Screen and bezel misaligned

[Kwono1]

Update:

Screen and bezel do not align. There is a considerable gap between the bezel and the screen which some here have suggested may affect the waterproof quality of the watch. Two of my three friends who have bought the watch have returned them due to water damage. They believe that this is due to this misalignment. From what I have seen both in this community and in person, many Ionics suffer from this issue including the demonstration models at the stores.  Other problems have included an inability to connect to the Wi-Fi, or not having the Wallet tile available at all. 

Luckily, Fitbit support got into contact with me and have asked that I exchange the product. I have now returned the watch and await for another one. I highly recommend that you test your Ionic. Maximize your brightness setting and simply enter a very dark area. It is important to manually maximize your brightness as the auto sensor will automatically set it to dim. Should you see light escaping the bezel as per the photos, then I would recommend that you contact Fitbit support immediately. 

Moderator edit: updated title for clarity

[N8teGee]

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@Kwono1 wrote:

Mate you played the fitbit lottery and won. Congrats. You got what you paid for lol. 

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Yes it's definitely a lottery. At this point I really don't believe there are too many winners 

[N8teGee]

Reports of another dead Ionic after swimming. How many is that now?

[SunsetRunner]

OK, I'm going to have to watch this thread, as I too have light bleed along the top edge and, to a degree, the right edge.

Happy with my Ionic so far but I've not had a chance to test its waterproofness as I don't swim often and tend to give it a quick top up charge when showering (force of habit after using an Apple Watch).

[Kwono1]

I know  right...so glad I'm getting a refund. Well, so long as Fitbit don't say that this is 'something that won't affect the user' to protect its shares. 

[anoyce]

Yep I have the same problem have contacted Fitbit 3 days ago but still no response. I have had the charge hr and blaze and not had any problems in the past so have never had to contact support. Now I have a problem the support seems very slow to issue me with a watch with no defects in the mean time I have a £300 ionic gap watch. I understand that Fitbit moved their production in house maybe this is why we are having so many defective units.. Please solve this FITBIT! 

[Kwono1]

Oh that sucks. Looks like you might have a bit of a gap on the right hand side too. Can you imagine being the Quality Control guy at Fitbit right now. 

[N8teGee]

Personally I don't think the gap and lack of water resistance are related. Even if there wasn't a gap but the unit had a dodgy seal it would fail. As long as the seal is good it hopefully shouldn't matter about the gap. 

[Kwono1]

That's an interesting point and one that I think Fitbit will use to justify the misaligned screens. From my own personal experience, I know of 3 Fitbit Ionics that had misaligned screens. All of them died from some water related issue. I have not tried to do the water challenge myself. I just want my refund. 

[N8teGee]

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@Kwono1 wrote:

That's an interesting point and one that I think Fitbit will use to justify the misaligned screens. From my own personal experience, I know of 3 Fitbit Ionics that had misaligned screens. All of them died from some water related issue. I have not tried to do the water challenge myself. I just want my refund. 

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Yes that's fair enough that you want a refund. I was considering one myself after the issue with the second unit. Eventually I decided to settle for the third one which does have the gap and light shining through, but only at max brightness and very dark room. Hopefully I don't live to regret that decision, only time will tell.

I really want to see an Ionic teardown and see what the seal on the screen looks like and where it's located. 

[runwithnewmedia]

There any posts on the community about the Ionic suffering water damage (potentially due to this issue)? I took a quick look but didn’t see anything. 

[N8teGee]

Yes there have been reports of at least 4-5 water damaged units so far. @Kwono1 has friends that have suffered water damage. I also saw one thread earlier with someone saying their Ionic stopped working after swimming.

I mean the issues could be unrelated, but there is an issue none the less.

This is one of the threads https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Ionic/New-ionic/m-p/2236907#M6993

[runwithnewmedia]

Ah. That post title would explain why I couldn’t find it in the community. 

Thanks @N8teGee  

Hoping fitbit acknowledges this in some way soon. 

[mitwess]

that post is still erroneously conflating two separate issues, light bleed, a common issue with lcd screens and thus not a defect, and frame separation an uncommon issue which is a defect. in short if you have light bleed, it's normal, there is not an issue with your unit. if you have frame separation, get a replacement. 

[RiseAgainst]

@mitwess the light is bleeding from the gap in-between the bezle and the screen. It's not standard LCD light bleeding. This what everyone is talking about here. You can see in the photos the light bleeding is coming from the frame seperation. Mine has is it aswell. If light is coming through there then there is a good chance that water and dirt can get in there

[anoyce]

So Fitbit support have replied and asked me to send back for a replacement I did ask for the replacement to be checked for any issue's before they send to me they said > "I'm confident you shouldn't* have any further issue with the replacement Ionic" So fingers crossed I will update the community when I receive!

[mitwess]

@RiseAgainst i don't agree with your thesis. light bleed always shows up on the edges of the glass in most lcd screens. so the idea that light bleed at the screen edge equals a separation is erroneous in my opinion.  

[anoyce]

I had a light bleed at the edge where the separation was, I agree if there is no separation of screen and body you don't have a problem but most the time the two go together.

[RiseAgainst]

@mitwess light bleeding on LCDs is when the light on the LCD is bleeding on to the screen. Google light bleeding and you will see a lot of phones and TVs have light bleeding issues when on a dark screen. This is a completely different issue we are talking about here. The light is coming out of the gap in-between the bezel and and the glass so is a big issue since there is most likely not a water proof seal there

[RiseAgainst]

This is my ionic and the light isn't bleeding into the screen. The light is coming through a gap between the screen and the bezel. This isn't normal for any LCD product

[anoyce]

Yes I understand what your saying not LCD screen bleeding but screen alignment not fitting issues.. Can you see the gap without turning the lights off?