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Transferring Personal Music to Ionic

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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) 

Screen Shot 2017-10-06 at 10.21.42 AM.png

Cannot connect unless a force manual IP address for Ionic is done(entering IP address manually)Screen Shot 2017-10-06 at 10.26.43 AM.png

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.

 Screen Shot 2017-10-06 at 10.51.01 AM.png

 

  • 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 networksnetworks2.pngnetworks1.png
  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: Screen Shot 2017-10-06 at 11.41.07 AM.png
  9. Ionic will show this screen when connection is established: Screen Shot 2017-10-06 at 11.46.55 AM.png
  10. Open Fitbit Connect and click on Manage My Music Screen Shot 2017-10-06 at 11.53.18 AM.png
  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!

 

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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:

 

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?"

Erick | Community Moderator

It's all about the food! What's Cooking?

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@LostInThe208- Software glitches are not random. There is always an explanation however difficult or abstract it may be to isolate.

 

Looking at the unsupported types shown in the screenshot on the previous page investigating the filenames and sizes appears to provide no answers so I would rule that out.

 

Another issue may be poor error handling in the code regarding the integrity of each file upload. For example the file might be shown in the uploader even though a break in connection corrupted the file. This one is easy to prove/disprove by moving the few problematic MP3's into a new folder local to your PC, include one of the successful MP3's as well, then create a new playlist and point it at the new directory. If it's always the same problem with the same files then it's not random, but at least then you do isolate which files to look deeper at.

 

How to look deeper? One example may be metadata related. I'd look at the album names and see if they have any strange characters unique to all those being listed as unsupported. If the app supports any other metadata types I'd double check those as well.

 

As I can't replicate the problem my side, I can't actually work through the scenarios locally (for me it would only be guess work though). Is there a Fitbit tech support moderator that reads these threads? If so, and you prove it specific to some of your files only (not random), you could email the support one of the problematic files and they will be able to recreate the problem and step through the source code to isolate the issue.

 

Hope one of the above helps - I know how frustrating it is to buy something new and it dosn't work how you want (or how it is sold to us). I guess I just got lucky (or you are unlucky) during my first experiences of uploading music to my Fitbit.

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@orenilq Welcome to the Fitbit family! Thanks for sharing the workaround that helped you out with this. I'm sure this will be helpful for other users as well!

 

@LostInThe208 Welcome to the Fitbit Community! Thanks for your inquiry regarding the unsupported files. The only information I have regarding that is what I was able to find at this helpful article about music transfer.

 

The files you can transfer (supported) are: 

 

  • MP3, MP4 with AAC audio files, and WMA files (PC).
  • MP3, MP4 with AAC audio files (Mac).

Also, make sure to check all the great information on @Souldeep post above. I'm sure you could find that helpful! 

 

@Souldeep Thanks for your help! 

 

Keep me posted! 

Santi | Community Moderator, Fitbit

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So I've actually managed to isolate the problem. The files I have that are being flagged as "unsupported" are still MPEG Layer-3 (.mp3) files that play just fine on iTunes, Windows Media, VLC, and any other media player and are recognized just fine. They were encoded using open source LAME3.99, which for some reason only Fitbit Connect flags as being unsupported. At the most basic level, they are still .mp3 files, so I'm still not sure why only Fitbit software seems to think it is not.

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@LostInThe208- Good detective work sir *clap*

 

Could it be that the LAME3.99 bitrate differs to the other files you've encoded, that do work successfully with the Fitbit app?

 

If so why not try encoding them again with a tool like http://winff.org

 

Maybe just run a test with one of the problematic files and let us know the results. Sounds like you are close to the resolution! Smiley Happy

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Hi,SantiFitbit:

Below  are some mp3 files.They are the unsupported mp3 files.

Could you help me to find out the problems that they can't transfer to ionic?

Thank you.

 

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1NLJX6ALiTvRxT7A8FhLMtzjjsd7WDMS5?usp=sharing

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What? You guys must be kidding!

 

To transfer music to the watch one needs to:

 

restart computer, restart phone, restart watch, delete all saved networks from fitbit app, connect your fitbit app to same network again, go back to the watch to click in "transfer files", wait for connection, then go back to computer and use the Fitbit Software to transfer music files to the watch? Oh and don't forget to create a playlist first.

 

This is just unbelievable, not even back in 90's we needed to go through this absurd non sense of restarts and delete/create networks to transfer music files to a portable device. We're in 21st century for God sake! 

 

Absolutely unimpressive in a 300 dollars device, a huge letdown for Ionic.

Charge 2 / Ex-Ionic / HTC10 / Android 8 / Windows 10 / Spotify Premium user
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I am a savvy user , been transferring music to ionic for 10-15 times so far always with much pain.

Today I tired all of the above for the last 1 hour or more , with not succeeding to start the transfer even once. shame on this device.

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I was able to get it working in a few minutes, however the download time to the iconic was just too long, so going to stick with music on my phone. 

 

Btw, please don't reboot your computer and phone when trying to set this up, it has nothing to do with a connection between your computer and the ionic. 

