Fit Bit ionic or Garmin Vivoactive 3

[Jay6ixavenue]

I can't decide  whether to get the fit bit ionic, or the Garmin Vivoactive 3. Any advice on how I can choose between the two. I wanna use the sports watch  for running,walking,and Basketball. I have a strava and Runkeeper account that I know syncs well with the Fitbit,but I also have a Nike+run club account that I know works well with the Garmin. Can anybody give me advice on which would be the best option for me, please and thanks.

[Jay6ixavenue]

I'm still debating between the two

[EvKo]

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@Tylerama wrote:

Yeah, cos Amazon reviews are always reliable ! Even some of the poorest quality products get 4 or 5 stars.

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50 reviews for Garmin vs. 1200 for Ionic easily tells the whole story no matter how you look at it. I am looking at your posts on this website and they are all like "buy garmin". I can only hope that you are on the garmin payroll otherwise you are simply wasting your time on a website run by a company whose products you despise.

[NickAK]

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@EvKo wrote:50 reviews for Garmin vs. 1200 for Ionic easily tells the whole story no matter how you look at it. I am looking at your posts on this website and they are all like "buy garmin".

Amazon was pretty slow to get Vivoactive, with Best Buy getting a good 2-3 weeks head start on them. Also, quite a few of the Amazon reviews might have been penned with the initial, extremely broken firmware on the Vivoactive.

Hell, I got it myself from Best Buy on the first day of availability, had it for a week, and returned in horror! But after having Ionic for 6 weeks and upon hearing initial Vivoactive issues had been all resolved, I checked it out, switched to it, and -- sadly -- not looking back to Ionic.

Other than comparing review counts on Amazon, care to compare the actual feature sets, issues, and functionality? Or do you buy everything based on how many five star reviews Amazon shows?

Right now these are the only things I see Ionic and Fitbit having advantage in:

• More premium design with curved screen and better materials
• Better aesthetics of the UI/UX though it remains horribly slow
• Bright, sharp, gorgeous screen
• Offline music (when and if it works)
• Fitbit Pay
• Starbucks app (though I'd imagine this could be easily implemented for Vivoactive and other Connect IQ watches, not sure why it hasn't been done already. Probably Garmin users go to Dunkin Donuts? )
• Beautiful and accurate, thanks to a well known source, weather app
• Big social aspect to Fitbit app though Garmin is quickly catching up in this regard
• Better, more detailed sleep tracking and analysis

Guess what? Half of these advantages will probably be gone within the next 6 months. Garmin Pay will launch. Somebody will crank out Startbucks QR code app. Nothing prevents Garmin from improving their sleep analysis: afterall, Basis used to do it better than Fitbit back in 2014 as did Microsoft Band/Health.

[EvKo]

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@NickAK wrote:

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Other than comparing reivew counts on Amazon, care to compare the actual feature sets, issues, and functionality? Or do you buy everything based on how many five star reviews Amazon shows?

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I really think this debate is pointless. Enjoy your Garmin while I enjoy my Ionic.

[NickAK]

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@EvKo wrote:

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I really think this debate is pointless. Enjoy your Garmin while I enjoy my Ionic.

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I think this thread wasn't supposed to be a debate, but rather a product comparison. I did my part listing everything that's good or bad with Ionic compared to Vivoactive and based on my own personal experience.

I still have Ionic sitting in the drawer as I do Blaze and Alta HR. Just like one of other reviewers, I used to rely on Fitbit for activity tracking and "casual" workouts and roll with Garmin for hardcore stuff. But whereas Fitbit pretty much stopped innovating (with exception of sleep analysis) long time ago, Garmin has improved their offering dramatically. And so from being Garmin multisport watch user, I went to become Garmin activity tracking user.

I thought a first "smartwatch" from Fitbit would change that trend. It didn't. Ionic remains full of issues and while Garmin released two firmware updates in the past month or so and is on the verge of another, even bigger update, what have we gotten on Ionic side? Right. Crickets. And vague promises of future amazing things.

[jocoyn]

I think, like the OP, I am planning on making a product decision for something to use as a fitness tool. I don't have any emotional attachment to either one and it is strictly a decision based on features and reliability I feel would help me. Product launches are typically a bit rocky and it sure seems like both are having them. Taking into account views from both vendor forums and a lot of research all information is helpful. 

My family all has older generation Fitbits but my daughter also has a Garmin swim watch.[that does not do HR] and she is very happy with it.  I will say the Customer Service at Fitbit is and has been a real plus when it comes to device issues. No so much with product enhancements. [cough cough I *still* hate the new Dashboard which gives me less HR info than the old one did]

[BeRoyalKC]

I had the Vivoactive 3 for about 5 weeks before I switched over to the Ionic.  I'm primarily in the gym for workouts and despite being geared towards the gym, the Vivoactive 3 was pretty underwhelming.  It is supposed to count reps, but that was inaccurate 75% of the time and actually turned in to more of a hassle. 

The HR sensor for gym workouts on the VA3 was abysmal as well.  I know wrist based HR sensors aren't great for gym workouts in general, but the VA3 would never have me above 85bpm.  The Ionic isn't perfect, but its much more accurate for this type of usage.

