I have the exact same issue, not only is the battery bloated it is also highly inaccurate when in use. the battery can last a day, but it can also be fully consumed by early afternoon, when used equally on both days.
I presumed the bloated state makes it malfunction, so the bloated state is what needs to be fixed.
as to how it became bloated, i can’t say I started to notice sudden drops in battery life … as in, 15% left, then opening a link in a mail, start video playback for 4 seconds and phone powering off due to 0%.
then i noticed some issues with the back piece not being able to close well.
and thats when i started noticing the battery being thicker than it should be.
I got exactely the same problem but only learned today that a bloated battery is dangerous - I have been using the bloated battery for some weeks now. I ordered a new battery today and now wrote an e-mail to the customer support. I hope my new battery will arrive very soon and hopefully all my problems will be solved …
I have been having exactly the same issues as Sander_Houttekier over the past couple of weeks - when I actually looked at my battery today, it is definitely bloated. I have now raised a ticket with Support.
I hope the new battery comes soon because I gave away my previous phone when I received my Fairphone.
2 days ago, I was talking to a friend of mine which bought the first batch Fairphone and suffers the “bloated battery problem” (I have a second batch one since last August and my battery seems still quite well) and we hypothesized this problem could be due to the first sw version with the “14% battery instant drain” problem, because it seems all the batteries bloated after about 10-11 months of use (his phone is about 11 months old).
Maybe we could investigate if all the bloating batteries were damaged by a wrong sw charging algorithm instead of being a bad production batch so we can circumscribe or prevent the problem?
Bye!
Just chiming in here with the latest bloated battery sob story, and an additional dilemma posed to me by Fairphone’s replacement policy.
A. My battery from my FP1 founders edition started bloating around 14 January (~1 year). The first symptoms were sudden battery charge swings and spontaneous power failures. A few days later, the physical deformity set in and the back cover is no longer flush with the phone body.
B. My charger is an original Sony USB charger, 5V, 1500mA, 0.2A, 11W - nothing terrible.
C. The Fairphone team took 5 days to respond to my initial email and then informed me that I was due for a free RMA/return, but that they could only ship to Europe. Unfortunately, I have since moved to Cambodia. If Fairphone doesn’t offer an alternative, it will likely have to be delivered to a friend, who will then have to ship it here, probably at the cost of a replacement battery, not to mention the 1 month delay and uncertainties of the Cambodian Post.
Please weigh in: do you think Fairphone owes me a direct shipping to Cambodia? Is it my fault for moving away for honorable work? Is 1-month (give or take, if all things go well) without my phone sufficient grounds to jump ship to a more reliable international company (and more interchangeable batteries), despite my support of their project?
I have a good story about this customer Support regarding “bloated battery”, too.: I did exactly what the Support recommended: I wrote to the Support that I have “bloated battery”. After 2 days, they wrote me if I can “prove” it, by sending photos or a movie. I did. 3 days after my request, they told me that “soon” they will send me a new battery. A day later, I got a tracking number for the new battery. Another 2 days later, I could track the battery as it “left GLS Location”… then, for one week (!!!), the battery didn’t make a move! I got back to customer Support and asked what the Problem with my battery is. 2 days later, the wrote me the following: “The battery has returned to us…I shall have my colleagues of the shipping department find out what has gone wrong and to see if it is quicker to send a new one”.!!! I’m sure that is what every good customer Support woud do! NOT trying to send a battery immediatly to the angry customer! Noooo, no. First, they will discuss what they should do. That is 3 days ago now. So I am still waiting for the decision, if they will send me the one battery or the other battery. Maybe they will get back to me, maybe not. Maybe they will send me a new battery, maybe not. And they don’t have a rush… THIS IS NOT CUSTOMER SUPPORT, THIS IS CUSTOMER PISS TAKE!! This is by far the most frustrating “Support”-experience in my whole life. If You ever needed a role model for bad customer Support, You will find it HERE! I wrote them that I no longer need a battery for the Fairphone, but they should give my money back. I dind’t get an answer since 3 days…
That is partly true. The Support did NOT contact me. I contacted THEM by phone! They told me now that “the battery might be on its way tomorrow already”!!! Maybe, after three weeks, the battery is on its way ALREADY TOMORROW. MAYBE!! I mean… am I the only Person who finds this so ridiculous that it is almost funny??
