Fitbit Ionic Completely Dead

[willguibr]

Hi There,

My Fitbit Ionic which I have for about 1 year now, have been presenting problems for the past 2 weeks. First after a firmware upgrade, it stopped tracking my steps and heart rate, then seems like Fitbit released a fix, and it started working again out of the blue.

Now surprisingly (or not) yesterday my Fitbit completely died after the screen started flickering for a few minutes before it went dark. I have plugged the device with the charging cable to my computer USB port for the past 12 hours, and it does not give any signals of booting up.
Have anyone experienced similar issue and mostly important, how did you get it resolved?

Thank you

[davidCC]

Mine failed to restart after I had shut it down. I managed to restart it by pressing the left and lower right buttons about two dozen times. This problem is definitely a problem with the last update, as I have two Ionics and it affects both of them.

[Yorkrover]

Mine has just died half way through a bike ride. Was working ok paused it but when I tried to restart it just a blank screen. Put it on charge but nothing coming up 

[Slyderjen]

Mine quit tracking my heart rate.  Then it decided it wasn't going to charge.  Now it is completely dead.  I tried plugging it into my computer, pushing all three buttons, pushing the left and lower right buttons, holding for short and long periods of time, etc.  It is still dead. It does not turn on at all.  Who has gotten their Ionic to work after this has happened?  Any ideas on how to fix it?

[Gmshaw]

Fitbit OS 4.1.2 Firmware update (70.7.27) to my IONIC watch rendered it completely unusable, as it will not turn back on. This has become a huge problem for many users,
and since the device is past the warranty period unlikely to be resolved. This was an update heavily promoted on the application which manages the device, and there was no warning of any kind that this would render the device unusable.

[Yorkrover]

Got mine going again by holding the back button and bottom button together till logo came up. Not tried using it yet as it's on charge

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

[Sannehierr]

I have the same problem! Today my ionic stopt out of the blue! It had a battery of 70%. Now it's on charge but no response even the green light on the back is gone! 

[Sannehierr]

Back button? I have 1 on the left and 2 on the richt.

[Yorkrover]

The single 1 is the back button and the bottom button is the 1 nearest to you as you look at it with it on your left wrist 

[willguibr]

Talked to Fitbit support, and they asked for some very basic test such as plug to an actual power source and clean the back of the watch and plug back in. After 15 minutes, no solution to get it back to work, and they declared warranty on it. Luckily, mine is still covered under the original warranty, and I'll hopefully be getting a replacement (God knows when), but let's face it. 1 year use and have a device turned useless because of a potential bad firmware (software) development is very concerning to me being in Cyber security for 17 years.

[willguibr]

Ahah... I found that hidden button by removing the wrist strap. Pressed it with a pin and the maximum it happened is that a red light on the back came up briefly and went off and never came back.

[Slyderjen]

I don't see a hidden button...just the one on one side and the two on the other.

[Dr-Abn]

Add me to the list of dead Ionics. My battery was getting low, I took the watch off to charge it. When I attached the charger I noticed no message came up notifying me of the battery %, and the lights on the back Pete off. After button pushing it is still dead. What is going on Fitbit? One year and now it’s dead? Calling Fitbit tomorrow morning, this is ridiculous. 

[Sannehierr]

So basically they're saying that it is a problem they know but they can do nothing? It's bad luck? 

[Slyderjen]

This is NOT ok!

[Dr-Abn]

UPDATE - This morning I disconnected my watch from my phone and waited about half an hour, then reconnected the watch with the phone app. I then did a hard reset (left button and bottom right), holding  the 2 buttons about 1-2 minutes, the Ionic started up! I had it on the charger all night but when it started up the battery level said 7%. After adding it back onto my phone, the charge level jumped up to 100%! Hopefully this will help someone else too. Will post a second update if this Fix doesn’t last. 

[l_milewski]

I have had the same issue with mine. About 2 weeks ago, it started flickering. Had to do a hard reset. Was working fine (or so I thought). This past Sunday, I got a text, went to read it and the screen went black. Won’t respond to a hard reset and has been sitting on the charger since with no sign of power. I’ve had mine for over a year, but you don’t expect to put all this money into it for it to just die. 
Funny thing too, I also had bought two people the Fitbit Versa as gifts and both of them did the same thing and neither one of those were even a year old. 
So, I’ve invested into 3 Fitbits for all of them to just die and all Fitbit can say is they’ll give you a discount on a new one?! I don’t think so. Very disappointed in Fitbit. 

[Sannehierr]

Today i called the help desk of Fibit in Holland and the woman on the phone didn't understand why my ionic won't work anymore. We tried several things but nothing worked, Because my ionic was still in the certainty (2years in Holland) they give me 2 options. 

1, a free ionic clock without the wristband and charger

2, 50% discount on a new Fitbit any version. 

So maybe a option for all, to call the helpdesk