Impressions after almost two weeks

[jresnick]

I purchased the Ionic on the day it went on sale.  I have lived with it for almost two weeks and am very conflicted on whether I am going to keep it.  I came from owning a Pebble Time.  There are several base line things a supposed smart watch should do that the Ionic simply doesn't:

1.  You should at the very least be able to reply to texts with canned messages.

2.  The screen should automatically light up when a text or phone call comes in.  This may not seem like a big deal but the screen does not come on 50% of the time when I raise my wrist; really annoying.

3.  The device could have had a speaker and the ability to dictate answers to texts just like the Pebble Time did (why did they buy their assets if they weren't going to leverage them)

4.  Your events/appointments should come up as a banner on the bottom of the screen just like they did on the Pebble Time.

5.  Complete lack of great apps at launch which is really disappointing.

On the positive side, the Ionic is very light and comfortable to wear all the time.  The multi day use without charging is probably its greatest feature.  Fitbit advertising the Ionic as a smart watch is farily misleading as there is little about it that is "smart".  Still not sure why they didn't incorporate some of the greatest features of the Pebble Time.

I'm fairly certain that firmware and software updates can fix some of these problems. I have been toying with taking it back and getting an Apple Watch 3, but the reality of having to charge it every night seems more annoying than the annoying aspects of the Ionic.  I also found the Apple Watch to be heavier than the Ionic and not that comfortable to wear.  I have the rest of today to decide if I want to take the Ionic back.

[Shadowolf]

There it is, “investors” again. The name of the game is investors and portfolios, eg, “monied interests”. Just how deeply are we buried in the haves’ and have nots’. In our mutual and varied pasts better ideas have perpetually been leveraged out of the general public’s ability to pay and into the hands that own almost everything else. This paradigm will shift some day but never too soon.

Substitute “muscle bound gym rats” for “muscular money bound investor rats” and we’ll be closer to the truth.

Our entire world monetary system is broken. Almost everyone’s father used to say “ the rich get richer while the poor get poorer” there’s truth in that. The current administration is underscoring exactly this every single day. It’s become a fact of life even more than in our fathers time.

For those whose hands are on the receiving end at the expense of others, I’d prefer not to be in your well heeled shoes. Personally I could care less whether Fitbit continues or not but if they should fail they’ll take down with them two very original but additional standalone companies (Pebble&Vector) that were better every day at what they did by far than Fitbit ever was. If that isn’t so, why did they bother to buy two fledgling companies who were better at “the game” than they were. The stock market showed us all the answer over 2015/2016, Fitbit was going down fast, faster than the other two. Health based apps and all the worlds super athletes weren’t enough to keep Fitbit afloat. It required and acquired two popular small smartwatch companies to keep from going under since musculature alone wasn’t enough. All us oldies pity all you stunning super-hot Daddies and Mommies. All the kings men and women thought everybody wanted one of their very own with which to play. Yeah that includes me too but what the hell! Don’t kid yourselves boys and girls, it’s more about physical bragging rights, sex and cute, clever toys than it is about super health though it might eventually encompass something more adult.

For those who bought into the muscle bound monied, healthy, wealthy but seldom wise game, even you are going to follow suit and come down our paths in life. You too shall grow old and frail, fall into poor health and eventually become victims of the system(s) you set up. You own it now at our expense though shortly it shall own you too. No one gets a free ( or expensive) ride. Taking down the original owners and their companies was a bad and possibly costly mistake. Flaunt it while you got it ‘cause it ain’t gonna last.

Furthermore you, Fitbit, took (virtually stole) these companies but did nothing to aid your “lesser” fellows that did not in some way bring you a hopefully substantial profit. (Forget health that’s B.S., money was and is the name of the game). It was a come on con game.

At the end of this race why should anyone or anything care about Fitbit or its adherents when those cold, cloudy, gray days arrive for you as they have for so many of us?
What have you freely given us or anyone, another $300 toy? That’s not free and surely there were enough of those already. Give back what you so easily took from us and we’ll pass on into the night carrying our pretty little bright ‘n shinny wristwatch thingies.
Until then your own profit portfolio will consume you absolutely just as it already has us.
For those who follow any self-help text, in paraphrase, “...whatever you do to the least [esteemed] of these you’ve done also to me”.....”do to others only that which you would have them do to you...do what you will but harm none”.

