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

[Donnamt16]

mine shows light out of the top but I never checked this until after I had been swimming haha. works beautifully in the water I was very happy. should it fail in the next couple of years I expect fitbit will not leave me disappointed and they will sort the issue.

I will continue to shower and swim in my watch without too many concerns 🙂

[NellyG]

My glass looks even and level to me, but it does leak light at the top. I went swimming thismorning and it worked well and seems to still be all good. So the light leakage doesnt seem to be related tonwater leakage, at least on mine so far.

[SunsetRunner]

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@bbarrera wrote:

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Anybody else remember the Surge launch? Originally the Surge water resistance spec stated "Water resistant to 5ATM." Sometime around late Nov 2014 we got to see the webpage with specs. The first shipments were in December 2014. Then come the middle of January, the Surge water spec was updated to:

"Surge has been tested to 5 ATM meaning it is sweat, rain, and splash proof. However the device is not swim proof."

Fitbit official specs for Flex2 say that swim-proof is a water resistance of 100 meters. And Ionic is only water resistant to 50 meters (5 ATM). 

My concern, based on Fitbit's own words and previous actions, is that while Ionic will count laps it is not rated as swim-proof. 

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Man, that is one hell of a memory! On the basis of that factual archive trawl, yes, I too can see cause for concern. However, was the Surge ever marketed as swim-proof? Swimming is one of the Ionic's activities, albeit pool swimming. I think they are being a bit vague about open water swimming because of the risk of going deeper, ie snorkelling, surfing, where the increased activity at a slightly deeper depth may exceed the 5ATM pressure.

[N8teGee]

I was always under the impression that it isn't recommended to swim in a watch that's rated to 50m? All the information I find online regarding this seems to be conflicting though.

Im glad there are reports of people with the light leakage using the watch successfully in the water. It would be helpful if these people could also post a picture of the light leakage/gap. 

[NellyG]

Will try and get one later when it is dark! 

[runwithnewmedia]

@N8teGee I started a thread a few weeks ago about the water proofing and my general concern of swimming with a 50m rating. Fitbit assured me that water damage was covered under the warranty. 

Will edit this post post in a second and link out to the thread. 

Here it is: https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Ionic/50M-Water-Resistance-Clarification/m-p/2169750#M458

[N8teGee]

@runwithnewmedia Interesting thread, thanks. So it would seem even fitbit are offering conflicting answers, as in one of the mods stating IPX7.

I have no doubt about fitbit replacing water damaged devices under warranty though, as we've already seen people making such claims. 

[NellyG]

Here is an awful out of focus photo, but you can see the light leakage. I couldnt get a better shot of it lol

[bbarrera]

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lostlogik wrote: 

Man, that is one hell of a memory! On the basis of that factual archive trawl, yes, I too can see cause for concern.

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@SunsetRunner I lived it, it wasn't a trawl. After returning the Force under recall in Sept 2014, the Surge launch a few months later was exciting because of 5ATM rating (we have a pool). A buddy ditched his Polar and bought Surge in December, and I held out because a) launched without bike tracking mode, and b) my experience with Flex/Force bands was they had premature wear after 3 months (and I work at desk all day). Then Fitbit surprised everyone in January with the "5ATM but you can't swim with it" bombshell, to this day my buddy still blames me for getting him pumped up about Surge. 

The two major fitness vendor explicitly support swimming at 5ATM / 50 meters:

http://www.garmin.com/en-US/legal/waterrating

https://support.polar.com/us-en/support/Polar_Products_in_Water_Environment

and even smartwatch vendors support swimming at 5ATM/50m:

https://support.apple.com/kb/SP766

Everyone just assumed Surge supported swimming when Surge specs (late Nov 2014 IIRC) showed 5ATM/50m water resistance. But then in January Fitbit clarified it was not suitable for swimming. Another Surge surprise - I'm a cyclist and saw Surge ads in Bicycling magazine in December 2014 (again getting me pumped up). But no bike tracking mode for a long long time after launch.

So yeah, I'm a little cautious and would like to see Fitbit officially support swimming by putting swim-proof into Ionic specs. Not a fan of "call support and they will help you sort it out" position.

[SunsetRunner]

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@bbarrera wrote:

So yeah, I'm a little cautious and would like to see Fitbit officially support swimming by putting swim-proof into Ionic specs. Not a fan of "call support and they will help you sort it out" position.

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The best they give is 

Water Resistant up to 50 M and Tracks Swims
Wear your watch in the pool or rain and use it to track swimming workouts with stats like lap counting, duration and calories burned.

