My experience with Ionic

[Drewster0917]

I have had Fitbit devices for years. I started with the Fitbit Force that was recalled, moved on to the Charge, the Blaze and finally for the past couple years, the Ionic. I also own the Fitbit Scale, Aria.

This morning at 6:45AM my Ionic died. After speaking with customer service 3 times It was decided that my Ionic is actually DEAD and that I needed to buy a new device. Fitbit sent me an email with a 25% off promotion on a new device from Fitbit.com.  However, it is not applicable to the new Charge 4. Because I backpack and hike in the mountains, I we a device with built-in GPS; this limits me to the Ionic and Charge 4. After a very frustrating conversation with a Supervisor from a call center in the Caribbean, I determined that the supervisor could not make an exception to the limitation of the Charge 4 and that I am not able to speak to a supervisor/manager who could make that exception. The supervisors are not empowered to handle customer service issues/requests and that I could not escalate it any further myself.

I’ve invested my entire exercise health monitoring in this company, and they could care less if I left them to go to Apple or Garmin. It’s very disappointing. Fitbit is losing a long-term customer. 

My case number is 35358553

Moderator Edit: Clarified subject

[Odyssey13]

Hi @Drewster0917  I've been around the forums for more than six years and Fitbit's policy has been the same of not allowing the newest device to be part of the discount. I'm sorry this happened to you, but these devices do die. The community can't really help you with this issue. 

[giugiubee]

I had problems with the ionic from day one. It’s obvious they realized it was bad and were focused on the Sense. The wristband contained a choking hazard, and they couldn’t just give more replacement metal pieces (the choking hazard, but necessary for band) to click the band together, I had to get new bands. They finally sent me one, but they wouldn’t give one for each of the two sizes, both of which had the metal pieces lost. Within 3 weeks of getting it, the metal piece fell off again. Meaning this was a shoddy product and they knew it. I didn’t so much on non fitbit bands. It was a money pit. The sense seems nice, but now that Google has bought Fitbit, the sense will be outdated. But to your point you are right, the customer service for this item was AWFUL DREADFUL. Some techs didn’t even know the model. They did literally zero, including never answering questions on the Fitbit community forum, for the Ionic. Agents would say just post on there. Not useful at all. And it’s disappointing. I think they knew very early on that this model was going to not last long. I think once they roller it out the attention was firmly with new products, at the the expense of the Ionic.

[giugiubee]

They also don’t care about your specific needs, as you indicate in what they offered you. 

[Roundylb]

Does make one wonder if they killed it off on purpose with the latest update. It’s certainly done in more than mine judging from the Forum. Too bad! I liked the app and could figure it out. (I’m old and these things become important.) After the last unhelpful suggestion from “customer service”, I’m done.