR lasted nearly six years and was manufactured back when FitBit was a separate company. My wife's Charge 5 lasted 10 months and mine lasted 19 months. They just don't make them like they used to.
10 months later, my wife's become unresponsive. It would not charge up and would simply display the FitBit logo when connected to the charger for 1-2 seconds before going blank. We tried all the troubleshooting steps to resurrect it and no luck. Luckily, it was still under warranty and Google (the new owners of FitBit) replaced it (which took almost two weeks for them to ship a replacement).
Two weeks ago, my Charge 5 started doing the same thing. It would not charge and became unresponsive. Interestingly, when I did a search on Charge 5 becoming unresponsive, my search was flooded with hundreds of fairly recent customer complaints of exactly what I was experiencing, with Google either unresponsive themselves or offering a measly 30% discount of a regular priced FitBit device from the Google Store. When I contacted FitBit support, they had me go through the troubleshooting steps again, and when it was still dead, they offered a 50% discount on a new device. That may sound great, but the regular price for a new Charge 6 is $159.99, currently on sale for $119.99 on the Google Store and $99.99 as part of Amazon Prime Day. Hoping my coupon code would see the current Google Store sale price and offer the 50% off that, I was quite disappointed that the price changed to $159 before taking the 50% off. So, if I purchased from Google directly, it was just under $90 with an estimated delivery of July 30th. If I ordered from Amazon, it was $99.99 plus tax and would arrive next week.
But here's the thing - do I really want to spend another $90-$100 for a new Charge 6, knowing that it will likely die shortly after the 12 month warranty ends and need to be replaced for another $100+?
My Charge HR lasted nearly six years and was manufactured back when FitBit was a separate company. My wife's Charge 5 lasted 10 months and mine lasted 19 months. They just don't make them like they used to.
