Transferring Personal Music to Ionic

[ErickFitbit]

Update 10/6/17 -- Thanks for sharing your experiences with attempting to transfer your playlists onto Ionic. After reading through the discussions in this thread, I noticed some users where successful and others not so much.

Users are running into various blockers that are preventing a successful transfer. I've compiled the complications into the following categories:

• Stuck on "Looking for Ionic" message on Fitbit connect even though Ionic/Fitbit App/Computer on same Network) 

Cannot connect unless a force manual IP address for Ionic is done(entering IP address manually)

• Frozen at "Determining Transfer Time" (check out @xTommyG's workaround here)
• Stuck on "Transfer in progress" (try restarting your Ionic and then reestablish Wi-Fi connection on Ionic)
• Ionic won't connect to Wi-Fi (see Why won't my Fitbit watch connect to Wi-Fi? for tips)

I've created a guide to help anyone that's having issues with this. So, without further ado, let's start transferring some music!  

Requirements

• Windows 10 (PC) or Mac computer 
• Wi-Fi capable computer: Must be able to connect to the Internet via Wi-Fi (direct ethernet connections will not work)
• Must connect to a 2.4GHz frequency network (5 GHz frequency is not supported)
• Fitbit Connect Software (Win10/Mac) must be installed
• Ionic battery life must be above 40% to transfer music (Keeping Ionic charging during this process is recommended)
• Create at least 1 playlist of songs or podcasts in iTunes or Windows Media Player to download to your watch. You can also create playlists in the Fitbit Music app using the drag-and-drop feature to add individual tracks. 
• To download music files, they must fall under one of the following audio file types: 
  • Windows 10
    • MP3 files
    • MP4 files with AAC audio
    • WMA files
  • Mac
    • MP3 files
    • AIFF
    • MP4 files with AAC audio

• If you use iTunes, make sure you approve the app to share playlists with your watch: Open iTunes on your computer > Edit > Preferences > Advanced > Share iTunes Library XML with other applications > OK.

 

• For best results, perform this process as close to your router as possible to reduce any interference 

Transfer Music Checklist

1. Restart computer
2. Make sure your computer is connected to a strong Wi-Fi network (note: personal or work network that requires a password to connect is recommended - 2.4 GHz) 
3. Restart phone
4. Restart Ionic
5. In the Fitbit app go to Account/Media/Manage Wi-fi Networks and remove all saved networks
6. Connect back to your Wi-Fi network 
7. Plug-in your watch to charge
8. On your Ionic, tap Music app and then Transfer Music: 
9. Ionic will show this screen when connection is established: 
10. Open Fitbit Connect and click on Manage My Music 
11. When prompted, follow the on-screen instructions on your Mac/PC to choose the playlists you want to download to your watch. After you choose a playlist, the download starts automatically. Download/transfer times vary based on how large your playlist is (was able to download 1 hours worth of music in about 6-8 minutes).

Note: For faster download times, you might want to avoid large playlists. The more songs you transfer under one playlist the longer download times you will experience. Should you run into an issue please let us know where in the process you get stuck.

Thanks everyone for your continued insight and feedback in this thread. I hope all of you Ionic users get transferred, drop your phones on your dressers and start working out to the music you most enjoy, phone free!

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Update 9/28/17 -- The latest version of Fitbit Connect for Mac is now live! The update can now be found on the setup page. Please update if you haven't already so you can start transferring your favorite tunes to your Ionic!

• Download Fitbit Connect for Mac: www.fitbit.com/setup

• Download Fitbit Connect for PC: http://cache.fitbit.com/FitbitConnect/FitbitConnect-v2.0.2.6954-2017-09-28.exe 

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Everyone -- To transfer music with Fitbit Connect, please click the applicable link below to download and install the Fitbit Connect software:

• Download Fitbit Connect for Mac: www.fitbit.com/setup

• Download Fitbit Connect for PC: http://cache.fitbit.com/FitbitConnect/FitbitConnect-v2.0.2.6954-2017-09-28.exe

With the Music app on Fitbit Ionic, you can store and play several hours worth of your favorite songs and podcasts right on your wrist. After you download playlists to your watch, connect Bluetooth headphones or another audio device to listen to your tracks.

