Anyone happy with their Ionic?

[mb127]

Is anyone happy with their Ionic? Is yours fully working and syncing? It seems most discussions here are about the problems, but looking at different stores online the reviews are still mostly positive. I can't tell if the one I have is just never going to work or it's a firmware issue that could be fixed. Right now I'm leaning towards this one is never going to work, but then I'm not sure if I should get a new one or not.

[dwizum]

After my frustrations I switched to a Charge 2. It has all the good features of the ionic (HR, sleep tracking, workout detection, notifications from your phone) with none of the broken-ness and none of the dumb gimmicky useless stuff. It's also significantly cheaper.

[OldSkoolMC]

I am a new user and I am happy with mine.

1) Setup went exactly as planned.

2) I bought this for two main reasons... 1) A daily activity monitor 2) A watch to wear on my wrist. (It does both perfectly)

3) Don't care about Starbucks apps, paying with my watch, or playing music from my watch.

4) My initial firmware upgrade went smooth with no issues.

5) Sync issues are non-existent. 

Just as with cell phones... I use my phone for a phone. Everything else it can do is a bonus, IMO.  I don't need an iphone X or the latest phone. Why? because my free of charge iphone 5s works perfect (for me).  I think people expect too much from a simple device.  I would never need an apple watch because I have no use for one.  The Ionic does what I need it to do.. track activity.  So you won't hear any complaining coming from me.  I paid $230 delivered to my door... and I've spend way more than that on watches in the past that only can tell time and the date.  LOL

[dwizum]

@OldSkoolMC, with respect to your comment of "I think people expect too much from a simple device" here's my thought: The Ionic was not designed or marketed as a simple device.

If I went to the store and bought a simple device, I'd expect it to do simple things. I wouldn't be upset that it didn't play music, sync well with my phone, or have a starbucks app. But when a vendor markets a high end watch and promotes it as having a specific set of complicated, high end features, I think it's totally fair to expect more than you would from a "simple device." 

We're talking about Fitbit's flagship product here, not a basic steps counter.

[OldSkoolMC]

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@dwizumwrote:

@OldSkoolMC, with respect to your comment of "I think people expect too much from a simple device" here's my thought: The Ionic was not designed or marketed as a simple device.

If I went to the store and bought a simple device, I'd expect it to do simple things. I wouldn't be upset that it didn't play music, sync well with my phone, or have a starbucks app. But when a vendor markets a high end watch and promotes it as having a specific set of complicated, high end features, I think it's totally fair to expect more than you would from a "simple device." 

We're talking about Fitbit's flagship product here, not a basic steps counter.

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Sell it and move on then.  End of story.

[bbarrera]

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@OldSkoolMCwrote:

I think people expect too much from a simple device.  I would never need an apple watch because I have no use for one.

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Well you never know until you try one. What I tell people that ask me about Fitbit -- if you want an activity tracker then look at Alta HR or Charge 2, those have best price/performance. If you want to splurge then Ionic is fine, just understand its not strong on smartwatch features and its a work in progress. Optical HR on wrist from every vendor works better for some things (HR at rest, walking, running) than others (cycling, weight lifting, HIIT). Fitbit's own sleep tracking study reveals that accuracy ranges from poor to good. And Apple Watch sets the bar on smartwatch features, since putting one on my wrist 2.5 years ago I've never looked back because its made my 7-5pm work life, and even after hours family life so much easier. Garmin sets the bar on activity/sports tracking. Individual preferences vary, phones vary, so I tell people to buy from REI or another store with good return policy, pick one, try it out, and if not completely satisfied, return it and try the next on your list. 

[Davem10]

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@dwizumwrote:

After my frustrations I switched to a Charge 2. It has all the good features of the ionic (HR, sleep tracking, workout detection, notifications from your phone) with none of the broken-ness and none of the dumb gimmicky useless stuff. It's also significantly cheaper.

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Well if it does everything you need it to great, just don't try swimming with it.

[NHMike]

Very happy with mine.  I'm not experiencing any of the problems other people have reported.  Heart rate, steps, calories, GPS tracking while biking, sleep patterns etc all working fine.  Update via WiFi was quick and painless.  Sync'ing to my phone's app is seamless and has never failed.  Only change I made was to replace the band with a magnetic one which is easier to adjust with one hand while biking.

[Giampi71]

@NHMike Hello, can you please tell me more about your magnetic band as I'm interested. Thanks

[daveiw]

Hi OldSkoolMC Take your point but that’s a bit like saying don’t buy a Mercedes when you need a Nissan, I would still expect the Nissan to function as advertised and for sure be able to sync which is my only compliant. Still the several hours of frustration and failure to sync in a reliable manner means it is going back for a refund and somewhat sadly my last Fitbit device as I don’t want to act as a beta tester when I buy a supposedly finished product.

[OldSkoolMC]

Using Mercedes to Nissan as an analogy is a little bit over the top don't you think?  We are talking about a few hundred dollar watch.  lol

Anyway, my watch has been working fine.  I don't have sync issues or really any complaints as of now.  I also don't and wouldn't consider the Ionic a "smart" watch because that's not what it is.  If you look at the website and read what they are advertising it boldly states that its a watch.  Then the added features are water resistant, gps, multi day battery, personal coaching, and heart rate.  Then at the bottom of the page it goes into "style".  Nothing mentioned about being a smart device.  

Also, I find it hard to believe that everyone that owns one is having all these issues, because for one... I haven't had a single problem.  My initial update out of the box went smooth, my syncing to my phone/app has worked without any issue, I logged some running data which appeared to be pretty accurate.... and being waterproof with good battery life was a selling point for me.  It works for me so maybe some people either got a lemon, USER error, or just are never happy.  Go look at prices of a TAG watch or Movato and see what they do other than tell time and look pretty on your wrist.  

