Ionic vs, TomTom Spark

[dermbrian]

I own a TomTom Spark 2 with music.  My wife gave it to me Christmas 2015.  I'm replacing with the Ionic.  I just placed my order for the charcoal one on Amazon.  And I hope it has a real lifespan of 5+ years, minimum.  

Things that the Ionic has that the Spark does not:

1.  Low battery indicator on main screen.

2.  Magnetically mating charging cable..far less chance of damage to pins.

3.  Fitbit community (many friends visible in my 'guest' account).

4.  Activity reminder if <250 steps in an hour.

5.  Not one report of headphones cutting in and out (yet).

6.  Clockfaces.

7.  Multiple alarms, including by day of week, etc.

8.  Styled more like a traditional watch, less like a sports watch.

9.  Replacement bands at a reasonable price.

10.  Real time display of steps.  On the TomTom, you can't view steps while jogging, for example, and when you enter the screen that displays them, it shows the current number and doesn't increment until you check again.

11.  Gorilla glass.  My TomTom is *very* scratched up through normal 24-hour a day use.

I'm anxious to see how the mp3 transfer to the watch is actually done, and I hope the satellite acquisition time is reasonably short.  I hope the display is truly readable in the very bright Texas sunlight.

But most of all I hope a ship date shows up soon.

Brian

[bbarrera]

@dermbrian regarding music on Ionic, the manual is now online so there are some details.

pre-requisites:

- Must have Windows 10 or Mac computer connected to same WiFi as Ionic

- Download Fitbit app on Windows or Mac PC

process:

- create a playlist using iTunes or Windows Media Player

- put Ionic on charger

- open Fitbit app on your computer and on Win10 click Media > Personal Music, on Mac click Manage My Music

- open Music app on Ionic and tap Transfer Music button

Seems simple enough for a single playlist, with less than 300 songs and 2.5GB size. No other info, like "does the Fitbit app let me pick a playlist?" or "what happens if playlist(s) has(have) more than 300 songs or 2.5GB size?" The manual does references a help.fitbit.com article that doesn't exist yet, I'm sure that article will get published once the Ionic ships.

Manual:

https://staticcs.fitbit.com/content/assets/help/manuals/manual_ionic_en_US.pdf

[dermbrian]

I read the manual. The process sounds a little convoluted, but it was not straightforward on the spark either. I tend to let iTunes build a 2GB playlist of random songs from my 60 plus GB of music. I saw a video of a demonstration at a trade show where they had the ionic connected to a Bluetooth speaker instead of headphones. With any real kind of luck maybe I can pair it with my car stereo also. That would be handy.

[bbarrera]

Once you've updated a playlist, I'm hoping its as easy as:

- launch Fitbit app on computer, and (hopefully) pick the updated playlist with 2GB music

- put Ionic on charger

- launch Music app on Ionic and tap "Transfer Music" button

- wait for music to transfer, then put Ionic back on wrist

guess we will have to wait and see, the manual leaves out a lot of (important) details

[Cpelly]

Does the ionic have a virtual pacer option? The garmin has a virtual running buddy you can race against, I’m interested in the ionic but really love that feature to keep me on pace while I am running. Any insight would be so helpful. Thank you!

[bbarrera]

@Cpelly no, it does not have virtual pacer.

[Cpelly]

Thank you!

Sent from my iPhone