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?"

[himan_jk]

Hi,

Why i transfer songs, the watch just get only one song.

The playlist show 84 songs complete transfer,the watch shows 84 songs , 

but it can play only one song.

Please give me some suggestions,thank you.

[Compact]

Have you had success with a smaller playlist of say 12?

I had challenges  then managed a single album. 

[Alan360]

I got the same problem! I tried to rename and relocate the files.  None can help to fix it.  So frustrating!

[sgtslaughter64]

Has anyone been successful with transferring music from other Windows systems?

[galileo29]

Yes, please FitBit, could you add the function to just drag and drop files on the watch itself via USB? I use single 60-70 min mp3 files. Ideally, also allow to navigate in the song.

[Compact]

Do people use iTunes or WMP for their playlists?

I currently use iTunes, though I only installed it after not using for a few years because of fitbit.

I just use Plex or Google Play.

Wondering if WMP is a better lightweight alternative for creating disposable playlists for the Ionic

[planetdek]

Hi 

Not sure if this will help but I will share what I have discovered over the last week. I was having a load of issues with my Windows 7 desktop and Fitbit Connect so I decided to follow Fitbit advice and use Windows 10. I used a virgin Windows 10  laptop and the Fitbit App from the Microsoft Store. Basically I could never get a connection. I was repeatedly informed that my Ionic was busy and to try later. I am not sure what it was doing but I did not feel it should have been too busy to talk to me or the laptop. Anyway no amount of restarts, reboots, bluetooth on/off, wireless resets would make any difference so I gave up.

I decided to have another go with the Windows 7 desktop. I renistalled the Fitbit Connect and created a one track playlist in iTunes. I managed to get a connection to the Ionic after reading that I should make sure the Bluetooth is not switched on on my phone or any other nearby device. I am not sure if this matters really but it got me a connection so onwards. The Playlist showed up in the Fitbit screen and I thought we are away! Apparently not. The track had a cross next to it and a message 'unsupported file type'. Nothing was transferred.  I was a bit puzzled as it was a .m4a file which according to Fitbit is supported. I tried again with different tracks in the playlist without success until one file suddenly worked. It transferred to the watch and appeared in the Music section with the option to play. I was overjoyed! I paired the ionic to my Echo speaker and pressed play! A miracle, music streamed out! 

Simple things, I know but when Fitbit have made it so hard it felt like a massive achievement!

Anyway spurred on I needed to figure out what was different about this track to all the others that had failed. I did a bit of rooting and clocked it, it was a plain old .mp3 file hiding in my iTunes library. Now 99% of my iTunes are .m4a files but the odd one is an .mp3. I gathered a bunch of them and stuck them in a playlist, synced and hey presto , 20 or so songs on the ionic all accessible and playable.

So what the hell is going on with .m4a? I contacted Fitbit via Webchat and after much confusion trying to explain the issue I was basically told to convert my entire iTunes library to .mp3 and all would be fine. When I asked how that might be achieved I was told to 'look on the Internet' (I am not making that up). Whilst I appreciate that the 'solution' would probably work I was still at a loss to understand why the .m4a files are 'unsupported' despite the Fitbit support stating 'it should work'. Also I did not fancy the task of converting gigs of music to .mp3 just so I could listen on a different device. I posted a query on this board and a very helpful member WavyDavey suggested it might be something to do with the .m4a files not being AAC audio even though they are mp4 files. This rang a bell and got me thinking about Apple lossless which is the default import for an audio CD in iTunes (well it was in mine). This creates a file with a .m4a extension but is not AAC encoded (I think). Anyway I messed about about with the import settings and can conclusively confirm that Apple Lossless is the issue. I think it has something to do with the bitrate being too high. The upshot is .mp3 = perfectly fine. .m4a with AAC = perfectly fine. .m4a Apple Lossless = disaster. I have not tested WMA files but I assume they will work. 

