My Fairphone 3 is new and tried to use it for the first time today. Battery says 50%, but doesn’t go up or down at all (regardless if it’s turned off or on or if it’s plugged in or not).
The different Battery-messuring Apps I tried says it’s charging with ~450mA, but even after a few hours of charging it doesn’t change the battery % and it will still turn off quickly after unplugging; Sometimes even when it’s plugged in.
Removing the battery and putting it in again didn’t help.
I use the official Fairphone charger, but tried my old charger and different USB ports as well without improvement.
The only thing that isn’t from Fairphone are the USB-C charger cables. I tried evey cable I have (all form the same manufacturer though) and none of them change the problem.
Already contacted the Support team, but since I rely on the Phone and need to have it work quickly I want to see if I can get faster response here.
Hi Sounds a rough deal. Any USBC cable should be able to charge even at a slow rate. The slowest charge would be a basic USBC cable with a USBA plugged into an old computer port. Those old ports only given a max of 0.5A or 500mA so would take some six hours to charge a 3000mAh battery @ 4.4V
My phone doesn’t do a fast charge but does charge usually in 5hours even with a 5.1V 2.4A output (should charge in 1.5 hours) so there is clearly something wrong with the charging issue. Yours sounds even worse ~ my suggestion is you tell Fairphone, within 14 days, that you are sending it back for a replacement or refund and if a new working phone doesn’t arrive within that time then you expect a refund after the 14 days
It’s great you have contacted support, my query over slow charging has been with them for months and nothing sensible has happened, but I can use the phone. You may want to consider buying a cheap phone to get by with in the meantime.
There is the possibility that the power module may not be fitted well so you could, within the warranty open the phone unscrew and remove the modules and re[place them.
I use the Fairphone cables (bought 2) but a Belkin charger, and have tried other charging supplies, mains, dc etc/
There is a battery test you can do from the keyboard, plugged in or not, the voltage should be just under 4.4V when charging dropping to 4.3 when unplugged ~ if fairly well charged
Open the phone dial pad
Enter *#*#66#*#* to show testing menu with three sub-menus
Select Service tests > Test Single > Battery status check.
I experienced a bad charging experience with my FP3 at the very first time too. I was equipped with an Vivanco 5V 3A labeled cable. Whilst it worked fine with a Huawei P9 which it was bought for, it couldn’t charge my FP3 I tested lots of my chargers and regular USB ports on Desktops and Notebooks from 1A to 2A with this single cable, and didn’t succeed.
It was quite irritating, cause the charging indicator on the phone lit up - still there was no visible progress. With the phone turned on, I think there was no lightning bolt in the battery icon. Still though, that experience is back from 2019 with Android 9.
Next day I went to a local shop and bought a variety of USB-C cables. As the cheapest one, a micro USB cable with a USB-C adaptor on top worked out of the box, I brought back all of the others. With this cable almost all my chargers were supported. The only non working Charger is an original Huawei Charger (the non-Qualcomm version).
I think Fairphone recommended a first charge current of at least 1A or so. But Iam too lazy to pick that one up now… Think it was written in the handout inside the box. And not sure if that’s still a thing for the FP3+ either
If you can, I think FP would be very happy if you can resolve that on your own first and cancel the ticket ASAP. USB-C cable are kinda tricky, and they still got lots of requests on their plate.
I have to say, Iam not too sure on what to make of your Perpetuum Mobile xD I think I felt so too, but it later turned out the fairphone was just not so power demanding. Still though, I was way more carefull not to drain the battery at all before it first came to be fully charged. Which turned out to be really tricky as it wasn’t properly charging.
