PSA: Your Fitbit Sense or Versa 3 may have an overheating battery issue

Summary

• The Fitbit Versa 3 and Sense are facing battery issues due to overheating.
• The brand will release a software update to fix the problem, but at the cost of reduced battery capacity.
• Affected users can request and claim $50 compensation by January 21, 2026.

Fitbit is known for making some great fitness trackers, but it looks like some of its devices could have potential issues. While it's unclear just how widespread this issue is, some of the brand's Versa and Sense products appear to be suffering battery issues.

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Google issued a support bulletin on its Fitbit Help Center, alerting users that the Versa 3 and Sense devices could suffer from overheating (via 9to5Google). Now, it's important to note that this doesn't affect all devices, and there will be a software update that will fix the issue.

A problem with a bad solution

Now, this isn't all good news, by the way, as the necessary update will also reduce battery capacity for affected devices as well. As you can imagine, this isn't the news you want to hear if you're someone with a Fitbit Sense or Versa product on your wrist.

Fitbit isn't sharing how many devices are affected, but if you're curious to know if your device is part of the batch that needs an update, you can always submit a request. The website notes that it could take up to one week to see a reply to this request.

The good news is that you won't really have to do much in order to get things squared away. You'll receive an email, a notification on your device and through the app if you have a device that's affected. This same notification will let you know to install the update in order to remedy the issue.

While this fix will make the devices safe to use, there is the drawback of reduced battery life, which we highlighted above. After the update is done, users with affected devices will see a decrease in battery life. The bulletin does share that if you do not update your firmware, the device will be reset to its factory state.

If you go down this path, the new update will automatically download after being setup for the first time. The factory reset will delete all your information, so it's important to get the update completed when it arrives. Now, Fitbit understands that this is quite a problem and is offering affected users the chance to get $50.

In order to claim this $50, users will need to submit a form on the registration page. The total time for this process could take up to three weeks. Just be sure to claim the money as soon as possible, because Fitbit will no longer accept claims after January 21, 2026. Naturally, you can read the full details for the update and how to claim the $50 by heading to the Fitbit support page.