My Ionic experience after 10 days ownership

[Nobblytanner]

I have had Fitbit Ionic for around 10 days, and whilst the concept is good, the product is simply not fit for purpose.
Specifically:
- sync crashes all the time, esp. if you turn on all-day sync function
- notifications don't work properly
- heat rate sensor is wildly inaccurate (compared to Garmin worn at the same time!)

Smaller but just as irritating are things like the Strava app which does not sync reliably, even though the data is captured, as well as the strap being unnecessarily fiddly to buckle.

Finally, at the time of launch, Fitbit were unable to deliver any music streaming app in UK (unlike the US) or Wallet functionality in UK (available on the Ionic in US and Canada) - it all adds up to a product that was rushed out in advance of Apple Watch3 and in time for Christmas, when it is still full of bugs and simply not ready yet.

In time, these issues may resolve themselves, although as an ex-Pebble owner (who Fitbit bought in order to create their own smartwatch), these syncing issues are all too familiar.

My Ionic is heading back to Fitbit for a refund - I advise not buying this product for 6-9 months minimum until it is sorted out.

[johneric8]

You guys have echoed some of my concerns as well..    Half the time when I raise my wrist up it doesnt wake up.. I'm sitting at my desk as I type this and the first couple of times I raised up naturally to look at it the face stayed black..     They really need to fix this..

Also,  even more bothersome is having to constantly tap on the glass or try and push button to wake up watch when I'm spinning..  I do hour long sessions and would love to just glance down without having to hit the darn thing...  Is there anyway they can give us an option to leave on during exercise?  I understand why they don't because of battery, but I believe taking away what we could do with the surge is bad for business...

Last but not least,  I'm not happy about not being able to import custom playlist from my pandora premium account.  The only thing the ionic will accept is a station which houses whatever music it wants to play you...   The only way to get custom music in your watch is to use mp3's that you own!! LOL..  I mean who does that anymore?   I'm very disappointed in this part of the watch and fitbit in general..  I subscribed to pandora thinking I was going to be able to listen to my custom playlist online and this option isn't even supported..    I'm really angry honestly...

[hs100789]

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@johneric8 wrote:

Also,  even more bothersome is having to constantly tap on the glass or try and push button to wake up watch when I'm spinning..  I do hour long sessions and would love to just glance down without having to hit the darn thing...  Is there anyway they can give us an option to leave on during exercise?  I understand why they don't because of battery, but I believe taking away what we could do with the surge is bad for business...

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Every exercise that I've looked at, when you go into the settings, there is an option to leave the screen on.

It's at the bottom of the list but there is a 'Always-On Screen' setting.

[bbarrera]

@johneric8 there is an exercise option to leave the display on. This is only for exercise, but would solve that problem for you.

[johneric8]

sweet my friends..  This will help so much!!!   Is that located in App?

[bbarrera]

on the watch. And I hear you about Pandora (everyone uses Spotify or Apple Music), and I had the same issue with raise-to-wake on Blaze.

[johneric8]

Yep,  honestly I'm bent out of shape a little bit in regards to the offline music...  I told my wife a year and a half ago I was so eagerly waiting for watches to implement offline playlist via spotify,  so naturally when I heard my surge was being replaced by a watch that could do this with Pandora,   I cancelled my beloved spotify account JUST so I could make custom playlist with pandora and put in my watch...   I'm sure you can imagine how let down I was to find out I can only sync stations into my watch and custom offline playlist via pandora aren't allowed!     Don't get me wrong I dig the watch,  it's a huge step up,  so I'm happy,  but man they gotta get with the new technology,  offering pandora as an option is a bit of joke really...  I guess it's good for pandora though because they got my business for the time being,  but there premium subscription option is horrible because it doesn't even work on a PC...    So if I'm working at my office I can't listen to what I want to listen to via pandora on my PC,  the only option I have is a station..  If i want to utilize my premium account it all has to be done via cell phone/android....   Seems a bit behind the times when spotify offers it on PC and phone...

[bbarrera]

Samsung managed to land Spotify offline on their wearables (wouldn't surprise me if Samsung paid more $$$ and negotiated an exclusive for a year).

[hs100789]

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@bbarrera wrote:

And I hear you about Pandora (everyone uses Spotify or Apple Music)

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I'm so tired of hearing that *everyone* uses Spotify. Guess what, not *everyone* uses Spotify. I LOVE Pandora and couldn't be happier that FitBit offers it on the Ionic.

