Goodbye, Fitbit. It was a good friendship. (this is a feedback thread)

[MurryIvanoff]

Disclaimer: I'm a Fitbit customer since the Fitbit Force (back in 2013). This thread is not intended to trash on Fitbit but rather than to share a feedback from a many-years-long customer that just gave on the brand. And since my Fitbit devices were always a truly core part of my daily life, it wasn't an easy decision to take. Hopefully this thread can be useful to the Fitbit team and hopefully other ex Fitbit customers will share their feedback as well. 

I was really excited when the Ionic was announced. And I wasn't disappointed at all when it was released. But now, a few months later, as I see nothing but a lack of progress, I'm saying goodbye to the Fitbit family. After having a Force, Charge, Charge 2 HR and Ionic - that wasn't an easy decision to take. But I've already switched to Garmin and surprisingly I'm loving it. 

What I loved about the Ionic: 

1) Aesthetics. I actually truly believe is one of the most good looking arm-wrist devices out there. I love the minimalistic design, I love the shape, I love the comfort of the band and I love how it looks like. 

2) Battery life. In a world where most of my Apple Watch friends need to charge their device on a daily basis, I was pretty happy to only charge my Ionic every 3 or 4 days. 

What I hated about the Ionic:

1) The touch screen. Although the display itself is beautiful, the touch screen I think is not the right control tool for what should be a sports device - I've accidentally changed many screens while running. And the touch screen was too basic for a smart watch (more on that later). 

2) It's not a sports watch. With the sports watch market (totally owned by companies like Garmin, Suunto and Polar) advancing so much in the past few years, my Fitbit remained a really basic run-tracking device that doesn't really add any additional value to my trainings of races compared to only tracking with my iPhone. Yep, the hearth rate tracking is a good touch, but Fitbit isn't really utilising it in any useful way. I switched to Garmin Fenix and it's giving me a LOT of guidance on my trainings, I can follow a pre-defined GPX track when running and in general is giving me a lot of insights on my workout days. I was actually blown away by what a sports watch can do. 

3) It's not a smart watch. Yep, there is an App Store with a few apps (sorry folks, but most of them really suck) and none of them seem really useful to help my personal life or my work life. It's lacking even basic stuff like having my calendar on the watch. Even my ugly-and-horrible new Garmin sports watch has a great calendar sync. Notifications between my iPhone and my Ionic stopped working at a certain point and after a few upgrades of the firmware they still aren't working. 

4) No low-energy mode. If I want to track a longer run (eg. ultra marathon or an all-day hike) I won't be able to do it with the Ionic - the battery life in GPS mode is pretty low compared to the rest of the sports watch market. 

5) It's too much of a Pebble. I was one of the first folks that backed Pebble years ago and I stopped using my Pebble after they haven't really improved their product (In fact, they always made it slightly worse. Maybe the tech was doomed?). Somehow by being a Fitbit customer I've became a Pebble customer once again. The slow UI, the horrible apps configuration and the rest of the stuff comes straight from Pebble and I truly didn't enjoy it. I felt like I'm using a Kickstarter product once again while Fitbit is currently a profitable public company - which I really respected you guys for. 

6) Fitbit's own eco-system is really closed. With my new Garmin I can use any ANT+ device (eg. chest-based heart rate and running dynamic sensor) or Stryd for instance. I couldn't really connect any external device besides wireless headphones to my Ionic, while I can connect any ANT+ compatible device to my Garmin now and just use it (eg. devices that were created to work with Suunto and Polar devices as well)

I think the Ionic is a good product for occasional workout folks but to me it ended up being a product that's too mediocre. It's not a smart watch and it's not really a sports watch. 

Maybe one day this will change, but after 4 months of using my Ionic and having hopes that this will happen I just gave up. I'm blown away by my new Garmin Fenix 5 and I'm kind of disappointed that I haven't really discovered it last year before I bought my Ionic. 

Thank you, Fitbit for introducing the sports trackers product category to me. I'll always appreciate you guys for this. But the world is moving much faster than you guys are. 

Hopefully I'll buy a Fitbit product in the future. 

[WendyB]

Sorry to see you go. So many posts in the forums gone

[pedris]

Same boat, @MurryIvanoff. Sadly, most of my posts over the last 5 months have been overwhelmingly negative. I wish I could be singing the Ionic's praises instead!

I particularly agree with Point 2 on your second list. It's definitely not a sports watch, despite being advertised as one. In some ways I actually preferred my Surge for running.

