Galaxy Fit 3 - Battery Draining far faster than advertised

[Members_M9Nfc9r]

Having been a very happy Galaxy Fit 2 user, I bought the Galaxy Fit 3 the first moment it was available.

The device is advertised as getting 13 days of use on a single charge, but I have not found this to be the case AT ALL.

At most I get about 6 days charge, when with the Galaxy Fit 2 I often would get more than 2 weeks before I needed to recharge it.

Not being anxious about battery level is the main reason I picked these devices.

• I do not use Always on display.
• I have screen timeout set to 4 seconds (lowest level).
• I do use raise wrist to wake. 
• I do not use stress measurement.
• I've turned off a lot of notifications so I'm only getting the essentials like IM, calls, SMS, etc - so it's not vibrating a crazy amount.
• I also have been on an exercise break, so I haven't even been tracking workouts.
• Send diagnostic data to Samsung is on (perhaps I should turn this off?)

But the interesting thing is that I've been watching it closely and it seems that during the day it generally performs very well with minimal battery usage. However at night, I put it into sleep mode and it often drops 10% or more overnight - despite the fact that the screen is off the entire time.

I immediately assumed this was due to the sleep tracking features (blood oxygen, snore detection), but I turned all of them off. I then thought perhaps it's the heart rate every 10 minutes, so I switched that to manual only yesterday morning and fully charged the device. By yesterday evening when I went to put it into sleep mode it was still at 100%. I woke up a few times during the night, and as is often the case I noticed that the green light at the back of the watch was flashing a lot and for what seemed like a very long time. Considering I had disabled regular heart rate monitoring I don't even know why this was coming on at all. Some points I would read for a few minutes and see the green light emanating from my wrist continuously.

Anyway - I woke up in the morning after about 8 hours sleep and turned off sleep mode. The watch was at 87% - a drop of 13% overnight. That is basically the opposite of what I used to see with my Galaxy Fit 2, which usually, with the screen off overnight, would rarely drop anything overnight.

Anyway, I'll continue to see what happens with it now that I've disabled heart rate checks every 10 minutes - but I must feel like something is wrong and either the hardware or software has a bug that needs to be fixed.

Software Version: R390XXU0AWLL - I've checked for update and found none.

I'm almost tempted to go back to my Galaxy Fit 2 which even after multiple years is still regularly lasting for two weeks without charging.

[Members_24m4vob]

In general, I've seen various software bugs, so it's possible that you're facing a different issue.

Regarding the battery life, I just noticed that the heart rate info stopped being collected on the evening of March 23rd for whatever reason. Now I wonder if that issue was partially responsible for the very prolonged battery life I noticed. I tried a lot to get heart rate measurement working again today but no dice after restarts, disable and re-enabling settings etc. I had it set to take 10-minute measurements, and it was working just fine until the 23rd of March with the same usage and wrist tightness. I am testing the "continuous" mode and, although I saw 2 measurements initially, nothing new has been produced in the last 8 hours. I don't understand what's wrong with it.

As you said, I've also noticed the green light flashing continuously sometimes upon waking up (like it's stuck, even after some steps have been measured). A solution I have found is to get to the Sleep "tab/tile" on the band, and it goes from measuring/analysing to the sleep result, which stops the light. Alternatively, a band restart can help with this.

But, in general, none should have to do or deal with these issues. It's fairly unfortunate that Fit 3 has so many software issues, which affect critical usage aspects (battery, raise wrist to wake, heart rate, stride length - inaccurate step count etc) when the hardware is fairly good. Still no software update to maybe fix most (if not all) of these problems.

[Members_M9Nfc9r]

Hopefully they're getting a variety of reports from different people and will roll out a software update in the not too distant future.

Regarding your feeling that raise-wrist-to-wake being too sensitive - I helped a friend move apartment on Saturday so it was a very very active day going up and down stairs lifting and carrying boxes and moving a huge amount. The watch lost 16% in about 14 hours. I guess I should have thought to turn off raise wrist to wake - but it's such a useful feature that it'd sort of defeat the purpose of having a watch if I can't look at it and have the screen come on (eg checking the time with a box in my other hand 😁)

I've left 10-min interval heart rate measurement off since I first noticed the battery issues. I think after the next recharge I'll try a charge cycle with heart rate measurement back on and see how much of a difference that makes.

I hope your heart rate measurement comes back on!

and perhaps I'll test out sleep mode again.

