I see there are quite a number of other Fitbit Ionic users with syncing issues. These are dating back to last autumn, most of them seemingly unresolved, at least according to what I can find in the various threads.
I have been a loyal, reasonably happy Fitbit user, going back several years to my Fitbit One, followed by a Surge for a couple years (had to replace it twice due to the band wearing out, but it basically worked fine for the duration of its use), followed by a Charge 2 for the last year (had to replace the first one rather early, but the replacement worked fine). I recently purchased and started using an Ionic, and while I really like its features, it has me ready to drop Fitbit forever due to its syncing failures, which seem pervasive within the customer base, and seem to be mostly unresolved after several months.
I purchased my Ionic a couple weeks ago, and after the initial setup it worked fine, including syncing, for the first couple days. Then it stopped syncing with my Windows phone. After attempting several of the suggestions on my own, I contacted Fitbit support. Together we walked through the various steps, all to no avail at first. This included turning Ionic off and on, re-pairing with the phone,reinstalling phone app and re-pairing, dropping the Ionic from my account, adding it back, doing a complete factory reset, yada yada. Eventually we got it to sync with my tablet, and I thought the problem was fixed. But no, it only synced until sometime the next day or so, when it began failing to sync again.
I walked through many of the steps again, and also tried syncing with my Windows laptop. I eventually got it to sync with the laptop, but I knew it was not truly fixed because I still could not sync with either my phone or my tablet (and yes, I made sure that Bluetooth was only enabled on one of my Windows devices at a time).
And, after a couple days, it stopped syncing even with my Windows laptop, and here I sit over a week later, with no successful sync since January 30. I even tried working with Fitbit support again yesterday, but although they tried to be helpful, there was no success. They just walked me through the same steps I had already tried. His last suggestion was to ask whether I could "find an Android or iOS device to try to pair with", just as a test to see whether my three Windows devices ... three separate devices, mind you ... might be the problem. I told him (a) all three devices worked fine with my Charge 2 prior to my Ionic purchase, and (b) there are plenty of Android and iOS users reporting the same syncing issues. It's clearly a Fitbit issue. He basically agreed, and said "development is working on it".
It's really a pretty pathetic situation that has apparently been going on for months. I do not fault Fitbit support at all. Those poor people are caught in the middle. But Fitbit management ought to be ashamed of themselves for this horrible debacle.
I am about to try another factory reset, drop and re-add to my account, etc, as a last ditch effort. Of course, I will lose all my stats for the past 8 days, but I have to try something. One other user apparently tried this strategy for a while, and the reset seemed to work for him, but only for a few days and then it would fail again.
I am going to try it again, myself, and if it fails again, then I will reluctantly return the Ionic under the warranty period. As I said, I really like the device itself. But it's pretty useless if I can't track my stats.
I'm 63 years old. I've been averaging over 20,000 steps a day since August, with a number of days over 30,000, and a few over 40,000. I've lost over 40 pounds. My resting heart rate has dropped from mid 70s to low 60s/high 50s. My blood pressure has dropped from chronically high to normal. I'm in the best shape I've been in since my early 30's, and tracking my stats over time has played a significant part in that. If Fitbit is now going to talk a great game but deliver poorly on it, then I'll take my game somewhere else where they remember how to treat their customers.