We’re all guilty, no one is innocent, there are no free rides.
It’s an unfortunate sociologic truth, this beating each other up to catch the brass ring. Stupid and childish.
Unless we change it will be the epitaph written on the headstones of our specie.
G’day

Sent from my iPhone

[Crazy-Fritter]

We can't change, and as a species, as well as individuals, we all know where this train is heading. We just choose to buy shiny new things to distract us, or tell ourselves it won't happen in our lifetime, the science and facts are wrong, my momma's calling blah blah blah.

It's funny in a very sad way....... watching the smartest creatures on the planet bury their collective heads in the sand......... incredible really. 

It's like little Johnny covering his head with the sheet because that will make him magically invisible to whatever is stalking him in his bedroom 😉

[pedris]

My impressions after about 6 weeks of use:

Fitness tracking - very good.

Sports: running / cycling / swimming - acceptable to poor - stopped working on my first and only swim with it (data lost and irretrievable), running metrics are limited (e.g. no cadence) and inaccurate (instantaneous pace and kilometre notifications - surprisingly, my Surge was better here). This is the main reason I bought the Ionic and my biggest disappointment.

Smartwatch features - poor - limited, buggy and unreliable, but this will hopefully improve as Fitbit rolls out updates and additional services. Fingers crossed!

[Venkats]

@pedris

You said :

"Fitness tracking - very good.

Sports: running / cycling / swimming - acceptable to poor - stopped working on my first and only swim with it (data lost and irretrievable), running metrics are limited (e.g. no cadence) and inaccurate"

Isn't it contradicting ?  What do you consider as fitness tracking in the first sentence that is not covered by some form or the other in your next statement. 

[bbarrera]

---

@Venkats wrote:

Isn't it contradicting ?  What do you consider as fitness tracking in the first sentence that is not covered by some form or the other in your next statement.  

---

I'll take a crack at clarifying, fitness and activity tracking are often used synonymously even though what Fitbit does is really activity and health tracking.

Start with the dictionary:

- fitness: "the quality of being suitable to fulfill a particular role or task"

- activity: "a thing that a person or group has done"

Fitbit does a good job at:

- activity tracking: basic info including activity type, duration, and calories

- health/wellbeing info tracking: basic info on water consumption, RHR, amount of sleep, overall activity level

Fitness for a particular sport doesn't really exist in the Fitbit world. Sport watch vendors Garmin/Polar/Suuntu are good at fitness tracking. Fitness platforms like Strava and TrainingPeaks are also good at fitness tracking.

[Shadowolf]

Interesting. A good and considerably shorter interpretation of what I was trying to get across.

I wish we were a little more cognizant, would allow ourselves be more so of the road ahead. Instead we’re like sheep/cattle, ignorant of the fact, denying the inevitable when it comes to our ultimate destination.

Sent from my iPhone

[Shadowolf]

I’ve written some pretty hostile stuff about the Fitbit Ionic. Actually it wasn’t about Ionic anyway it was about the loss, the death of Pebble.
In way of a late apology I’m still going to offer one.
I’m sorry but Pebble is dead LONG LIVE PEBBLE!
I’d like to see its successor, the Ionic, succeed. It just needs a huge push by us former Pebble devotees. Ionic isn’t a Pebble nor will it ever be. It isn’t an Apple Watch either and shouldn't try but innovation can make it far better than it presently is. I’m not a developer nor an innovator. The approximate 40% Pebble employees that were hired by Fitbit, that’s their job now.
You guys get busy and make all us Pebblers proud. Turn Ionic around and recreate a good reliable mix of a true full blown smartwatch and tracker. Add the stuff that isn’t there but should be.
Take all our anti-Fitbit criticism, use what suggestions are good and possible and recreate Ionic; it can be done. I’m not returning mine and not shoving it in the sock drawer but keeping it in the hope that it can be great.
Good luck. Let’s end this stupid war of words and create instead.
Peace!


Sent from my iPhone