So it has been an experience. I still cannot believe it has to be this complicated. I bought a .mp3 player from ebay for 99p, inserted a SD card with 100 .mp3 files dragged and dropped on to it and listened away. Why Fitbit could not offer a wired solution I do not know. Also for those users under 30 who have never needed to own a CD what are they supposed to do? Anyway I am not sure if any of this helps. The conclusion is that it does work with Windows 7 and iTunes just make sure your audio files are the right format. If you have any questions I would be happy to try and help. 

Cheers

[PeteG-1]

---

@planetdek wrote:

Hi 

... I used a virgin Windows 10  laptop and the Fitbit App from the Microsoft Store. Basically I could never get a connection. I was repeatedly informed that my Ionic was busy and to try later. I am not sure what it was doing but I did not feel it should have been too busy to talk to me or the laptop. Anyway no amount of restarts, reboots, bluetooth on/off, wireless resets would make any difference so I gave up.

I decided to have another go with the Windows 7 desktop.... I tried again with different tracks in the playlist without success until one file suddenly worked. It transferred to the watch and appeared in the Music section with the option to play. I was overjoyed! I paired the ionic to my Echo speaker and pressed play! A miracle, music streamed out! 

Simple things, I know but when Fitbit have made it so hard it felt like a massive achievement!

Anyway spurred on I needed to figure out what was different about this track to all the others that had failed. I did a bit of rooting and clocked it, it was a plain old .mp3 file hiding in my iTunes library. Now 99% of my iTunes are .m4a files but the odd one is an .mp3. I gathered a bunch of them and stuck them in a playlist, synced and hey presto , 20 or so songs on the ionic all accessible and playable.

So what the hell is going on with .m4a? ...

I think it has something to do with the bitrate being too high. The upshot is .mp3 = perfectly fine. .m4a with AAC = perfectly fine. .m4a Apple Lossless = disaster. I have not tested WMA files but I assume they will work. 

So it has been an experience. I still cannot believe it has to be this complicated. I bought a .mp3 player from ebay for 99p, inserted a SD card with 100 .mp3 files dragged and dropped on to it and listened away. Why Fitbit could not offer a wired solution I do not know. Also for those users under 30 who have never needed to own a CD what are they supposed to do? Anyway I am not sure if any of this helps. The conclusion is that it does work with Windows 7 and iTunes just make sure your audio files are the right format. If you have any questions I would be happy to try and help. 

Cheers

---

@planetdekI "trimmed" your post, but left the relevant parts intact, for info.

Yeah, M4a was supposed to succeed mp3, but IME, a lot of places never went to this lossless format, because there wasn't much call, and EVERYTHING works with MP3, even my old, pocket player from the early 2000 range.

For awhile, lossless WMA was popular too, but it also sort of fell of, and MP4 was similar, at least to my knowledge it never quite got there either, although you can probably find more in these formats now too.

I think when FB goes to extract/covert/push the music from M4A, they probably fail for the same reason they fail if you try too many songs, or too large of a podcasts (I had tried to put several 50 minute podcasts onto mine, all MP3, many, many times, to no avail, but could fairly easily transfer a couple of smaller mp3 tracks, if I "isolated" them).  

Their "music library" (cough, cough), has some BIG issues with any kind of volume of music, be it larger sets or larger tracks, or any combination thereof, it fails constantly, indexing them over, and over, and every time you touch them, in any way.  Why they didn't use a "canned library", that was known-good, is beyond me, which I've mentioned before, but oh well...

I am surprised that it won't work with a single M4A track, but I guess they failed to test this scenario (this seems to be case with a LOT of the music plug-in part of the app, if you want to call it that, many functions were clearly never tested in any "real world" scenarios).

Your laptop is likely way too under-powered, for all the indexing and re-indexing, and if it was trying to convert the track, who knows what they do there, if anything (I don't have any M4A tracks myself).