(I'm also one of those people that *gasp!* buys MP3s. I want to actually own my music and not just rent it.)

Okay, sorry. End of rant. I'm just so sick of people bashing Pandora.

[launton]

I use Amazon music and Google play so I'll probably never get those. Glad I can add my own

[bbarrera]

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@hs100789 wrote:

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(I'm also one of those people that *gasp!* buys MP3s. I want to actually own my music and not just rent it.)

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Me too!

[Crissie2389]

I'm going to be completely honest while I'm not experiencing some issues I am kind of fed up with the music syncing, I've spent all day attempting to get the watch to just CONNECT to my wifi to sync my music to it and it won't even when plugged in on the charger and sitting ON TOP of the wi-fi router which yes is a 2.4 GHz router. 

This is a $300 "smart" watch that cannot even get music between the watch and my Mac in any kind of easy manner, at least with an Apple watch you could simply sync between iTunes and not have to go through 15 other steps first. I've gone through about 20 threads here and tried tons of fixes and absolutely none of them have worked. This is one of the MAIN "new" features and I am unable to even get it to work, it was also one of the main reasons I wanted this rather than just staying with my Charge HR that and the water proof capabilities and I cannot even get it work

I'm also getting notifications but they are sporadic they may come through seamlessly for a couple hours then I miss them for 30 minutes and go to my phone to see those notifications sitting there that weren't pushed through. 

[SunsetRunner]

I’ve had the Ionic about 10 Days too and I love it.  It has worked perfectly for me.  

The only issue I had initially was loading music on the watch.  Once that trial was past, it was smooth sailing.  I connected a pair of Bluetooth headphones (I broke down and bought a different pair because the Flyer is still back ordered 4-5 Weeks) and took it for a few runs.  Just great!  Here in the US, Fitbit Pay works fine, as does the Starbucks app.  I took Strava off, so I don’t know about that.  The band started feeling better after a week and I bought some extra bands on Amazon.  Still waiting for my sports band.

I moved to this from the Apple Watch.  I‘m happy with the purchase.  Much simpler interface (both the watch and the app) and I find I’m not fiddling with it all the time.  I receive a lot of texts and calls that I don’t want to deal with all the time.  It allows me to focus on my work and still not miss anything important.  I also find the fitness goals and challenges with friends more motivating.  Look forward to future developments with this watch.

[SunsetRunner]

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@bbarrera wrote:

on the watch. And I hear you about Pandora (everyone uses Spotify or Apple Music), and I had the same issue with raise-to-wake on Blaze.

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Nope, I'm an Amazon Prime user, so the use of their music seemed like a no brainer. Stopped using Spotify a good while back now.

[SmyrnaSoccerRef]

This thread is good, (mostly) respectful dialog and debate.  Agree with some of the comments, and disagree with others, and that's okay.  For me, here's my assessment after a week and a half:

Pros:

1. Syncing works consistently for me.  No issues at all. (Galaxy S7, and Windows 10 PC)

2. Music works mostly good.  Took over an hour to download ~140 MP3s.  Occasionally the audio pixelates when I launch Music, but I just have to stop and play 1-2 times and it plays smoothly.

3. GPS works great.

4. Weather app is good for my needs.

5. Wrist flip to display works well.

6. Battery life is heavenly.

7. Multiple Clock faces. Settled on "Arc" after trying a few, and it's perfect for me.

8. Text notifications are good.  I have no need or desire to reply to texts from my watch.

9. Received my sport band yesterday.  Much more flexible and lighter than the stock band that came with the watch.

Cons:

1. Alarms function stopped working after first day.  Waiting for new firmware update for hopeful fix.

2. I disabled e-mail notifications from Outlook and Android Mail apps. I get over 200 e-mails per day, so notifications are useless for me.  For some reason, e-mail notifications have spontaneously re-activated 3 times, and I've had to go back into the Fitbit Android app to un-check e-mail notifications.

3. I haven't enabled Wallet yet due to (1) limited number of banks thus far, and (2) I do not want to have to enter PIN every time I want to use the watch for non-Wallet functions.

[JettleMania]

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@SunsetRunner wrote:

There are definitely issues for the IOS users who have updated their iPhones and iPads to IOS 11. And it's not just problems with the Fitbit app. There are complaints of many other apps crashing or simply not working as they did before the IOS update.