Agree with Points 3 and 4 on the same list, too.

Perhaps Fitbit will pull something amazing out of the hat in the next 30 - 60 days, but if not, I'll be gone.

[Davem10]

I agree with almost everything you say, but I get a bit annoyed when any comparison is implied between the Ionic and the Fenix 5. The latter is like a million trillion dollars more than the Ionic, of course it will be better. Like swapping a Ford for a Ferrari, can’t really do it on my budget. 

[Mar1951]

I completely agree  Ionic sucks! Notifications , incoming calls never work and when they suddenly decide to work, they come delayed. Surge whas much better on notifications. BPM indicator is fake while running.  you can follow millions of times the stupid reccomendation link to make working notifications and.......no way....you fill get stupid , because they works eventually and after few delayed notifications, stop working. I want my money back!

[MurryIvanoff]

I completely agree - it's stupid to compare the Fenix 5 to the Ionic and I'm not really doing it. Even the way cheaper Forerunners seem to be comparable to the Ionic in terms of features but they have massive appstore with much more apps, data fields, widgets and watch faces. It things seem to just work - unlike with the Ionic. 

I was just sharing what I hated about the Ionic and what were the reasons I've decided to ditch my Fitbit after years of being a loyal customer. I didn't post this thread to compare my Ionic to my new choice. 

Maybe it would be useful to the Fitbit team, who knows?

[bbarrera]

@MurryIvanoff your first post perfectly describes my point-of-view starting with Surge. I keep hoping Fitbit embraces sport tracking, but it hasn't happened yet.

[pammiepc]

Thanks for taking the time to write this. I'm also starting to regret my Ionic purchase - which is annoying because I really went out on a limb and splurged on this. I was sold, primarily, by the extra Fitbit capabilities (app, community, etc), but now I'm wishing I would have gone with Garmin or Polar or something (especially now that I'm expecting my workout regime to become more frequent/intense over the next few months).

This review was very helpful and it is appreciated. Hopefully it helps someone in their purchasing decision in the future. 

[Davem10]

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@MurryIvanoffwrote:

I completely agree - it's stupid to compare the Fenix 5 to the Ionic and I'm not really doing it. Even the way cheaper Forerunners seem to be comparable to the Ionic in terms of features but they have massive appstore with much more apps, data fields, widgets and watch faces. It things seem to just work - unlike with the Ionic. 

I was just sharing what I hated about the Ionic and what were the reasons I've decided to ditch my Fitbit after years of being a loyal customer. I didn't post this thread to compare my Ionic to my new choice. 

Maybe it would be useful to the Fitbit team, who knows?

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Cool, I understand better now. You speak a lot of sense and I hope Fitbit takes note and appreciates your feedback.  

[SunsetRunner]

Like everyone thus far - I am getting really frustrated with the Ionic... I splurged and now am regretting it after just a few months.  I have had to delete and readd to my phone 3 times now as the syncing just stops.  

[MaginB]

Hello everyone! Thank you all for sharing your feedback we really appreciate you comments.

This definitely helps Fitbit to improve their products and services every comment and ideas are taken into consideration and help our development team to deliver a better experience to the users. Your patience and loyalty are very valuable. 

If you have a specific concern feel free to post it here so me and my team can assist you the best possible way. 

Catch you later! 

[R.A.STATES]

I started with the Fitbit charger and traded up to the blaze. And then to the ionic. The ionic

malfunctioned so BestBuy gave me an option

my money back or a New Ionic adidas.So I took the adidas.  After a few months the adidas died.  Best. Buy said sorry we don’t 

support Fitbit anymore.youll have to contact the Fitbit company to get your money back.  That was not a good option.  How about rolling the value of the ionic into an Apple Watch.which they did - the Apple Watch 4.  A

hundred bucks out of pocket-donedeal.  After  playing with it for a few days I was impressed.the Apple Watch is far ahead of the ionic. BestBuy didn’t even want the old Fitbit back. The Apple Watch is so far ahead of. Fitbit that fitbit will never catch up.

Robert States

[Mar1951]

I guess you had an Iphone cell. previously.....because I also was thinking
on an Apple whatch too, but it would be too expensive change also my
Samsung....good luck. Hope some day Apple would make a version of the watch
for android

[aaronmyers121]

thank you. similar story here. and you may have guided me to my next fitness tracker. thank you