Battery life 1 day with constant GPS

[pf2303]

Argos are claiming that the battery life on the Ionic is only 1 day if you use GPS. Surely this can't be right. Is it.

I certainly won't be buying it. 

Moderator Edit: Clarified subject

[pf2303]

£169 in Argos and I got 36 hours out of my Surge  with GPS.

It is still overpriced for what it offers and as someone rightly pointed out, it is only $299 in America. 

[Dominique]

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@pf2303 wrote:

I got 36 hours out of my Surge  with GPS. 

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Wow, you must have managed to get your hands on a super-charged specimen, since it offers way more battery life on GPS than what Fitbit advertises! All I can say is: stick to it, since it appears to be so vastly superior to the newer model. 

[Breezygirl8]

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@Dominique wrote:

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@pf2303 wrote:

I got 36 hours out of my Surge  with GPS. 

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Wow, you must have managed to get your hands on a super-charged specimen, since it offers way more battery life on GPS than what Fitbit advertises! All I can say is: stick to it, since it appears to be so vastly superior to the newer model. 

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Wow! As in way too much sarcasm for someone who is a Fitbit Community Council member, not professional at all. 

"Fitbit Community Council members are a group of select volunteers who advocate for the betterment of Fitbit products and services. It is their mission to facilitate a welcoming environment and contribute knowledge, advice and encouragement within the Fitbit forums."

[pf2303]

I agree, but some people can't help it. 

[Breezygirl8]

Time and a place for everything. I can see being frustrated with some on here. Many do not bother to search or read other threads first., listen to advice... but when you represent a professional company you should have some restraint. 

[datalore]

I agree fitbit could and should do a better job of tracking multiple sports. I hope that with the open SDK this watch will be able to address some of those concerns. I love my Charge 2, but I'm currently training for a long swim, and I was frustrated with the lack of water resistant trackers. If the ionic hadn't been released I'd have gone with garmin for my next upgrade. I would like to see a  variety of swimming apps on the ionic. I'm cautiously optimistic about the ionic and hope it address your concerns and mine. 

[shipo]

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@pf2303 wrote:

£169 in Argos and I got 36 hours out of my Surge  with GPS.

It is still overpriced for what it offers and as someone rightly pointed out, it is only $299 in America. 

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With GPS?  Ummm, no, there's no way you got thirty-six hours with GPS tracking running the full time.  Three to four hours of GPS mode and the rest without GPS I can certainly believe.

[Bunnybear_05]

Pf2303......Really..." typical woman " ?? 

Right there, you are not representing yourself as a grownup either. 

Besides, it seems that Dominique is a male, judging from his profile. 

Anyway, I came on to comment that you can't really compare the surge battery life with the ionic as there are many other functions that the ionic has ( the the surge doesn't) that will use up more battery. The notifications,colored screen, onboard workouts etc...And keep in mind that they need to keep everything sized properly to fit on a watch without it being crazy bulky. 

Just saying, it's not really a downgrade when you look at its performance as a whole. 

[SunsetRunner]

Sigh.  

Well, before this thread gets locked, here is the spec, from the horse's mouth:

https://www.fitbit.com/shop/surge

Battery and Power

We recommend charging your Fitbit Surge every few days to ensure you are always tracking.

Battery life up to 7 days and GPS battery life up to 10 hours. Battery life and charge cycles vary with use & other factors; actual results will vary.

• GPS battery life: lasts up to 10 hours
• Battery type: Lithium-polymer
• Charge time: One to two hours
• Radio transceiver: Bluetooth 4.0

[Dominique]

Looks like there’s a lot of confusion here. I think @Breezygirl8’s comment on sarcasm was directed at me, though @pf2303 interpreted as being directed at him. My intention was merely to point out a couple of claims made that didn’t reflect the truth IMO (on the price differential of Surge vs. Ionic and on the battery life of Surge with GPS turned on). If my reply sounded sarcastic, please accept my apologies. I confirm I’m male, btw. And blatantly sexist comments definitely are out of place in this community.