[Tylerama]

'I can only hope that you are on the garmin payroll otherwise you are simply wasting your time on a website run by a company whose products you despise.'

Not on the payroll of either company. Not even the same industry, as I stated earlier. Couldn't careless if i'm wasting my time, just glad I finally ditched my fitbit after the fourth band did the same as the other three. If only Fitbit's product quality was as good as their customer service, I would have bought a Charge 2, but when you look at the long list of amazon reviews all showing the same problems for the charge HR and Charge 2, you realise there's a basic problem there. I don't despise fitbit at all, just wish they would raise their game to justify the hype.

[WavyDavey]

What's interesting about the two on Amazon, is that they're listed in separate categories, so there's no simple way to compare their sales ranks. That said, the Ionic is the number one seller in Smartwatch category (sorry AW). The VA3 is #16 in GPS Running and #139 in Fitness Technology.

One way to gauge how popular a product like this is, is to see how big the 3rd party accessory market is--screen protectors, cases, etc. The Ionic is oozing with accessories, so the interest is high.

Does more popular mean better? Of course not. But it does mean there are a lot of units in use, which suggests that those models will be well-supported in the future. That's important if you want new features.

BTW, when i typed in "Garmin" in the Amazon search box, the first ad placed above the results was for the Charge 2. Nice one!

[EvKo]

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@Tylerama wrote:

'I can only hope that you are on the garmin payroll otherwise you are simply wasting your time on a website run by a company whose products you despise.'

Not on the payroll of either company. Not even the same industry, as I stated earlier. Couldn't careless if i'm wasting my time, just glad I finally ditched my fitbit after the fourth band did the same as the other three. If only Fitbit's product quality was as good as their customer service, I would have bought a Charge 2, but when you look at the long list of amazon reviews all showing the same problems for the charge HR and Charge 2, you realise there's a basic problem there. I don't despise fitbit at all, just wish they would raise their game to justify the hype.

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I can concur about the poor quality of the Fitbit Charge band. However Fitbit replaced it for me instantaneously and when I eventually got to Fitbit Charge 2, things were much better. Not to mention that one can change the band. Finally if this product can motivate you to watch your health, an annoyance with the band is a small price to pay.

[Jay6ixavenue]

I posted a poll in the garmin forums this morning around 5:35am,and I got 3 people saying to go with the vivoactive 3. I'll have my answer tomorrow morning on which one I'm gonna go with whether it be the ionic or the vivoactive 3.

[Venkats]

Seriously even after seeing some of these notes, you still think you would be able to solicit help from community forum. If you start a poll in Garmin community, obviously you will get votes in favor of garmin. Had you done here, you will see for FitBit.

Unfortunately user forums are plagued with trolls / hate mongers and apologists of various variety. Genuine users are usually driven by their personal experience which may be good or bad depending on the case. Garmin / AWS-3 / FitBit are all driven by similar human taste.

A few users that attempt to offer insightful comparison are often trolled adding to the confusion.  

What I would do is to buy both garmin and ionic, try for yourself. Pick the one you like. Fitbit offers a 45 day no frills return policy. I am pretty sure Garmin offers 60 day return policy. I myself have been debating to switch to a fenix 5s series from Fitbits after going through what I went through with IONIC. I am undecided and also at the same time awaiting the black friday next week. In the mean time I am struggling to find a ray of hope for IONIC so I can see if I get back in. Fenix 5 seems to offer a great deal of fitness oriented insights in addition to supporting a chest strap HRM for improved accuracy whereas IONIC is all about bells and whistles that I don't find a personal use case. I did look at vivoactive but if I get a Garmin I would rather have a fenix 5s for its features.      

[bbarrera]

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@WavyDavey wrote:

Does more popular mean better? Of course not. But it does mean there are a lot of units in use, which suggests that those models will be well-supported in the future. That's important if you want new features.

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The simple fact is that VA3 has more features than Ionic, more data if you want to dig deeper into analyzing runs/swims/cycling/etc, and was launched "feature complete" into a well respected lineup of sports and fitness devices. Mature App Store? Yes. Treadmill accuracy? Buy a foot pod. More accurate HR? Pair with chest or arm HRM. Send wrist HR to gym equipment? Yes. Real HR zones? Yes. Cycling cadence? Pair with your bike's sensor. Golf, snowboarding, XC skiing, SUP, rowing? All yes, and the skiing/snowboarding support will even remove time spent on the lift. Want more features? Upgrade to something like 935 or Fenix 5.

Historically, Fitbit doesn't have a strong track record at providing new features in existing products. Instead they put new stuff into the next tracker to drive upgrade sales (there was some trickle down into Blaze). By comparison, over the last two years with AW and Garmin bike computer there have been a substantial number of useful updates. My Surge, Fitbit's most expensive and premium tracker prior to Ionic, had gotten seriously stale when compared to the Charge and Blaze trackers that came after.

Going forward I believe Fitbit management is trying to do things differently. On the last quarterly earnings call they said some interesting things, biggest IMHO is they are (finally) paying attention to quality control at the time of manufacturing. At least with the Ionic. That is welcome news, like many others this desk jockey had premature band failures with Flex, Force, and Surge.