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Are you saying that you can transfer files using Bluetooth as well?
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Best Regards Oren 215 617 2543
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Hi all - I have tried for hours to transfer music to my Ionic.  Even spent over 1 hours with a support guy via chat.  It looked like it worked but after nearly 3 hours said errors.  so I tried to restart it all.  I have tried via both Fitbit Connect and Fitbit app.  I have done factory resets, uninstalled and re installed the app etc.  It is a nightmare.  I am thinking of  trying to get an refund!   had a previous Ionic and did manage to get music loaded.

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If you're on a Windows PC, try using the MediaPlayer app.

*If* you can get it to associate your Ionic as a playback device, it tends to do a better job of syncing, because it has a less "precarious" process (the overhead I mention way back in this thread) for setting up the sync.

If you have DRM protected files, these are trickier to sync, best-case.  Some will likely not sync, unless you have the original source (CD, account, etc) in order to obtain a "less protected" version of the track/file.

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@PeteG-1 wrote:

If you're on a Windows PC, try using the MediaPlayer app.

*If* you can get it to associate your Ionic as a playback device, it tends to do a better job of syncing, because it has a less "precarious" process (the overhead I mention way back in this thread) for setting up the sync.

If you have DRM protected files, these are trickier to sync, best-case.  Some will likely not sync, unless you have the original source (CD, account, etc) in order to obtain a "less protected" version of the track/file.


Do you mean "Windows Media Player" application?

How do you get this app to identify watch as play back device? I don't think anyone has been able to achieve that.

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@GTPune wrote:

@PeteG-1 wrote:

If you're on a Windows PC, try using the MediaPlayer app.

*If* you can get it to associate your Ionic as a playback device, it tends to do a better job of syncing, because it has a less "precarious" process (the overhead I mention way back in this thread) for setting up the sync.

If you have DRM protected files, these are trickier to sync, best-case.  Some will likely not sync, unless you have the original source (CD, account, etc) in order to obtain a "less protected" version of the track/file.


Do you mean "Windows Media Player" application?

How do you get this app to identify watch as play back device? I don't think anyone has been able to achieve that.


Yep.

I used DoubleTwist, but I don't know if it was an official release, or a one-off (I'm on their trial program), at the time.  It still wasn't easy, but at least I got rid of the crazy overhead of the FB Player Library mess.

I never really used my Ionic for music much anyway, I had purchased it for the GPS and waterproofing, and upgrade to my Charge2.  The BT chipset was so bad though, I think I had one dongle/chipset that would sync to it, consistently, and that was about it, so I eventually returned it.

I suspect these "updated" ones have a new BT chipset, or a revision of the original, or similar.  If it were BT firmware (the issue), FB would've been able to push a new chipset f/w, in most designs anyway (not sure about their architecture).

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I wish fitbit would partner with apple so that music that is downloaded to phones through the apple music subscription can be downloaded to my fitbit. I don't want to have to pay for two memberships to music software, I don't want to pay for the current one that I do have.

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Hello ALL,  As an Ionic owner (since inception), I concur that this can be a tad frustrating, but it has gotten a LOT easier and Fitbit has improved it greatly!  But here are a few tips that may help (Windows 10):

1.  Wi-Fi - Depending on how much bandwidth your connection supports, you may want to stop ALL Wi-Fi traffic prior to your music transfer.  For example; I have OneDrive and use it quite a bit.  In my case, if OneDrive is uploading, my connection just won't happen to my Ionic.  However, as soon as i pause OneDrive, everything works like it is suppose to.

2.  Music Transfer - If you are transferring your music and the Music App on your Windows 10 platform states that the music transfer is complete (A Circle with a CHECK MARK), but it is NOT the Colored version and it didn't CHECK mark on your Ionic.  Than simply uncheck the Circled CHECK mark and reselect the circle where the CHECK mark was.  That "Should" get everything resyncing and in my experience, the 2nd time is always the charm!

 

So there you have it.  Hope that helps and if you should need further assistance, please post back!  Thanks and Keep on STEPPING!

Community Council Member

Gunny | Richmond, VA (USA)

Ionic Adidas Edition, Versa Special Edition, Aria 2 & Flyer | iPhone & Windows 10

Take a look at the Fitbit Help site for further Assistance & Information.

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Couldn't agree more!!!! SPOT ON!!! I can't believe so many struggles with this! Thought it was just me! How can they stand for this selling an unfinished, buggy product!? For 300$! It released last year, I bought it last week and STILL it's buggy as it's like a beta.. I can not even sync now... Far too many bugs! 

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Apple next

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Hi. It was easy to get the music on my Fitbit from my iTunes library.
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Hello @mammamiller and Welcome!  I fully concur, that is the way I have been doing it since I got my Ionic.  With over 17,000 songs in my Apple iTunes library, why pay for a music service, no need with the Ionic or Versa.  Thanks for posting and Keep on STEPPING and enjoying that music.  

 

By the way, what Bluetooth Headphones/Earbuds are you using?  I have the Fitbit Flyer and Bang & Olufsen E8's (which are my new favorite) .  Once you are totally wire free it is quite liberating!

Community Council Member

Gunny | Richmond, VA (USA)

Ionic Adidas Edition, Versa Special Edition, Aria 2 & Flyer | iPhone & Windows 10

Take a look at the Fitbit Help site for further Assistance & Information.

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I am using Airpods though - you can not adjust the volume with the Ionic
!!!
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