You need a Windows 10 PC or a Mac connected to Wi-Fi to download music and podcasts to your watch. Keep in mind you can only transfer files that you own or don’t require a license. 

If you live in the United States, you can also use the Pandora app to download stations to your watch. 

For full instructions, I recommend checking out "How do I listen to music and podcasts on my Fitbit watch?"

[Nicky89]

It still is possible tot adjust the volume and control the music while working out. Long press the right upper button.

At least, that's what the Ionic manual says. Not sure because I can't test it because my Ionic doesn't get music on it. Syncing playlists fails all the time, so I gave up after 37 hours of trying.

Mobiel verzonden

[oValianto]

I have already done it.

Thank you for your support.

Life is good.

[PeteG-1]

Sure, Win10 was my primary method of syncing my Ionic, for my 2-ish weeks of ownership.

I went through two Qualcomm (one BT 5.0, built-in, 2nd dongle, 4.1) and two Broadcomm BT chipsets(4.1, 4.0), before finding one that would work, with at least *some* consistency.

But then it wouldn't, and nothing except for re-pairing the device would fix it (bummer if you had some data on the Ionic, that you cared about...), which was maybe every 2-3 days.  Plus re-pairing rarely worked on the fist try, it was usually along the lines of 2-3 (pair-unpair-repair, ...).

My Android phone and tablets (trickier to use different BT chipsets, one was Broadcomm, 2nd was Qualcomm) were equally less reliable.  The tablet had maybe a 10-20% chance of working, without re-pairing, and my phone was about inline with my PC, the most reliable dongle setup.

My charge2, in contrast (which I reverted to), has had maybe 1-2 sync failures, in several MONTHS.

Can you get the Ionic to sync: yes, in most cases, if you have enough chipset devices/dongles, and are willing to have to re-pair fairly often.

The question is, should anyone be having this much trouble with a higher-end BT device in 2017-18?

This is more like Bluetooth in the early 2000's...

[Carol111111111]

I’m thinking of going back to my charge 2, this is a total waste of money. To many issues mine will only load 40 songs when it says it can do 300. I now have to have in over 50percent charged and contented to the Internet to sync. It no longer syncs though Bluetooth. To have spent so much on something that doesn’t work and only had since December is not good enough. I would not recommend this watch and if this is the standard of watch they have I would not be buying another one.

[John1206]

You should be getting the “Is your music DRA protected” response with a link to more frustration any minute now!    Lol

[Carol111111111]

Sent from my iPhone

[PeteG-1]

Yeah, I have a total of two (2) tracks that are DRM.

Since I've worked on DRM specs for other types of h/w, I've always been wary my purchases like this (the industry was very NON transparent about this, IMHO).

Even without this, you can get a few tracks/playlists sync'd, or I did, but it was insanely tedious.  And I all SMB h/w for my networking too, I even tried a separate VLAN for my PC and Ionic, to no avail.

My biggest problem was that I wanted to sync a few podcasts, each on the order of 45-50 minutes.  Getting even one of these to sync took many, many attempts; after getting 2 done, over a couple of days of tries, I decided my phone was how it was going to stay for those, for now, I wasn't going to spend a week of retries to get a small set of podcasts on the Ionic.

My overall sync issues of the device (above), sort of "sealed" my return decision.

[JAGO123456]

Thanks for the tutorial..

but why do i have to follow such a mumbo jumbo for a product that fail on the most basics features : 

- Connecting and updating

- Transfering music

- Listening music.