Explicitly stating use it in a pool (note also, excluding open water reference).

[Paul201065]

Went swimming with mine Sunday still working fine

[runwithnewmedia]

@Paul201065 Looks like your Ionic is perfect, Paul. Definitely not exhibiting any of the gap problems a lot of us have. 

[Paul201065]

I couldnt see any even had a look at it under 7x magnification didnt even know about this problem till after i had been swimming with it.mine came from argos only got it last friday as an upgrade from surge.

[bbarrera]

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@SunsetRunner wrote:

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The best they give is 

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@SunsetRunner I couldn't find that listed in any spec. So confusing.

Flex 2 confusion:

manual specs: "Water Resistant Swim proof up to 50m."

web specs: "Fitbit Flex 2 is the first swim-proof device from Fitbit, meaning it is water resistant to 100 meters."

hmm, conflicting statements. Which is it?

Ionic confusion:

manual specs: "Water resistant up to 50 meters"

web specs 1: "Fitbit Ionic is water-resistant up to 50 meters and is sweat, rain and splash-proof."

web specs 2: "Fitbit Ionic is water resistant to 50 meters. After swimming or getting the band wet, we recommend drying the band because, as with any wearable device, it's best for your skin if the band is clean and dry. We do not recommend wearing Ionic in a hot tub or sauna."

All of the above were taken from specs.

[SunsetRunner]

@bbarrera It’s on one of the pages of specs on the Fitbit product pages https://www.fitbit.com/uk/shop/ionic

Your web specs 2 I can understand, as that, to me at least, is referring more to the need to keep the band dry, thus preventing the skin-rot claims prevalent in previous years, than whether you can swim with the thing.

The others, well to be fair, 50m is about as good as rain, splash and sweat resistant. The problem comes with defining swimming. Some people think if it says swimming they can go surfing, as that entails recreation in water, or snorkelling, as again, mucking about in water. But 5atm static is pretty weak really and any serious activity will exceed that. In a pool, less so, as if you’re swimming laps, it’s probably low depth/pressure stuff but I wouldn’t dive with it. 

I think Fitbit will have a problem determining when water damage is from genuine faulty device where leakage occurred in pool swim versus someone who had a weekend of surfing/snorkelling and exceeded the tolerances. 

They would’ve done better with 10atm but those start getting chunky.

[bbarrera]

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@SunsetRunner wrote:

The others, well to be fair, 50m is about as good as rain, splash and sweat resistant.

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Disagree. 50m is swim-proof for other vendors - they have been shipping wearables with waterproofing for years. Fitbit is entering the space and not matching what is commonly accepted. My interpretation of that - Fitbit doesn't have faith in their level of waterproofing (gaskets, seals, etc), otherwise Ionic would clearly be labeled as swim-proof, just like Flex 2.

[SunsetRunner]

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@bbarrera wrote:

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@SunsetRunner wrote:

The others, well to be fair, 50m is about as good as rain, splash and sweat resistant.

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Disagree. 50m is swim-proof for other vendors - they have been shipping wearables with waterproofing for years. Fitbit is entering the space and not matching what is commonly accepted. My interpretation of that - Fitbit doesn't have faith in their level of waterproofing (gaskets, seals, etc), otherwise Ionic would clearly be labeled as swim-proof, just like Flex 2.

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My mistake - I meant to put in swimming into the list, hence the follow up difficulty in defining swimming. I agree that Fitbit need to stand by their product

[bbarrera]

Fitbit has created spec confusion, its really disappointing for "the leading global wearables brand." Hoping AllisonFitbit will come back and clear things up, and the website and manuals are updated so everything agrees (or everything points to one location for the info).

[Dirk74]

50 m waterproof doesn't mean you can dive that deep. Many manufacturers consider at least 100 m waterproof for swimming and diving for hours.

But I think it's not a big issue with the Ionic as long as you are not a professional swimmer and jump in the water from the edge of the pool or even worse from the diving tower. Then the pressure is likely to exceed 5 atm.

I consider myself a performance swimmer (not top-class of course) and had the TomTom Spark 3 to track my excercises. It was labelled 40 m waterproof and I never had any issues. But honestly, I never jumped into the pool.

So personally I don't worry about the gap being a reason for a possible leakage. It's more a cosmetic issue for me and I don't like it as it makes an expensive watch looking cheap.

I'm not a native english speaker, so you like to read this article (or any other) that explains it:

Water resistance

(See the table of water resistant ratings)

[N8teGee]

That's a good point actually. I wonder if the people with failed units might have dived in from the side of the pool or a diving board, that could certainly compromise the seals.