Fitbit has a battery drawback with its Versa 3 and Sense smartwatches, and it’s forcing an replace on customers to repair it. Nevertheless, the replace considerably reduces battery life.
Google, which owns Fitbit, quietly printed a client discover on its Fitbit Help Center support site in regards to the replace final month. Based on the discover, some Fitbit Sense and Versa 3 watches have a danger of overheating batteries that might hurt wearers.
Based on Google, the problem doesn’t impression all Fitbit Sense and Versa 3 watches. The corporate stated it could roll out a firmware replace that addresses the problem over a couple of month’s time — the replace lowers battery capability to cut back the chance of overheating.
Furthermore, the buyer discover warns that if customers don’t apply the replace inside just a few days of receiving it, impacted Fitbits will manufacturing unit reset themselves to use the firmware replace. Earlier than resetting, the gadget will carry out a knowledge sync to backup knowledge, however Google says some knowledge will nonetheless be misplaced within the reset, together with alarms, objectives, credit score and debit playing cards, saved settings, and notifications.
Nevertheless, customers took to Fitbit’s community forums and social media websites like Reddit to complain about how unhealthy the battery life was following the replace. A number of reviews element battery life dropping from 5 or 6 days to only one or two.
Easy methods to get a US$50 appeasement from Google
Google is providing impacted Fitbit homeowners a US$50 (or native forex equal, so roughly C$71) appeasement for the battery concern. To get this, impacted Sense and Versa 3 homeowners should fill out details on a registration page. The search big warns it may take as much as one week to confirm if a tool is eligible for appeasement and one other three weeks to course of the request. Some impacted Fitbit homeowners took concern with the small appeasement.
Whereas the battery replace itself is irritating, there seems to be a development forming right here. As The Verge factors out, Fitbit has had related battery points with earlier wearables. Earlier this yr, the U.S. Client Product Security Fee 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, as a result of the batteries may overheat and burn prospects.
A lawsuit filed in 2022 alleged that Fitbit’s battery points went past the Ionic and included images of burns reportedly from different Fitbit gadgets, together with the Blaze, Encourage, Encourage 2, Sense and Versa 3.
In the meantime, Google goes via its personal battery woes with Pixel telephones. The corporate lately pushed a surprise update to address battery issues on the Pixel 4a smartphone, which customers declare tanked battery life.
With all the problems, perhaps it’s good that Fitbit appears to have gotten out of the smartwatch game.
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