Fitbit has a battery problem with its Versa 3 and Sense smartwatches, and it’s forcing an update on users to fix it. However, the update significantly reduces battery life.
Google, which owns Fitbit, quietly published a consumer notice on its Fitbit Help Center support site about the update last month. According to the notice, some Fitbit Sense and Versa 3 watches have a risk of overheating batteries that could harm wearers.
According to Google, the issue doesn’t impact all Fitbit Sense and Versa 3 watches. The company said it would roll out a firmware update that addresses the issue over about a month’s time — the update lowers battery capacity to reduce the risk of overheating.
Moreover, the consumer notice warns that if users don’t apply the update within a few days of receiving it, impacted Fitbits will factory reset themselves to apply the firmware update. Before resetting, the device will perform a data sync to backup data, but Google says some data will still be lost in the reset, including alarms, goals, credit and debit cards, saved settings, and notifications.
However, users took to Fitbit’s community forums and social media sites like Reddit to complain about how bad the battery life was following the update. Several reports detail battery life dropping from five or six days to just one or two.
How to get a US$50 appeasement from Google
Google is offering impacted Fitbit owners a US$50 (or local currency equivalent, so roughly C$71) appeasement for the battery issue. To get this, impacted Sense and Versa 3 owners must fill out details on a registration page. The search giant warns it could take up to one week to verify if a device is eligible for appeasement and another three weeks to process the request. Some impacted Fitbit owners took issue with the small appeasement.
While the battery update itself is frustrating, there appears to be a trend forming here. As The Verge points out, Fitbit has had similar battery issues with previous wearables. Earlier this year, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission fined the company US$12.25 million (about CA$17.42 million) over the Ionic smartwatch. Fitbit recalled 1.7 million Ionic watches in 2022, including 70,000 Ionics in Canada, because the batteries could overheat and burn customers.
A lawsuit filed in 2022 alleged that Fitbit’s battery issues went beyond the Ionic and included photos of burns reportedly from other Fitbit devices, including the Blaze, Inspire, Inspire 2, Sense and Versa 3.
Meanwhile, Google is going through its own battery woes with Pixel phones. The company recently pushed a surprise update to address battery issues on the Pixel 4a smartphone, which users claim tanked battery life.
With all the issues, maybe it’s good that Fitbit seems to have gotten out of the smartwatch game.
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