Additonally, the Fairphone NEVER performed properly (not responding display, simcard-lock, not working gps, restarting every 10 minutes, and so on…). and now the battery-thing. But I am sure You think that You did a great Job… But that is just not true! The FP is a very good idea - just implemented in a very baaad way. Sorry.
There have been other complaints about the support’s performance, so you are not the only one, who has expected faster responses. However we are all human beings and humans are not perfect. We all have a limited work capacity and we all commit errors now and then. I am always happy, when I don’t get a random support response from a machine, like some companies do.
You’re a bit right, Stefan.
But if You were not able to replace a battery in 3 weeks, You cannot write to an angry customer, that if he is lucky, then the battery will MAYBE ALREADY on its way tomorrow! Sorry, that’s a NoGo!! That is like making fun out of Your customers!
And because I have no phone since three weeks an have a Job where it is important to be reacheable, I had to buy a new, working phone! And I think, that cannot be the idea of fairphone…
And the best is, even if I really get a new battery, I still have a Fairphone that is NOT working properly (since 1 year). So the only reason that I have this phone is to support the FP-idea… but that doesn’t mean that I like it to be kidded… and that’s also the reason why I am very pissed and not so nice at the Moment…
UPDATE: still no tracking number… day 20 after my request, and FP was still not able to send a battery on its way (as we know, that’s a really difficult task!). But I spoke to real person, so I shall be happy.
It’s day 22 (!!) after my request with the battery. Still, no battery was sent. And that, after they told me several times to send it (first time was 2 weeks ago)… and every time I get back to support, they tell me that they are very sorry and that they will send the battery immediately!
If the support is so overloaded, why don’t they say that it will take at least a month to get a new battery? Why do they lie to the customers instead? I don’t get it…
I am the one who started this thread back in November and I can feel your pain. It took 3 weeks until I got my replacement battery in the end: 1 week no reply from support until I opened this thread in forum and a moderator chased up support - 1 week to solve the issue (RMA report and stuff like this) and 1 week (!) for the delivery company to ship it…
Naturally thats a NOGO and I couldnt wait that long so I had to order a battery on my own (approx 18€) in the meantime and after a couple of days I had the new battery. I now have two batteries and I will use them both. Thats certainly not an environmentally friendly solution but I need my phone so I need a battery and if Fairphone is not able to solve stuff like this you either get a new phone from different manufacturer or a second battery. Buying a new battery is not really expensive and you will have it in a few days. I know you should not have to buy one but if you need your phone and your battery is faulty it seems to be the only solution to solve the situation quickly.
FP certainly has a lot to improve in the support department. So Jan for you I can only suggest to buy a new battery because you will at least wait for another week (provided FP is shipping your battery within the next day or two) - but probably you will have to wait a lot longer.
Sorry to hear this Jan. Just as a suggestion I’m sharing my experience. It seems to me the support team and the webshop team are different: after raising a ticket with the support team, I realized this might take a while so I ordered a new battery in the webshop (which I then informed the support team about). The new battery arrived within 3 days (I’m based in Italy, which is not known for its excellent mail service so that was a pleasant surprise) and the support team refunded my battery. Everything was solved within a week. In case you’re still experiencing trouble maybe you could try placing an order directly with the webshop too and see if that works more quickly.
Just wanted to send a personal note here. I’m sorry you’ve had such a negative experience. While I do think some of these cases are a matter of bad luck on top of bad luck (especially with customs in Europe), there are parts of the support process that can be improved. Members of the support team (with operations and communications) are taking your experiences as a means to improve some systems and workflows.
Apologies again for the bad experience. I understand in the case of @Jan, you are in direct email contact with our support team to resolve the issue.
Argh. My battery is bloated, too. Terrible, my fist batch Fairphone seems to show me random values of battery charging levels – they seem not to correspond to the actual level at all. And I really need a phone, I’m quite lost without. I’m living in the US now and I was not able to order a new battery to my current address. Does anybody know if there is a possibility to buy/use another (non-Fairphone) battery?
