Ionic suddenly stopped working and will not turn on.

[Darcella]

My ionic was working after i just charged it.  It and my phone saif full battery.  I looked at the time yesterday and nothing!! It's  black!   This was maybe 90  min after i put it on

Came home plugged it in and tried to restart it still nothing! 

Now what! Ive had it for 14 months,  no big issues.  Now i have a doorstop?

[polinsm]

same here dec 2017. RIP now.

[Bricked_Ionic]

Fitbit Ionic: Oct 2017 - Feb 2019

Rest in.... one undamaged piece, barely out of warranty --- and now an example of how Fitbit gets away with putting out unreliable products with no remorse for their customers. 40% is not enough to keep me as a customer.

I MISS MY PEBBLE...

[Mindmelder]

Thanks for your info.  I called back and got them to issue a replacement for me. 

[Mindmelder]

I called back and they agreed to replace mine.  Thanks for the info

[polinsm]

Let us all file complaint to Bureau for consumer protection so company like this cant get away with this kind of very poor quality product.

[SunsetRunner]

Well I called and was basically told because I left the Ionic on charge longer then three hours that goes against their best practices. I will be deleting my account and the rest of the accounts my family members have with fitbit. Hello Apple Watch, goodbye Fitbit

[madgrizzle]

3 hours and warranty invalid?  You have to be kidding.

[SunsetRunner]

Yeah I wasn't thrilled about the 3 hour charge thing. The watch was actually out of warranty in Nov 2018. If you decide you had enough with Fitbit make sure to delete your account and any apps that had access to it. If you don't it will allow Fitbit to continue to mine the data and do whatever they want with it.

[NatPoon]

I have used my Ionic for 15 months and it works properly. 

But then it suddenly stopped working and will not turn on too on 4/4/2019.

Therefore, I have emailed Fitbit about this problem.

Now I'm glad to announce that Fitbit is going to replace my Ionic. And it's an Ionic pebble which is quite nice since I can receive the same model of my tracker instead of another model. 

In addition, Fitbit had offered me two options which are 50% discount on new Fitbit tracker or get a replacement tracker of the same model I have now.

I'm very grateful to Fitbit for helping me with this.  

I wish all of you on this forum good luck and best wishes as you deal with your own situations. 🤓

[Clif]

I wish FitBit would have offered me a free replacement! Mine is also 15 months old,  and all they would offer is to offer a 40% discount for another Ionic, or, 25% off a different tracker.

[Kim_s777]

Same here. Same circumstances. Really disappointed in Fitbit. VERY
disappointed.

[Debby1752]

My first fitbit completely dies after just about 4 months.  I called customer service and was told to send it back.  I did, they notified me it was received by warehouse and then said that after it got to the right department an was checked I would be notified and it would be repaired or replaced.. It was lost in the warehouse somewhere, and after 6 weeks or so, I was finally going to be sent a replacement.  When the package came, you will never believe this...IT WAS EMPTY.  I had to send pictures of the empty package and went back and forth with so many people in customer service, and then finally after 2 months received a replacement. Fast forward just about 8 months later...a week and 1/2 ago, my fit needed charging, I charged it over night  All wss fine.  3 hours later, all I got on the watch face was a flashing fitbit logo.  Again called customer service, they tracked it and said it was not working.  I was offered a refurbished Ionic as a replacement.  I was very upset by this and was then advised that my warranty on that would only be until the time the warranty on my original replacement ran out at the start of July.  This was totally unacceptable to me so I felt I had no option but to take the 50% off another model as I NEVER WANT ANOTHER IONIC!  That was a $300 failure, and a piece of garbage.  I selected the versa for $200, was required to pay $100 plus tax, and shipping and handling.  I also opted to buy a 2 year insurance on this, so all together it was $159 to replace the Ionic piece of garbage.  This is my 6th total fitbit intotal due to upgrades and a total of 3 replacements in 4 years.  If this versa does not last I will not purchase another fitbit, I will get a n apple watch or a samsung smart watch.  They do all the same things, and have actual stores to assist their customers.  Good luck to all Ionis owners!.

[beachdreamer7]

@SunsetRunnerI haven't switched yet, but my husband switched to Garmin about the same time I got my (now dead) Ionic.  He's had no complaints about his and it's still going strong.  He has the previous Vivoactive style.  A few friends have been happy with their switch from Fitbit to Garmin as well.  Another is happy with her new Samsung watch (but she hasn't had it long enough to really compare longevity with my Ionic).  As for me, I'm going to buy a Garmin Vivoactive 3 Music.  

[SunsetRunner]

Hey Beach thanks, great to have a place to start seeking alternatives just had my many many but last chat with support so need a starting place. Is your husband happy with the Garmin app, tracking stats etc?

[Mindmelder]

I'm shocked and amazed reading all of this.  Why isn't this more widely known, never saw any of this in any review.  My previous smart watch was Apple which I bought about 2 years before I purchased my fitbit.  The Apple is still going strong, a very solid product.  I only switched to join walk/run groups with my friends.  If the replacement that I receive dies in 15 months or less, I'll go back.  Apple cost more out of the box but given the fact that they seem to last 2 to 3 times as long, they are less expensive to own and therefore a smarter purchase.  I just can't afford to buy new smart watches every 15 months at $300 a pop.

[madgrizzle]

It's all speculation on my part since they haven't said anything other than "here's 40% off a new one", but I suspect the failures are power related.  They have "best practices" that say to only charge the watch using a laptop only (low output power port) and apparently you are not supposed to leave it charging for more than 3 hours.  I speculate they recognized an issue with their design early (probably before releasing the product during testing) as these best practices have been around since the beginning and they figured it was better to release with the warnings than to the fix it.  But now more and more are starting to fail.. fortunately for fitbit, and unfortunately for its customers, the watches lasted longer than the 1-year warranty..  I offered them my watch if they want to pay for shipping to investigate the problem.  They didn't take me up on it, so, again I speculate, they may know what the problem is.  

Since the watch isn't repairable, it basically becomes something that needs to be sent through the electronics recycling program.  

[SunsetRunner]

Hey MadGrizzle, sounds like a reasonable speculation to me not the first company ever to know they have a defective product and take it to market anyway. To speculate further: by the shear # of people running into this issue just out of warranty do you think it is possible the engineers estimated that at the maximum 3 hours charging the product would normally last the 12 month warranty period...just? Nah they are not profit oriented just interested in helping ordinary folk get fit and healthy! Did you get another fitbit or go to something else?

[Clif]

I decided to not replace my Ionic. I just ordered the Versa with the optional 2 year warranty.  

[Ericws]

Where did you find this best practices info?

Sent from my iPhone

[madgrizzle]

https://help.fitbit.com/articles/en_US/Help_article/1799/?l=en_US&c=Topics%3ABattery&p=ionic&fs=Sear...

The three hour charge time came from someone's post a couple days ago that suggested warranty was invalid if left on charger for more than 3 hours.. I find that hard to believe though, but that's how I interpreted it.

I haven't replaced my watch since I'm still stinging from it's failure.  I won't buy a fitbit and that's a shame.  I got the Ionic because I read about the spO2 meter (I have sleep apnea) but didn't read the fine print well enough.  Now with the watch lasting only 15 months, I can't bring myself to buy another , even though I like it, considering I have no confidence it won't just fail again (let alone ever see the spO2 meter working).