Fitbit Ionic Bluetooth headphone problems?

[Tunah85]

I just purchased a set of HBQ-i7s Bluetooth earbuds (knock off air pods).  They work great with my phone's bluetooth, and the sound quality is fine, but when I sync them with my Fitbit IONIC I get horribly crackly music, and the earbuds are out of sync - even playing at different rates!

I know it isn't the earbuds themselves as they play fine on every other device I connect to.

Is this a common problem with Fitbit Ionic's Bluetooth?

[Mellissa27]

I also have this same problem and I'm using fitbit flyer headphones.  The flyers work fine with my phone but anytime I try to listen to music on my ionic they cut out every 1/2 second until I give up and turn them off. 

[estela_edelle]

It was never solved and it started such a long time ago! I just gave up and use it with the iPhone. Impossible to listen the music loaded in the watch.

I will strongly recommend not to buy this product.

Not only because of the sound problem mentioned before. They used a very poor quality material also. It is rapidly falling apart. It cannot be turned on and off easily anymore. I have to press with my finger nail in the hole.

Terrible product.

[Jimifireblade]

Folks I've managed to solve my own problem, I found an old pair of Bluetooth 3.0 earbuds and I tried them and they worked" crap sound" but worked. So I went to the local electronics store and tried fitbit flyers and they didn't work well, still jumpy and too fast, so I tried a pair of Jlab epic sport 4.2 and the sound is perfect " no matter which wrist the watch is on" so I bought them, this still doesn't get fitbit off the hook, their ionic is still doesn't work with anything over bluetooth 4.2 and all the newest earbuds are starting to use 5.0, anyway there's my own solution, now I have to find a charger cable as these were a demo model with no cable and jlab said they would give me a cable free of charge but they only post to domestic us, but at least I know I have it sorted once I find the cable, so test it yourselves, 4.2 and nothing higher, 

[Akely]

I’m of the opinion that this is a problem of my Ionic to correctly hand off to never versions of Bluetooth. Yesterday my old Boston Urbanista headphones died and today I got a new pair. The new pair is Version 5 (I think) and music is unbearable. So it’s not a sync/pairing/whatever problem. It’s the Ionics Bluetooth not being good enough. 

[MartijnB]

Update 2019. I tested my FitBit Ionic (updated firmware) with the XiaMi Reddot earbuds (bought on aliexpress). They work great and even volume control works on the Ionic. Tested with transffered music to the FitBit, not with deezer. https://9to5google.com/2019/06/13/xiaomi-redmi-airdots-review/

Costs: about USD 15.

[lorrainehutch]

This does not work. It should not be an accepted solution. Come on Fitbit. Sort this out. It was one of the selling points for me with purchasing the ionic. Very dissatisfied with the ionic

[Mike_NR]

HI there, I have a pair of Tao Tronics headphones bluetooth 4.2 - unfortunately I have the same problem as everyone else 😞 maybe we all need to buy a pair of Jlab epic sport 4.2 headphones.

The whole debarcle is SO dissapointing.

[F92Ayres]

I've been with Fitbit ever since I got myself the first Charge HR.

Since then I've always also listened to music on a phone whilst running and this was impractical so I started looking for solutions to this.

I was going to switch to a different smart watch provider other than Fitbit until I decided that I should go with the Fitbit Ionic. I already had a subscription though with Spotify for years so to make this work I also ended that long relationship & started using Deezer instead so I could use everything. Then I went out and bought a not-cheap set of earphones so I had the complete package. The ability to go out for a run with nothing but a set of keys, my watch, and my earphones.

When I first started to use the Ionic everything worked fine, but slowly over the past month (and I only got it a month ago) the crackling/weak bluetooth issues have only got worse. Even with the solution provided, nothing has worked.

For a total expenditure of £hundreds, to try and get a solution so I could do what I described above, I am extremely disappointed with what is now going wrong.

[Jimifireblade]

I've tried several brands and versions of Bluetooth with the ionic and I found that anything over the 4.2 didnt work as it should I also found that wearing the wire behind my neck caused some interference, none of us should have to fork out for new earbuds when we've already bought the latest models, this is fitbits problem and they've resorted to ignoring it, marking threads as solved and dishing out the same advise which doesn't work, as I said the jlab epic sport worked for me straight away but I'm sure there's lots of brands that'll work just as good, good luck with your search 

[halfafinger]

I've had the same experience as many  other users of this product, which is a good product just has a few things that could be tweaked. I found that the ionic cant do buds (at least the ones I bought)  the only thing I could come up with is the it cant do more than one Bluetooth device, in this case the buds are 2 devices which is why I was having issues . I bought a pair of jbl endurance sprint and the work great as they are only 1 Bluetooth device. just a thought

Andy

[Lord_Hebron]

I definitely had the most luck after I bought my JBL Endurance Sprint headphones, but eventually those too began to cut in and out. It seems mostly to happen when I am using the GPS and Pandora at the same time. I bought a runner's handheld with a zip pouch that fits my phone and just stream from that now.  The GPS also cuts out during some of my runs so my run data is incorrect. That being said, the two reasons I bought this over other products is GPS and the ability to stream music without another device.  Had I realized sooner to my purchase date that this would be an issue I would've returned the product. It is a solid fitness watch, but there are much more inexpensive considering the two big selling points are unreliable. Wouldn't recommend.

[reinoutholland]

Have the intermittent cutting out as well on my jbl’s, bose, and my sports plantronics

seems to do with limited range and battery consumption. 
fitbit won’t be able to fix this, its failing hardware... therefore the apathy in solving this.

the only thing that may be improved through software  is the powerconsumption while using the running app with gps and playing music... it just seems to require too much power.

[Copdude10]

I tossed it and bought a better quality device that actally works. Fitbit is no help.

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

[Jimty333]

This is my 2nd Ionic. I really love the watch but the Bluetooth is terrible for listening to music. If you want a watch that screen is attractive, does all the cool things Fitbit offers and need GPS to track your workouts.  Then this is the watch for you for now. If you want to listen to music and not carry you phone on a workout then you don’t want this watch. I’ve at times been able to get the Bluetooth to work when I use one true wireless earbud. The main one with primary functions only. Even that doesn’t always work and it will stop playing on you during workouts usually every mile. Requiring you to reselect your device to continue to play music. Hopefully, next full screen watch has Bluetooth and GPS that all work well.