At night, I often find the green light at the back of the watch really annoying - it's extremely bright and I often, half-asleep, move in a certain way that I get this bright green flash right into my sleepy eyes 🤦‍♂️ - definitely not ideal 😂

[Members_24m4vob]

I too liked using raise wrist to wake for the first two weeks, but in the end I prefer to charge every 1.5 week or so instead of every 5 days with that enabled. It just lights up the screen too often, when you scratch your head, point to something, lift an object etc. Basic daily movements. That also means that the chance of something being pressed by accident, once woken up, increases.

It seems that we are not the only ones, there are a lot of discussions on reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/GalaxyFit/) about the many issues Fit3 users are facing. Including many sudden sync issues (e.g. heart rate, like me - steps for others etc).

To not sidetrack this discussion, I can see that the band is actually measuring heart rare, but the problem is when syncing with Samsung health. So the almost 2-week battery with raise to wake disabled should not have been affected by the heart rate issue I'm having. I'm thus confident about raise wrist to wake being the issue again. You saw it as well when you helped carry boxes, it is problematic.

As for the green light, it is visible indeed, but it should not really "blind" you normally. Maybe you should try tightening the band a bit. You should be able to see a light green shadow with a proper/expected fit, if you pay attention, not distracting.

[Members_M9Nfc9r]

So I would have gotten one more day I'm sure, but at most I'm getting 9 days battery out of this, and that's with heart rate monitoring disabled (but raise wrist to wake enabled). Definitely not good enough - almost makes me want to go back to my Galaxy Fit2...

[Members_24m4vob]

Currently, at 6 days, 61%. It should last almost 2 weeks again based on this number (the last 10% might as well not exist, classic case of losing that charge in a couple of hours, so I don't count it). And I had to do a reset a couple of days back (you can backup before) because it was the only way to make it start working properly again. Aside from lack of heart rate syncing since March 23rd, it regressed even further to a point where no notifications were shown, and it would sync manually upon waking the screen or checking in Samsung health. How the hell did they ship something so unfinished, software-wise? So many others too (https://www.reddit.com/r/GalaxyFit/). After the reset, the heart rate is syncing again and notifications work. I guess until it breaks again and I have to reset anew.

I never had a Fit2, in your experience, was the wake-up gesture so sensitive (battery-draining) like it is in Fit3? If not, maybe there is hope in Samsung fixing it sooner than later.

[Members_M9Nfc9r]

Good to hear you've made it 6 days on 39% usage, although it feels like a false figure when a major feature of the device is disabled 😁

So seeing as I charged the watch yesterday I decided to enable sleep mode when I went to bed instead of manually disabling "raise wrist/touch screen to wake". Woke up this morning, turned off sleep mode. 11% gone overnight.

Totally bizarre!

I've sent another bug report through the Samsung Members app and urge you to do the same. The more bug reports they receive I guess the more they have to pay attention. Especially given all the other buggy behaviour you're seeing (I haven't had any issues with sync/notifications that I've spotted - although I turned off heart rate monitoring..)

With the Fit2 I had everything enabled (except always on screen) and it pretty much always got 2+ weeks before needing a charge. I never really thought about it or even checked battery. Often would only charge it when it popped up a low battery warning. The raise wrist to wake might have required a stronger motion, but I think it was pretty similar. I haven't done a direct comparison or anything though.

[Members_M9Nfc9r]

So I've pretty much decided to give up stressing out about this. I've re-enabled all settings and moved my Fit3 charger into the bathroom. So when I go to have my shower etc in the morning I always take the watch off anyway, and now I just leave it charging whilst I do that. It seems to be enough to top up the insane amount of battery loss I'm still seeing from "sleep mode".

Last night with all features enabled (heart rate every 10m/snore detection/blood oxygen/stress tracking) and turning on sleep mode around 11pm, the watch lost something like 18% battery overnight. That's just utterly ridiculous - how on earth they can claim 13-14 days battery life for this device is beyond me... but like I say, I'm not going to care about it too much for now.

Although it's a pain for when I go on trips because with the Fit2 I never bothered bringing the charger with me when I went on holidays as I knew it would last the trip. The Fit3 however I'll need to disable most features and be very careful with usage or just bring the charger and top it up when I have my shower each day.

[DKFit3]

Unfortunately, the new Wear app does not seem to have a contact us or similar menus, so no way to send a report.

 

[edtjuh]

Same Here at night the fit 3 redlight is flashing very strong ,i a Huawei Fit befour ,its looks the same band like the fit3  but better in batt. and works lot longer 

[FIT 3]

Helo Samsung  just i purchased Fit3 from Flipkart after  4 days fit 3 battery get zero percent.  do something don't make jokes from other brand watches . you are reputed company