Fitbit is all about a simple high-level view of health and some fitness. Personally I think of it as an electronic Weight Watcher program, the app nicely supports calorie counting. Filling green circles is kinda fun, and step challenges are great if you are the type of person that requires peer pressure to get up and keep moving. But the ecosystem is only semi-open, for example I can't use a more appropriate tool for GPS/HR tracking and get that into Fitbit world. And exporting also has restrictions. I don't have ecosystem problems with Garmin or Apple. 

Garmin does some health, although the company focus has been helping you get better and faster at various sports like running, swimming, and cycling. The features to support sport tracking and analysis are far beyond anything Fitbit has to offer. 

The simple charm of Fitbit is nice, and Garmin does justice to the hard work you put in. I'd love to see the best of both worlds in a single platform.

[Tylerama]

'I can concur about the poor quality of the Fitbit Charge band. However Fitbit replaced it for me instantaneously and when I eventually got to Fitbit Charge 2, things were much better. Not to mention that one can change the band. Finally if this product can motivate you to watch your health, an annoyance with the band is a small price to pay.'

Indeed, they've done the same with me, it was just a shame instead of continually replacing them under warranty, they didn't fix the problems.

When my Fitbit warranty was almost up, I had to decide whether to go Garmin or Fitbit again, so I looked at the reviews for the Charge 2 on Amazon to get a feel for the quality (having been burnt - not literally - by the charge HR) - and again, there were quite a number of reviews with the same band quality problems. Hence I decided to spend £40 more and get the Garmin Vivosport, instead of the Charge 2.

[stemplar]

The Garmin Vivoactive HR clock was broken in half a year !! It can not be repaired 🙂 (and Garmin did not even replace it because I did not buy the watch at home.) I did not like it, though, but I liked it, but it took my pleasure. The fenix3 is an inexhaustible design. The display is sky and earth for Ionic.

[jocoyn]

Part of my struggle is the fact that I must spend $300 to get a waterproof Fitbit. I kayak a lot. So if I am going to spend $300 I look at other options and Garmin is one of them. I probably would have not started looking had a cheap waterproof Charge HR been available.

The Vivoactive 3 series has options I like better than Ionic.  I am not encouraged that the older Vivoactive HR reviews are also not that good overall but if you look at Amazon, they are not a major seller of Garmin products. Apparently they are of Fitbit products.  

The Fenix 3* actually looks more to my liking and seems to have rave reviews though it is a bit more "masculine" than I like.  The Fenix series has a lot of good history and is "tried and true". Of course, finding good prices on "older generation" Garmins is not always doable but certainly something I am shopping for.  Our team has 60Cx GPS handhelds that are nearly 10 years old and still going strong. My 15 year old etrex still "works" though it is quite limited in design. That says something to me.

*with Fenix 5 out, Fenix 3 is old news. But I got my Astro when a newer version was introduced and saved a bundle. But I had to really keep my eyes open to do so and jump at just the right time.

[Tylerama]

' I probably would have not started looking had a cheap waterproof Charge HR been available.'

Never get the Charge HR bands sweaty, let alone wet. I had sweat on my Charge HR a minimal amount and it made the silicon wrap peel almost completely along the sides. I was in Okinawa Japan in Aug 2016, *very* humid there, and I had to take it off almost once an hour to wipe the sweat off it in case it made it peel, a right PITA !

[Jorix]

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@Tylerama wrote:

' I probably would have not started looking had a cheap waterproof Charge HR been available.'

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Somehow everybody seems to have that experience, but me... I've really put the Charge HR to the test several times, for over 2,5 years. Running for hours at a time in the Alps during snow and -14C, the Greek mountains with +45C, in Thailand with +35C and 99% relative humidity and even the pouring rain in my own part of the Netherlands. No pain, even though the thing was soaked with sweat. Band never gave up on me. Until the plastic clasp after the buckle on the band broke; that was all the motivation I needed to buy the Ionic. And a replacement band on AliExpress for a few bucks, as a backup.

To me, the ecosystem of Fitbit is what made me stick around; I have friends over here, do regular challenges and built a lot of statistical history for myself. If Garmin would have had the social features that Fitbit has, I probably would have sold my Fenix 3 and got a Fenix 5. Thing is, it doesn't, so I decided to stay. But yeah, this is personal and up to everyone to decide for themselves.

[Jay6ixavenue]

Guys,I’m gonna go with the Garmin Vivoactive 3 Gunmetal version. I have no data experience with either the Fitbit or garmin,so I’m gonna try and see what Garmin has to offer me this year. Maybe next year when they make a new fitbit,I’ll check it out. But as of right now,I’m going with Garmin.

[jocoyn]

Jay would love to hear your experience. Not sure what I am going to do but I piggybacked on your post. I still have probably until the end of the year to see how kinks work out between the two product lines unless I find a real deal on a Fenix 3. Mainly because that seems to be a gem and it will talk to my Astro Dog Collar as well as a temperature sending device, both of which would be useful to me as a dog handler and neither the Ionic or the Vivoactive will.