To try to resolve some of the issues, please make sure your IOS device is updated to the latest version of IOS 11. Apple has already issued 2 updates to correct bugs in the original IOS 11.  

Also, make sure your Fitbit app is updated to the latest version. Fitbit is trying feverishly to keep up with the IOS changes. 

I wish I could offer a fix-all solution. And I'm sorry for all the problems everyone is having. I purposely did not update my iPhone or my iPads yet because this is not the first time Apple has put the burden of quality control on the outside developers and the end users.  But rest assured, it will all come together. 

P.S. I'm not speaking "officially" for Fitbit. I'm speaking for myself, based on my 20+ years experience in Customer Support for a couple major companies, answering questions and developing classes on both IOS and PC. I'm a huge Fitbit fan (as you can probably tell). I'm also a big Apple fan and own 2 iPads and an iPhone. But Apple did not do well with this rollout, IMHO. 

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Situation normal for just about every high-tech consumer device company. Hang in there, people. I agree, it'll come together!  I'm a former MS Band and former Garmin vivoactive HR customer and what Fitbit has done with Ionic (IMHO) surpasses both in terms of fit and finish. I'm confident they'll resolve the software issues (though I haven't personally experienced any of them).

[SunsetRunner]

@SmyrnaSoccerRef  Posted: This thread is good, (mostly) respectful dialog and debate. Agree with some of the comments, and disagree with others, and that's okay.

And that, my friend, is exactly why we have these forums! Well said! 

[SunsetRunner]

I agree, @hs100789. I've been a loyal Pandora user for as long as it has been out. I've been able to create my own stations and "train" them to play the music I like, not just what its algorithms think I would like. My Flyer headphones are due to be delivered today. (Crossing my fingers.) I can't wait to try them out, listening to Pandora. I'm also planning to try out two other features -- downloading a couple Pandora stations for off line listening -- and the ability to connect two devices to the Flyer's Bluetooth. It would be great to have both the Ionic and my iPhone 6 connected. 

Stay tuned. I'll report back. 

[johneric8]

@hs100789 wrote:

@bbarrera wrote:

And I hear you about Pandora (everyone uses Spotify or Apple Music)

I'm so tired of hearing that *everyone* uses Spotify. Guess what, not *everyone* uses Spotify. I LOVE Pandora and couldn't be happier that FitBit offers it on the Ionic.

(I'm also one of those people that *gasp!* buys MP3s. I want to actually own my music and not just rent it.)

Okay, sorry. End of rant. I'm just so sick of people bashing Pandora.

 I don't think it's people hating on Pandora as much as it is just being realistic with the percentages that use each service.  Per Business insider,   as of June 2017 spotify has 140 million subscribers while pandora has 81 million.   Plus,  the one thing you're forgetting is that the UK because of restrictions has no access to pandora..   So what you might call bashing is really just realism in what is going on and what we're dealing with.   Sometimes,  we are fans of what we're use to,  I get that,  in fact I used pandora 7 years ago when it was the go to but other companies like Spotify far surpassed their offerings in terms of tweakability and customization...    I'm very picky with what music I listen to so when pandora decides it wants to throw in a green day song into my metal playlist that is not what I'm looking for in a service,  nor when I'm paying a fee I don't want to have to take take to give a thumbs up or down to customize a station..  I only use it when I work out so what good does thumbs up and down do me anyhow?

I recognize that pandora is better than nothing,  but it's far from what we thought we were getting.  I'm quite sure that most hardcore athletes such as myself whom rely on their music to push them through grueling workouts what to be taking a chance with mill vanilli popping up in the middle of intervals..

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[Baltoscott]

@SmyrnaSoccerRef said:

"3. I haven't enabled Wallet yet due to (1) limited number of banks thus far, and (2) I do not want to have to enter PIN every time I want to use the watch for non-Wallet functions."

I added AMEX to the wallet and find that I have to enter the PIN once if I've taken the watch off my wrist and then put it back on (it pops up when I swipe from the main screen).  There may have been a couple of other random instances (I wasn't paying attention what I was doing before the screen popped up, and I may have taken the watch off my arm and put it back on).  I do not have to enter the PIN every time I want to use the pay feature, which is what I thought was going to happen when I set the PIN up.

[bbarrera]

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@johneric8 wrote:

I don't think it's people hating on Pandora as much as it is just being realistic with the percentages that use each service.

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Paid subscribers:

60 million - Spotify

30 million - Apple Music

5 million - Pandora

The number of free users is higher.