Fitbit Ionic Erratic Behavior GPS & Running timer stops!!

[romanpines]

First of all, let me start by pointing out that I've been a Fitbit user since they started for many years already and have tried everyone of their product including their Alta scale. My previous watch was the Surge which I had for about 2 years  and I had no complains with the performance of the watch but only with some issues with charging. I've been a devoted runner for many years and rely on my watch to keep track of my weekly mileage, HR, pace, etc...  I got the Ionic on the day of the release (Oct 1st) and have already done 4 runs with the watch and 2 out of 4 I have experience issues with the performance of the watch!! This is 50% of the time! Extremely disappointing so far! The first problem was yesterday when I noticed that the GPS connection when staring the run started to loosing signal intermittently... this resulted in a logged run at the end of my 4 miles of more than .20 miles off from the actual distance done. I never had this issue with the Surge! Now today was even worst! By the end of my 4 mile 5am run when I looked at my watch I notice that the watch decided to pause the run at .5 miles which now resulted in a logged run of only .5 miles vs the actual 4 miles I ran. After my run I opened the Fitbit app in my iphone to check if at least the watch recognized the run in its automatic mode and there was nothing. The watch did not realize that I just ran 4 miles!  So far I am hating this watch and I am extremely disappointed with the performance this model has shown in the first week of use. If this will be the new quality standard that Fitbit will follow, I am taking my money somewhere else and give a shot at another competitor.

Watch out for this issues!

[shipo]

I experienced something similar with my Ionic, I'm thinking it is related to the Auto Pause feature; I have turned that off and will report back after my run this afternoon.

[Fit2030]

I've had problems where the pace makes no sense. I was hoping the Ionic would replace my fitbit Charge 2 and TomTom Spark.

So far not happy with exercise app performance. 

[romanpines]

Thanks for bringing this up. I'll like to know what triggers this auto-pause... I probably only stopped for a fraction of a second this morning when a car did not stop to let me pass.... I will look it up and disable it.

[shipo]

@Fit2030, what "pace" are you referring to?  The one on the tracker, the one on the Fitbit.com Dashboard, or the one on your phone app?

[romanpines]

Now I'm more worry! I just checked and I do have the auto-pause off. This means that the watch just paused for no reason. I was so upset when I realized that it was paused by the end of my run! Couldn't  compare my run with the previous ones this week....this really sucks when you are busting your **ahem** and want to measure your daily performance and improvement...

[Pd1972]

I've had problems but not seen this one. I'm sure you've not.. but could you have caught either of the right hand buttons whilst running? This would put the ionic on pause.

Distance... 9.8 miles tonight on my 10.2 mile run... A mile different from the other night's figure!! Seems random.

[romanpines]

That was the first thing I thought when I saw that it paused but after the run I bend my hand back towards the watch and it is impossible for me to get close to the buttons. When running I wear the watch one step tighter than during the day and below the wrist bone. No way to press any buttons this way...

[shipo]

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@Pd1972 wrote:

I've had problems but not seen this one. I'm sure you've not.. but could you have caught either of the right hand buttons whilst running? This would put the ionic on pause.

Distance... 9.8 miles tonight on my 10.2 mile run... A mile different from the other night's figure!! Seems random.

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Yeah, I had a strange one today as well, I ran 8.24 miles but it only recorded 7.86; and that's the good news.  The course I ran today was an out and back trail run; I turned around at exactly 4.12 miles and ran all of the way back to where I started (and where my car was parked).  Per the map, I ran 6.25 miles running forward, and the remaining (logged) 1.61 miles running in place.

The only thing I have to add is this type of issue isn't unprecedented for me, my Surge would occasionally do the same thing.  Long story short, it seems the jury is still out on the accuracy of the Ionic's GPS.  🙂

[Fit2030]

@shipo: the pace on the Ionic in the exercise app. I wait for the GPS to connect and then I start walking and start my exercise. I walk at about 15-20 minute pace but the Ionic thinks it's like 60 when I start and takes a couple minutes to get current pace correct. I typically walk only 15 minutes so my average pace is still way off for the whole walk. It does this every time. 

[romanpines]

So this week I ran 4 times 4 miles each day and 2 days under constant heavy rain... I have to say that the Ionic performed consistently showing same distance data everyday. I’m still not completely sold but I’m feeling a little more comfortable with my decision to upgrade from the Surge to the Ionic.... of course, Murphy’s Law had to step in and now my Bose Soundsport headphones had to stop working for the second time in 6 month ! Technology still has a long way to become fully reliable ! 

Will keep reporting... 

[David_M2490]

I am suffering similar issues with my Ionic. It worked great to start with except messages which are hut and miss. But now the pace is all over the place. Which very annoyingly it moves around from 6 minutes to 9 minutes. Very bizzare and not great. Will try two more runs then

take back to john lewis.