Fitness Trackers

Fitbit Charge 5 Black Screen ( Fix Like a Pro )

A black screen on your Fitbit Charge 5 can be frustrating,

especially when you’re counting on it to track your activity.

Let’s troubleshoot the problem and find a solution so you can get back to crushing your fitness goals.

Fitbit Charge 5 is an excellent fitness tracker by the established brand Fitbit and this powerful fitness. tracker made of silicon comes with a color touchscreen and rounded design that you are supposed to wear all day 24/7.

It is capable to tracked your calories burned, distance covered, heart rate with an ECG sensor, sleep time, stress with EDA, SpO2 for blood oxygen saturation levels, and most importantly it is water-resistant 5ATM so wear it in the shower, pool, or at the gym, and it also offers 20 exercise modes to help you maintain your fitness level.

Despite being a boon for fitness, sometimes the Fitbit Charge 5 can act weirdly and shows you the black screen and you start thinking that it’s no longer collecting real-time biometric data under the hood, it’s working perfectly but somehow the screen goes pitch-black.

So when the screen goes black or becomes unresponsive and never turns on despite repeated attempts, it could be a software bug, faulty hardware, dust stuck in the charging port,,, or low battery levels. So let’s see how to troubleshoot when Fitbit Charge 5 screen freezes with a black screen error and how you can bring it back to its normal state.

Fitbit Charge 5 Black Screen

There can be various causes for black screen errors, so let’s look at the reasons one by one to find the solution.

Fitbit Charge 5 Black Screen

Troubleshooting Fitbit Charge 5 Black Screen

Fully Charge the Watch:

This may sound strange but the prime reason for the Fitbit Charge 5 to show a black screen could be just the low battery levels causing the display to not turn on.

So you should start troubleshooting by connecting it to the charging cable and while it’s plugged into the charger, let the battery score reach 100 as removing it before it may cause it to go black. 

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Make sure the tracker’s pins are properly making a contact with the charging prongs because dust or anything could be stuck in there preventing the watch to charge completely. Do check if the charging cable isn’t physically damaged.

Always plug the charger into the wallboard, charging with a USB cable through a computer or a power bank can result in inefficient or slower charging.

Fitbit is in Water Lock Mode:

Another possible reason for the Fitbit screen to go black is when the watch is in Water Lock Mode. The beauty of this feature is that it automatically detects when you are swimming or taking a shower and turns itself on to prevent accidental wakeups, touches, or swipes,,, and when you look at the display it would show a black screen.

You may think that band is getting unresponsive but you should check for the Water Lock mode if it’s enabled because sometimes it can be activated mistakenly and can be the reason for the screen getting locked ( black ). But it’s not that big a problem as you can disable it by double-tapping the display. Single tap won’t work while Water lock mode is active as it blocks single taps which are considered accidental during swimming.

Remove/Change Case of Screen Protector:

Sometimes there is a screen protector or watch case that you use for obvious reasons to protect the watch from damage but the protector can block the light sensor and that’s why the screen will be dimmed or go black. That’s why changing or removing the protector will resolve the problem of the black screen.

Clean Fitbit:

Cleaning such a small gadget may not make sense to you but tiny dirt particles can get stuck in the charging port and can accumulate over time preventing the watch to charge properly. Therefore, taking proper care of the hygiene of the watch can prevent errors like the black screen problem. To fix this problem, you can use a dedicated cleaning solution and a soft microfiber cloth to remove the stored or embedded dirt from the port and put it on the charge and the problem must get resolved.

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Check Display Brightness Settings:

Sometimes, the watch display is set on low brightness and you may mistake it for a black screen error. When you use the watch in daylight or outdoors, you won’t see anything on the watch due to the minimum level of brightness. For that, first, get somewhere inside and check the display in low light and if that’s the problem, then adjust the brightness from the settings. Another culprit could be the sleep mode status turned on which dims the light to ensure you get healthy sleep. So play with it or schedule it so it doesn’t remain active all the time.

Try Restarting:

Such a basic problem could be resolved by a simple restart of the watch and doing a force restart most of the time removes all types of software glitches or bugs hopefully, this error will be removed once you restart the band. To reboot it, press the button on the left side three times and then wait for at least 10 seconds and the screen will display a logo of Fitbit, which means the restart process has finished.

Changing Clock Face to Standard

Another useful approach to fix the Fitbit Charge 5 Black screen is to change the clock face using the app. Connect the app using Bluetooth and go to the Profile picture to select the model of your watch from the gallery, pick the desired clock and install it and it will be replaced.

Reset Fitbit:

Resetting is a quick hack to fix such problems and for this watch, a quick reset will definitely remove the black screen issue but with that, the watch will go back to default settings wiping all the data unless you take a backup of your stored data on the watch. So to reset this smart band, go to the settings > Device info > Clear user data and tap on it. Then press and hold the button to restart the watch, and it will be reset to default settings and all corrupted data will be gone.

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Contact Fitbit Support:

If nothing seems to work, the final resort is to contact the Fitbit support team and if your band is under a warranty, you will get a free replacement. Just visit a nearby help center and get technical help from the official Fitbit team to get the problem resolved.

Conclusion:

That was all to fix the non-functional black screen of the Fitbit Charge 5 and I hope that all the methods listed above will help you to figure out what’s causing the black screen issue and will also help you resolve it.

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About the author

Robert Smith

Robert Smith is a technology lover and loves to write about laptops, monitors, printers, tablets, Apple products and anything that's related to computers and games. He is passionate enough that he maintains this blog regarding tech updates on a daily basis.