- unable to track GPS 10% of my running session (even in sunny weather)

after my bricked charge HR  for god know why, i was seduced by this ionic integrated GPS and Music feature.. but in one word : deceitful

[Gigawatz]

Hello everyone. This is my first post to the community.  So, I want to do my part to contribute to the assistance of others (hopefully).  I consider myself to be an tech guy and I struggled with this process just like everyone else.  I was able to transmit information to my watch, it just wasn't usable.  Thus, if you have gotten this far, hopefully the following will help.  (( I do not agree with how cumbersome this process is and I won't defend Fitbit for using it - but I'm also not going to go into a tirade on my feelings of it right now.))

BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front) - Make sure that your playlist files and your media files are in the exact same folder and that your playlist contains entries that specify the filenames without using relative path construction (leading filenames with .\ or ..\).  Before attempting to send a playlist to your watch, open the playlist with notepad and review the contents of all of the media tags.  The following is an example of what it should look like once correctly formatted:

<media src="9 Last Words worth Remembering.mp3"/>

The following is how I came to this conclusion - if you want the background continue reading - if not, then I recommend that you skip to the next post.

So, if you have been successful at getting your playlist to transfer to your watch using Windows 10 and Windows Media Player (WMP) but have been unsuccessful being able to use the files - I can help.  Just don't ask how many hours and variations I had entertained before I got it right.  The following outlines how I came about figuring out the solution.

The problem I was experiencing was that I had all of the tools setup as prescribed.  I don't like WMP and would rather use other tools, but it was the recommended solution, so I went with it.  I expected Fitbit to know what they were talking about.  So, I downloaded and installed the Windows software (then I did it again using the version in this thread), setup my watch and laptop to connect to my 2.4GHz network instead of my faster 5GHz network, I downloaded my podcasts, and created a playlist within WMP.

After many starts and restarts, I was able to get my watch to report that it had transmitted a file twice when syncing a playlist.  However, it would never finish the playlist sync and forever report that it was transmitting the audio file (I got to the point that I was working with a playlist of a single file).  I would check that the playlist was received and that the song list was present (well, it knew what was supposed to be there, but it was dimmed out and unavailable).  I thought this was because the transmission was still on-going even though the watch was behaving to the contrary.  Well, I would discover that the transmission was not on-going - the Windows Fitbit Connect application was lost.

I was convinced after reading this entire thread (and some others) that I just needed to keep add/remove/add the playlist from my watch.  This got old after a while.  It was when it finally clicked that 2 file success messages likely indicates that the playlist is file one and the media file was file two that I started to play with the playlist. 

• I attempted to fully qualify the filename in the playlist - this didn't help matters at all.
• I attempted to create a relative path of the filename - but the Connect software wouldn't be able to locate the file - thus it couldn't transmit it.
• I manually created the playlist file (I couldn't talk WMP to save the playlist in a place that was outside of the Music\Playlist folder location and accept media files from that folder).  Therefore, I copied the media files to the Playlist folder and manually updated the playlist file within notepad to only include the media filenames with no path information.
• By default WMP wants to put all of the playlist files here: %userprofile%\Music\Playlist
  By default WMP wants to pull all of the media files from: %userprofile%\Music\<folders>\

The manual flattening of all of the components allows the Fitbit Connect software to locate the files indicated within the playlist and once the files are transferred to the watch, the watch can find them.  With this configuration, I was finally awarded a pretty purple checkmark beside my playlist.

This tells me that the transfer program is not recreating the correct folder structure to allow the playlist file to locate the media once it is on the phone.  The colocated configuration is the easiest way to resolve the disconnect - though there are likely other solutions - but I'm done fighting for now.

Aside from the playlist configuration woes, I maintain this is a very poor design, I'm still struggling to get additional media resources on to the watch.  But, at least I am getting them there (which is ultimately what counts).

[WTFE]

This ONLY works if you're using a "supported"  network.  ARE YOU SERIOUS FITBIT!?!?  If you can't fit my lifestyle, (I travel for work), then what good are you????  So I can't download music on my Ionic because, I'm using a hotel's network???  

