This is why me and three of my friends are sending back our Ionics to Amazon this week...

[johneric8]

No explanation needed...  Not because it's a better watch,  it's because the gear integrates Spotify in the coolest and most useful of ways..  What do other spotify lovers think about this?

[EvKo]

Oh boy this looks ugly to me! Then again, you can't argue with taste...  If you like it, I am sure you will enjoy it. Good luck with it!

Happy fitbiting!

[WavyDavey]

If Spotify is your highest priority for a smart watch, I could see the appeal.

Regardless of what you do with the Ionic, I'd suggest you research any purchase, to make sure it fits all your needs. Read the reviews, read forums like these, and make an informed decision.

Edit: Which will be difficult since I see from the picture it is available for pre-order...

[racertempo]

Yup, any smartwatch purchase should depend on what that user needs and values. 

I personally had a Samsung gear for 3 weeks, and a Huawei for 4 months and got rid of them both.  Half od the download able watch face on the android store required purchase, and even the free ones had features that were locked unless purchased. 

The biggest thing to me though

...... BATTERY LIFE.  I hated having to charge every single day. 

I don't use Spotify though.  If that what you need out of a smartwatch them the Ionic is not for use...... Bit I would ask, if that is what you desired so much then why did you buy the Ionic to begin with? 

[soguilk]

This is what the ionic should have been at release. 6 mo free Spotify at preorder. Apps availability. And up to 5 days of battery at light use. Only thing that we cannot be sure off is if it’s buggy at release. Has the ionic came with a 6 mo free pandora trial. That 300.00 could have been easier to swallow

[johneric8]

I understand that it's not as pleasing looking,  but I do lots of running and biking and value my spotify playlist to get me through.   I've been waiting for years for fitbit to come out with a new watch that uses spotify...   I mistakenly thought I would use Pandora on the Ionic and tried it,  but you can't listen to your own music so it's worthless..   Maybe I'll just keep the Ionic and get the android watch,  and if fitbit moves into the new millennium I can sell that android watch...  I do love everything else about the Ionic..

[SunsetRunner]

I bought the Ionic because it's a (waterproof) fitness tracker / smarty watch, not a Spotify client  but best of luck.

[EvKo]

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@johneric8 wrote:

I understand that it's not as pleasing looking,  but I do lots of running and biking and value my spotify playlist to get me through.   I've been waiting for years for fitbit to come out with a new watch that uses spotify...   I mistakenly thought I would use Pandora on the Ionic and tried it,  but you can't listen to your own music so it's worthless..   Maybe I'll just keep the Ionic and get the android watch,  and if fitbit moves into the new millennium I can sell that android watch...  I do love everything else about the Ionic..

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You are absolutely right. Functionality comes first. When I bought the Ionic, I thought that I would just load my own music. So far I have not tried it yet. If Spotify is so central to your workout, then it's only natural to go to a different watch. Enjoy and best of luck.

Happy fitbiting!

[RL7]

I have an S3 Frontier which is the beefier version of this particular watch.  It is a pleasure to use Spotify with it. Mine works on LTE so I can leave the phone at home. Despite being very robust in many areas, the numbers during my workouts were very off, sometimes having my heart rate up around 250 while running. This didn’t happen all of the time but enough that I couldn’t rely on it as my daily fitness tracker.  I can almost guarantee you that you’ll have similar results with this device.  This issue drops up on all of their trackers after I did some research. You can minimize it but never fully eliminate it.  

I suspect a software update of Tizen (at 3.0 now) will eventually fix it. Many think the Samsung watches run off Android. They actually run off a proprietary OS developed by Samsung called Tizen. Overall, it works well with Samsung phones. Your mileage may vary if your phone is from a different manufacturer. Just be aware that your numbers will come off as very strange until you learn to see through the tracker’s eccentricities in its reporting of stats. Again, not terrible but it was enough for me to notice.   

If you do have an Android phone, you can integrate your stats via this watch to the S health app which is very nice to use. It has some ability to sync your sleep data from Fitbit over to it, but not steps or workout data if you do some activity with the Ionic.  Also some things get a little murky in S Health. The fitness goals you strive for are there but not clearly or as specifically as on the Fitbit app. You have to hunt around more for things.  The community options aren’t as deep either.  

I tend to to wear my Frontier on off days when I’m not exercising. I throw on a Flex 2 to keep some rudimentary data syncing to the Fitbit app like steps and such. 

Overall, I don’t believe the shortcomings are anything Samsung can’t overcome in time. But at the end of the day, when you look at fitness tracking as a whole, you’ll see Fitbit is still the gold standard in many ways. The Samsung will win with smart watch features hands down, but when you workout, you definitely see it’s not on par.  Good, but not as good as a Fitbit.  And that’s what keeps me with Fitbit. 

[bbarrera]

Tizen is not proprietary, its a Linux based system and open source. 

Android uses Linux "under the hood" and then Google adds lots of proprietary (closed source) stuff.

[RL7]

Yes, thank you for clarifying.  But let’s face it, Samsung is pretty much running the show with it.  They are the only ones really supporting it broadly. And with plans to make it it’s primary operating system on phones, replacing Android, for all practical purposes, the situation with Android/Google will likely repeat itself to some extent with Tizen. 

Will thier watches be Fitbit killers? They will turn up the heat but they still have not nailed it as well as Fitbit. 

[bbarrera]

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@RL7 wrote:

But let’s face it, Samsung is pretty much running the show with it.  They are the only ones really supporting it broadly.

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And how is that different from fitbitOS? The big difference is that Tizen is built on Linux, the largest open source project in the world. And Fitbit isn’t supporting it broadly, it’s on one tracker. The CPU in the Ionic is not capable of running Linux. 

[WendyB]

 Best of luck to you!

[RL7]

Yes this is true. But I think for most people here, it doesn’t matter if the OS is open sourced or not as long as it gives them a good experience and leaves them happy at the end of the day.  Are there quality apps? Do they give the wearer what they want? Is it stable? Are app develops supporting it? Tizen appears to have the advantage here, of course.  It’s been around longer. 

The problem with having a more powerful CPU like these Samsung devices is the battery life. We would see many threads of people complaining about how they would have to charge up the device every 2 days or so.  Although the idea of a Fitbit powerful enough to run an OS like Tizen is interesting and food for thought.  

Would Fitbit benefit by embracing and developing their own flavor of Tizen due to the open sourced nature of it? Hard to tell. One can say Fitbit is in an uphill battle going it alone but Tizen has been savaged by the tech press in its own right. Fitbit at least starts with a clean slate here.