I have a 12-core i9 setup, with a 2800/1900 main (M2) drive, and a VERY fast bus/chipset between them, and it still struggles, ridiculously so, to even burn 1-2 50 minute tracks (it'll do 15 smaller ones though, eventually, but if you "touch" the music again, you'll be waiting for it do some re-indexing again, at least that's what it appeared like, from the DB file changes, when I had my Ionic).

On the plus side though, your M4a tracks are roughly "equivalent" to having an audio CD (except they won't ever degrade, which is why I've "archived" all my CDs, in near-lossless format).

M4a tracks shouldn't be DRM protected, and it should be okay to convert them, and you can find lots of good converters out there. Personally, I like MediaMonkey a lot, but you really need the paid version, to bulk-convert, there are free alternatives that work well too.

Their response of "go search for a converter" is weird though, you'd think they'd recommend one, or something, if they truly messed up the support for them, and had stated it worked.

There's lots of other "odd" information coming from their support team too, things like putting your watch right next to your router, which in fact likely degrades the signal, there's just too much interference this close to get whatever max is, in your WiFi setup.

My PC that I used for my "source", is wired anyway, but I made sure all my multicasts were working properly between the Ionic and it, and allowed IGMP snooping (despite not being on the same physical segment) between them, some combination of this allowed me to transfer a handful of tracks.

If you convert, MAKE SURE to SAVE the OLD tracks, if you convert any, just in case there is any DRM info, you don't want to destroy it, it can make it tough in particular if you lose a track or something, at some point.

Plus, when converting to MP3, you're effectively "downgrading" the tracks, which is fine, very few people can really hear lossless, I sure can't, and a decent MP3 bit-rate conversion is hard to discern, but if you don't save the M4a, you can't ever convert it again (the lossless track is gone).

I'd guess if you convert a handful, you'll be able to get them to sync, in isolation (tracks and playlists isolated from the rest), just make sure it's a set you "really like" because every time you try to modify it, it goes through some crazy steps (indexing reference above), and it will probably take many attempts to change them, say even adding a single track.

Some appear to have had better luck using Media Player, which is still on Win10 too (just not a built-in menu item, but it's fully there), because it indexes readily, as expected, in 2017-18.  This may (I have no personal experience with this) alleviate some of the problems, once you get it working.

Good luck.  I'm waiting for them to change to a new mechanism before I get another FB. 
While I get a bit annoyed by their HR accuracy "at intensity", their auto-sense for most exercises is by far the industry best, IME, and I think this convenience is worth it, for now, as long as my Charge2 keeps working.

FB had pretty much the best-rated fitness watch, with the Charge2, for quite some time, even besting watches 2-4 times its cost, but they took a (bad) turn on the Ionic, for whatever reason, I think (speculation, based on other h/w-s/w dev experience) they made a bad chipset/firmware choice on the BT/WiFI setup, and the music "indexing" mechanism, I'd sure like to see their "design" on that one...

[Misterbit]

It is always good to here some good news. Let me add to your post. If there
is anything at all wrong with the files in your playlist (like having an
unauthorized song in there) the playlist will not transfer until the song
is removed. The FB app, however will not let you know what the problem is
and won't transfer "around" the song. It will simply say "searching"

So, I recommend you scrub your song files before putting them in a song
list, then make your transfers. This is difficult because Apple uses AAIF
too whenever song files are mixed with art work. I am also not sure what
the FB app would do with wav files. Does anybody know..


*"life is good"*

[salsop]

Hi there

I am trying to transfer music to my Versa and I am having no luck.

It just sits stuck on this screen.  On the previous screen it syncs and shows connected.  My watch is in the transfer mode.  Any suggestions?

