Last month, Fitbit Versa 3 and Sense owners started receiving notifications about the need to download a mandatory firmware update. What’s the problem? Battery overheating. In an official notice to consumers, Google (the owner of Fitbit) said that the firmware update “will reduce the risk of battery overheating and reduce battery capacity.” Affected users, which Google said were “limited in number,” were also eligible to apply for a $50 credit.
Technically, fixing problems like this is a good thing. You don’t want batteries overheating and burning customers out – and the official announcement also states that this issue does not affect all Versa 3 or Sense devices. However, affected users have reported on Fitbit forums and subreddits that the update has drastically reduced the battery life of their devices.
Many users have complained that devices that used to last 2 to 6 days barely lasted one day after the update to the new firmware. Some say the reduced battery life has rendered their devices useless. Others are upset that Fitbit is only offering $50 in compensation.
In its announcement, Google notes that the firmware update will cause the battery to last “for shorter periods between charges, and [users] may need to charge [their] devices more often.” However, for smartwatch users, there’s a big difference between charging more frequently and charging daily. Many people who choose Fitbits do so precisely because the brand’s smartwatches are known to last longer than one day. The Verge reached out to Google for more information, but the company declined to add any further comment beyond the official announcement.
It would be one thing if this was a rare isolated incident. However, Fitbit has just been fined $12 million after the batteries of its Ionic watches overheated and burned 78 users. And while this is not related to overheating devices, Google recently released a similar firmware update that limited battery performance by tying it to a $100 credit for its Pixel 4A phones.
Meanwhile, a lawsuit filed in 2022 claims that Fitbit’s problem was not limited to the Ionic. The plaintiffs claimed that the problem also affected the Versa Lite and Versa 2. The lawsuit also included photos of burns that people said appeared on their Fitbit Blaze, Inspire, Inspire 2, Sense, and Versa 3 devices. The latest firmware update seems to confirm that battery overheating was at least an issue for the Versa 3 and Sense.
Such complaints about the battery in fitness bands are nothing new. Check out the r/Fitbit subreddit and you’ll see years of complaints from Fitbit owners about their devices burning them or simply causing skin irritation. There are also numerous threads in which users discuss sudden and rapid battery drain. Almost all of these threads also highlight difficult experiences with customer support. In other words, this latest case only emphasizes that this problem has been around for quite some time – a problem that was exacerbated for longtime Fitbit users by the messy transition period after Google acquired Fitbit.
