Feedback about Ionic GPS

[Dan_Plume]

Hello Fitbit (and broader community),

I've been an avid fan / customer of yours for many years having purchased numerous trackers, so when my Ionic recently started to malfunction, I contacted you in the hopes and expectation to successfully get the situation resolved. 

As your flagship model - now discontinued it seems? - and with a premium price tag of over £300 at the time, I have to admit I wasn't expecting to experience problems within the first few years when I was using it for what it was designed to do: tracking my running and cycling. Yet, experiencing them I was. 

While i was out exercising, my Ionic would simply turn itself off. Or it would just drop the GPS entirely - or both, one after the other. Even post charge it would decide that it didn't want to work and just give up.

I contacted your support team. Numerous times. And received patchy support at best. Finally, when someone was able to help me, I was informed that I was outside of warranty (just) and therefore would have to fork out another £200 for a new one since you were kind enough to offer me a 30% discount on a new tracker. 

Considering this was meant to be your premier piece of kit, I was extremely disappointed that not only was there no fix but that I would need to buy a new one. I was thoroughly disappointed. 

Imagine spending all that money on a piece of technology that fails while doing what it was designed to do? For a premium product, it really fell way short of my expectations and lasted only just past the guarantee!

I am writing this post to express my disappointment and to let you know that I am no longer a customer. I purchased an Apple Watch today. And I will be warning others not to buy your technology in the future stating my experience and that I received poor service, and your trackers are poorly crafted technology. 

Thoroughly disappointing since you have been a part of my fitness for a long time. 

Hopefully this gets seen by the right people and something positive comes from it. 

Goodbye.

Dan

Moderator Edit: Clarified subject

[RicardoFitbit]

Hi @Dan_Plume, welcome to the Community Forums! 

Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts and personal experience with your Fitbit device, I understand your situation and how frustrating this matter can be for you. I'd like to let you know that we are always striving to improve the Fitbit experience with our products and services, therefore, the feedback that's shared here in the Community Forums is always appreciated and really helpful for us to evaluate our procedures and make sure that we are delivering what our users want and need.

Since you already received assistance from our Customer Support team, I suggest you to contact them back if you require further assistance or if you have any additional questions about the outcome of your case. Also, for a better understanding of the information they provided to you, please check our warranty policies here. 

Let me know if you have any additional questions, I'll be around.

[Dan_Plume]

Unfortunately, the experience that I received from your service teams was inadequate and instead of helping me fix the problem, simply stated that I should buy a new device.

Considering I had spent £350 on something to last just over 2 years, this was not something that I was prepared to do.

Looking through the rest of these posts on this forum it appears that the Ionic was/is sadly awash with problems which suggest that the manufacturing process is broken as well as the software itself being less than perfect. 

It's a real shame because I like the brand and think the watches look great, they just aren't worth the money at all, and I will be warning people of your products and relaying my experience if they ask me in the future. 

[Redgizam]

Having same issues does not do what it's supposed to very poor won't buy again

[SunsetRunner]

Hi @Dan_Plume  reading your post is a very similar situation to mine, I bought a fitbit ionic, within 6 months it shown problems and was replaced within 8 months. The replacement fitbit displayed problems after 4 months and required a replacement after month 6. The new tracker was covered in the old warranty period and fitbit did not want to know. Since months ago I asked for my complaint to be escalated to a manager to put a point across that a £300 plus fitness tracker should have more than a 10 month lifespan. No answer to this day. 

I will never buy another fitbit product after this recent experience, which is really sad as it had so many good features and so much promise.

I have followed suit with the watch Dan, I am very impressed.

[Redgizam]

Yeah they did a battery test on mine said it had issues but not doing anything about it ,poor service and a product that's not fit for purpose. Apple it is then or Garmin