[SunsetRunner]

You can blame fitbit for many things but you being subscribed to a thread that you don't want emails from is within your control to fix

[planetdek]

Hi 

I assume you have done the usual restart the the app and reboot the watch but worth a try. Also not sure it really matters but make sure the watch is not already connected via Bluetooth to another device (eg. your phone), disable Bluetooth on any nearby devices and make sure the watch is connected to the same wireless network as the pc. It really is a bit hit and miss. I found it would work seamlessly sometimes but then not at all at other times forcing me to give up and try later. I have an ionic but I assume it is the same for the versa.

[GTPune]

@salsop you may want to read this if you have not

https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Ionic/Transferring-Personal-Music-to-Ionic/m-p/2711121/highlight/tru...

[simonconran]

Thanks this was well written and accurate, it's exactly what I did to get mine going without frustration. I dare say the lay person would have given up a long time ago.  Another observation is the the BT is the device is very weak.  The distance from headset to device is not very far.  IE if your listing to music you have to keep your hands in front of you and close to the headphones.  Btw i am using $400 Bose so I know it's not them

[GTPune]

@simonconran on the contrary, my experience with BT connection between Ionic and my headset (SoundPeat QY7) has been very good. I get a rock solid connectivity between the two during my runs without any music skipping and I do not have to do anything special to keep watch close to headset. In fact it has been better than the experience I get with same headphones and my phone (Moto G5+).

I have not tried to test how far away I can take the headphones from Ionic before connection breaks. I shall test that later today.

I also have second headphone (Samsung Level U) but I am afraid to pair it with Ionic and test it. I am worried I will end up messing up QY7 connectivity and that being my primary running companion, I do not want to risk it 🙂

[Misterbit]

I am an audio engineer. I use an inexpensive pair of BT headphones with the Ionic. I have noticed though the DACS are so good in the Ionic, to my ears, they sound better than those in the iPhone. My only problem now is having to forget, delete and re-pair my earbuds to the watch every single time I use them.

Again, the enigma of the Ionic..


"Life is good" ⚽️

[GTPune]

@simonconranin continuation to my previous post.... I did the test. As long as I kept the Ionic and headphone in direct line of sight of each other, I was able to go about 35 feet away without losing the connectivity.

@Misterbitluckily for me, after connecting QY7 with Ionic about 5 weeks ago, it has remained paired and connected without any issue.

[SunsetRunner]

I have the QY7 headphones as well as the TaoTronics Deimos and I have no problem switching between either of them. I have had some issues with music playing where it will get crackly or broken when wearing the watch on my left hand but the right ear bud has the controls on that side. Not sure what it causes it but it only last a short time almost like a buffer is empty. I can not confirm if this is the Bluetooth connection or playing through Pandora as that is where my music is streaming from. I have yet to get my music on the Ionic yet.

Anyone know if the Ionic can push vital stats to the bluetooth headphones while running, like current pace, heart rate or speed?

[Made-in-808]

IONIC - I have both WIN 7 Enterprise (at work) and WIN 10 (at home edition). I haven't tried downloading on W10 but with W7E I was able to create playlist in Win Media Player and from there connected to FB connect where I saw a list of playlists that are saved on WMP. I was able to transfer a playlist with 70 songs. It's worst than dial-up if anyone has ever used it.

The overall end result is I can't measure the process because it's so sporadic. I have accidentally removed the music from my ionic so attempted another transfer as a test. One day it works so that it will transfer same playlist. Another day it will transfer 1/2 over and the rest were labeled as "unsupported file type" (yeah sure). Then there's that next day where you can't connect and I picture myself on a pier chucking it into the ocean. I have given up for now until FB gets it right (if).

[PeteG-1]

@GTPune Yeah, I don't think the BT chipset on the Ionic is actually particularly weak, I never saw any indication of that when I had mine. 
I did see a TON of problems trying to sync, re-pair, sync again, rinse/repeat.  More indicative of a buggy chipset/firmware, not a weak (signal-wise) one.

I bet the chipset on the "newer units" is different, either completely, or a revision.  It'd be interesting to see a side-by-side teardown of both.