@Bunnybear_05 rightly pointed out Surge and Ionic are quite different animals, separated by almost three years. It’s a bit like comparing an iPhone 7 to the iPhone 4. 

[pf2303]

My apologies. It was only a joke. No malice intended. We are a friendly bunch on here.

I hope this Ionic works out for everyone. It does look nice and one day I may be persuaded to purchase it.

Have a great day. 

[bbarrera]

@pf2303 battery life using GPS is pretty good for majority of folks and activities. Of course it doesn't support day and multi-day hiking, longer triathlons, ultra running, and longer bike rides. There are more appropriate devices for those types of activities, including your phone. And Ionic looks to be a lot easier to connect to the charger, so give your wrist a rest and top off battery when you do morning and evening bathroom ritual.

@datalore keep in mind the Web API is how you send data to Fitbit servers (and receive data), and the Fitbit servers are the source of data that gets graphed and displayed in app and dashboard. There have been some updates to the Web API, and I'll spend some time looking at it soon, but I don't see any changes to logging https://dev.fitbit.com/reference/web-api/activity/#log-activity so it still doesn't allow importing activities with HR and GPS like every other fitness platforms I've used (TrainingPeaks, Strava, Endomondo, MapMyFitness, RideWithGPS).

[Chewie6334]

I'm not overly confident that the ionic is going to have a battery life of 4 plus days as the blaze was advertised as this I have had 4 blaze pebbles and up until now I haven't managed to get more than two days despite having all the extras switched off.  I synchronise my pebble three times a day at most and half way through the second day I have to put it on charge

[N8teGee]

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@Chewie6334 wrote:

I'm not overly confident that the ionic is going to have a battery life of 4 plus days as the blaze was advertised as this I have had 4 blaze pebbles and up until now I haven't managed to get more than two days despite having all the extras switched off.  I synchronise my pebble three times a day at most and half way through the second day I have to put it on charge

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I can comfortably get 4 days out of my Blaze with everything on, that's including all day sync. I know some people have issues with battery life but I'm not sure what causes this. Possibly phone? I know the Galaxy S8 is/was causing battery drain issues with the Blaze. 

[Mojo05]

I received my Ionic Friday..put it on my wrist after the initial set up around 5pm fully charged..have been messing with it all weekend. Did not use the GPS tracking for anything, have GPS on though, as well as notifications the entire time. I just received notification that the battery level was getting low. Plugged it in. At 8a Tuesday morning. So, I would say they're claims bear the fruit being 10hrs shy of 5 full days😊

[Chewie6334]

I'm glad you're getting the five days almost out of it I cannot remember if I said earlier but Fitbit contacted me by email to say that the S8 by Samsung is not fully compatible with their app and products and they are looking for their technical team to work on this at the earliest convenience hence the reason the excess battery drainage using the Samsung S8.  

[JakxBit]

So far as I am concerned first & foremost the Iconic is a WATCH, I want to know what the time is!

If any activity is taking place, I would rather the screen continued to display some form of readable time - before complete battery failure?

Call it limp mode or what ever and it could be selectable, set pto kick in at a certain (variable) battery level.

When I used to rely on my Fitbit One for a record of activity I relied on my wrist watch to keep an eye on the time. Now that I have the Iconic I don’t wish to have a watch on my other wrist - and yes, I have a smart phone, an iPhone!

But I don’t necessarily want to use it as a watch, because the Iconic IS a watch!

[MneimnehMo]

**ahem** right... a short battery life is very alarming.. i want to upgrade from charge 2, but i don't want to trade lower batter for better specs..

[MneimnehMo]

should drastically improve battery life to entice more people to upgrade or even buy the watch... it has a lot of nice features compared to the charge 2, but battery life is quite alarming if it only lasts 4 days.. they should improve technology for something that lasts at least 10 days without recharging... 

[pastorayers12]

My battery lasted only 1 hour and 20 minutes using GPS ,Streaming music and screen on ...

Is this right ???? Say it is not so ...