[ConnieL429]

OldSkoolMC,

I think if you are setting up Ionic and don't have anything else interfering with the signal, then your experience is probably going to be good. I'm fairly certain most of my issues are due to other devices in close proximity. I decided to remove all interference possibilities and also reboot the device. It's working fine for me now. I still say they can do better with getting music on the device. To cumbersome but once transferred, the music works great.  It would appear that it isn't happy being near my iPad when syncing. It has both cellular and BT going on. So I guess it's just way too temprimental around some devices. That said, I'm not giving up on it. I actually really like the looks and feel of it so I'm sticking with it for now.

[daveiw]

mm not really I am just trying to illustrate the point which is that there are common features and luxury features. I think the ability to download and update the watch in whatever way Fitbit tell us is a fundamental part of the watch, without that function it doesn’t work as a fitness tracker

Come on, it is from FITBIT the fitness tracking people, not the snazzy watch people. This company has the market position of being fitness tracking devices I don’t care what it looks like or if it is missing some smartwatch functions.
you talk abut my comparisons Tag Movato really useful, I can’t believe anyone would buy this for it’s timepiece aesthetics.


You are right it does work for some people but as you can clearly see it doesn’t work for others. Anyway we could just agree to disagree or if you want to have the last word feel free.

I have already ordered an alternative so happy to withdraw from this post

[NHMike]

@Giampi71  The link is here.  There are plenty of other options as well, but this one fits me perfectly, color matches, and the magnet is strong.  Let me know if you have questions.

[dwizum]

@OldSkoolMC - regarding your comment that I I should just sell my watch if I'm unhappy - that's exactly what I did, per my earlier comment. I'm here in this thread now because a request for feedback was made.

We can go ahead and argue about the label "smart watch" if you'd like, but that's a straw argument. The product was advertised with specific features which, for many people, do not work. That's a fact. Did i get a lemon? Maybe. But it seems that this product has a pretty high lemon rate, if the negativity in the forum is any indication. Was it user error? Hardly. I tried with several phones. I had someone else try it for a week on their phone. I installed bluetooth monitoring software on my phone and a laptop and spent countless hours reading transmission logs, troubleshooting, talking to fitbit support, and researching on the web. Am I someone who is never happy? Hardly! Again, read my other posts above.  I now have a Charge 2 that I love.

I am not sure why you are bringing up Movado watches. The point here is not price versus functionality, the point is promised functionality versus how the product actually works.

I am glad you like your ionic. I hope fitbit solves the issues people are having, and I hope we can continue as a community to openly share feedback, both good and bad.

[cc2k]

I think most of what I've got to say has already been said but here is my experience over the last few months having received two firmware upgrades and a few minor releases of the phone and desktop app.

As a tracker with GPS the device seems to work well for me. I can record my runs, sync to Strava, keep a track of my step count and sleep patterns. I have the odd sync issue but eventually it works again. Sometimes my run data takes a while to get to Strava or the all day sync stops working and I have to re-launch the phone app again.

As a "smartwatch" though, and this is what the Ionic is advertised as and reason I bought it, it fails miserably IMHO...

Even the simplest of apps, such as the Weather app don't work for me reliably - I've given up trying to use it now and if I want to know the weather for the next couple of days I go back to using my phone rather than the "handy" device that is attached to my wrist.

I've never got the Nest or Leaderboard apps to work - they constantly fail with Bluetooth Connection errors, even when the Fitbit app shows my phone connected to my Ionic, and the Strava app hasn't sync'ed data down since 30/1 dispite re-authorising the app again.

I have contacted Fitbit support and despite having two outstanding support tickets I still don't have any resolution to the issues I am facing - I find the community more helpful that Fitbits official support channels 😉

And as for Fitbit pay - very limited credit card / bank support and no where on their website or any suppliers websites did it state that this functionality wasn't available for Windows devices - PC or phone! Only after purchasing and reading the user guide to try and set it up did I find this out. I know the feature is coming and that approval now lies with the Card Providers but this along with my experiences summaries above doesn't leave me feeling "happy" about the device. Not yet anyway 😉

[VasiliZ]

Extremely disappointed in Ionic. The stupid thing will not update. I’ve tried several times and it takes hours and never completes. 

I might ask for a refund because this sucks. 

[judeep]

I have to say after a few teething problems I am happy. The last update caused a bit of an issue but it was easily sorted. All in all I think it's a great watch 👍

[Myabby]

Yea it's ok. But mine don't count my steps right it's way low like 1/2 what it should be. I don't if it's because I use a walker/roller? Other stuff ok. I haven't tried music yet I'll post when I do. We happy Ionic.
    
Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Tab® S

[Wolfie55]

I just got my Ionic yesterday.  Setup and first workout went smoothly.  I am past Fitbit user (charge, charge hr, blaze) and I like the interface.  I tried to move to the Vivoactive 3 but it was a disaster and there are pretty much the same issues (if not worse) with that watch too: https://forums.garmin.com/forum/into-sports/health-fitness/vivoactive-3-aa  

I really don't use the smartwatch features that other have had issues with.  Personally I think that Fitbit will rectify these issues in time.  They pretty much need to given that they now have two 'smart' watches - Ionic and Versa.

I think that if someone in the Apple Ecosystem and wants a smartwatch first / fitness - second. They are better off going with an Apple Watch.  I'm not an Apple user, but judging from friends/family that have the Apple Watch it definitely is better than the Ionic in the 'smart' watch category.

[VasiliZ]

Was able to FINALLY complete the update last night with the patience and help of David from Fitbit tech support. Took another 2.5 hours, so all told, I spent at least 8 hours trying to get this update.

Advice for the people contemplating a future update...don't make buyers jump through hoops to get this done...make it simple and fast.