I shouldn't have to waste workout time connecting my Ionic on some network just to transfer my own music. This is stupid. 

I'm already searching for a new activity tracker.....

[NavyDP1]

---

@Misterbit wrote:
Congratulations, now that you have some music on there, remember to adjust
the volume before your workout. Once the workout starts it is impossible to
control the music, or even to pause it. I have to agree the FB folks are
asleep at the wheel. Every day I watch the stock go down little by little.


*"life is good"*

---

Actually with my BT headset, I can control volume and pause the music at will.  I have an older LG HBS-730 headset.

[JALuciani50]

The main reason I spent the money for the Ionic was that it stores music.  The amount of hours and incredible frustration to accomplish this is simply not acceptable.  This thing was supposed to improve my health not put my blood pressure through the roof.  At least before I could get music on it.  I just spent the entire afternoon trying to get it to connect to WiFi.  I really want to love this device and for the most part I do but trying to put music on it Is absolutely infuriating.  There has to be a better way!

[Steve69]

Welcome to the club. But at least music is your only problem. I even did my research before trying. Amazon had a lot of positive reviews. But I forgot to cheek Fake spot to see if they were real. 

And did not check the stock price history to see what the pro thought about the company.

But do really hope they hang in there until they have more development and solve the problems. I will then even be willing to pay more. Because I like it that much. But also to many problems for me, so had to return.

[JALuciani50]

After several hours I finally got it to connect only for it to drop the connection moments later.  I really would like someone from Fitbit to come to my house so I can watch them be miserable trying to load music.  I work in an IT department.  I can’t imagine what this must be like for someone without a technical background.  

[Misterbit]

Bewildering...

*"life is good"*

[JALuciani50]

After 4 hours it is actually transferring music.  I seriously can’t do this every time I want to put new music on this.

[JALuciani50]

And it disconnected again.  Done posting.  This thing is causing me way too much aggravation.  

[Nicky89]

Me too went through hours of agony to get a few playlists on the Ionic. It worked at 2 AM, when all other devices in the house were switched off (even the toaster 🙂), and the Ionic was on 5 centimeters of the only Access Point that I didnt switch off. 

However, that's just one step to listen to music while working out. The next step is to have the Bluetooth working with your headset... And here, it works sometimes... And only after a try or 5 to 10. 

So, to go out for a run is always a challenge: will this Ionic connect and start playing music or not? You better count 10 more minutes before you can start. These are needed to troubleshoot to establish the connection. Once connected, you need to pray that you actually hear the music as well, because sometimes the Ionic displays a music song which is played, but you don't hear anything. If that happens, you need to start all over again with the connection. 

Short, it works. But you should be very, very patient and calculate 10 extra minutes before starting to work out. Not exactly what you would expect from a 292€ (Belgium) device.

[SunsetRunner]

I followed the directions given on this forum and did not have all the issues mentioned here. Now this was my second attempt as I had to replace my first Ionic. I didn't sit and wait. I got the transfer started and went to bed. I got up and it was complete. Maybe the updates have helped, but I am still using Connect because from all that I have read, the Windows 10 app does not transfer the music. I will not discount the issues that others are having because If I have learned anything from owning fitbits, it is that they are consistently inconsistent.

[Misterbit]

I am convinced the Ionic was designed to test your patience. As the
company's stock continues its slow march to the bottom, I am beginning to
think FitBit probably designed the Ionic to gather data to see which of us
can endure the process in order to form a psychological profile on us, with
the lesson being "only the strong survive" .x

All kidding aside, once you get the music on, if you live long enough to do
so, the rewards are astounding. Although the watch is a little slow, and it
is scary as to whether you want to touch it again after the music is
loaded, I like it much better than the Apple Watch. It has a lower profile,
the battery lasts longer, and hey, who the hell makes calls and sends text
messages on their watch anyway?


*"life is good"*