Very Good experiences with Fitbit Ionic

[Jorkal]

To all,

as a new Fitbit user I want to give some positive feedback about the use of Ionic besides all the other less positive feedback in the community.

From day one after a setup of approx. 45 minutes everything works as it should be.

-several new firmware updates, first thru wifi, second thru bluetooth and yesterday the latest firmware upgrade took about 14 minutes. I guess thru wifi. No issues at all.

The Ionic sync with my iPhone 7 plus the whole day, by itself or on request.

The weather app update every 10-20 minutes, after a sync with the iPhone it's always updated.

The sleep insight is doing very well, 4 nights on a row. No problem there.

I transfer music on the Ionic,  thrue my MacBook Pro, Fitbit connect. after the update we received for this Fitbit connect app everything works well.

So i'v no complaints at all, we must realize that there more factors that the Ionic alone that's determine or some functionality is working. For instance, I have a strong wifi signal, so the last firmware update works flawlessly because the Ionic get enough signal of bluetooth and wifi. 

I don't want to minimize other feedback but I'm very glad to have the ionic. I look forwards to all new functionality. 

Am I  a minority? 

[Pd1972]

I'm glad to have it too but I'm not sure how long I'll be keeping it (possibly another 38 days).

• Heart rate- seems ok but DC Rainmaker reports it's miscalculating resting heart rate and I sort of agree.
• Steps- rubbish. I recorded 1800 yesterday... whilst on a 15 minute car journey.
• GPS- acquires signal quicker than any other watch I've seen.
• Sleep- ok.
• Sync- great when it works but this is only 75% of the time at best and certainly isn't 'always synced' (I have a strong wifi signal and superfast broadband but have only been able to sync over Bluetooth).
• Battery- a lot worse than expected -40 hours with partial GPS use is less than the watch I was replacing with Ionic
• Notifications- don't work for me
• Wallet- not available
• SpO2 - not working
• Weather- wtf???
• Strava app- doesn't do anything
• Screen/Double tap- hit an miss and useless if you're a cyclist wearing gloves (I had to resort to swiping with the tip of my nose yesterday to start an exercise
• Swimming- great
• Design- great - love it, forgot I was wearing it earlier
• Manufacture- not 100% sure of quality - mine has a small back-light bleed 
• Community of disaffected users- fantastic and always helpful.

So... all in - there are some positives but a shed load of negatives that I've paid £300 for - let's be clear this isn't a grand beta test, this was sold as a shiny new product and it isn't unreasonable for us to expect it to work  perfectly out of the box. 

I'm glad your experience is more positive than mine and I can only hope that as you start to use it and live with it that isn't tarnished.

[taz4352 · Accepted solution]

So far so good also.  I haven't had any issues to speak of.  It's working great and I'm loving it.  Jorkal, we may be in the minority or we may just not be posting as much. 🙂

[swduncan]

So good so far here as well. I find it to be recording things about the same as my Charge 2.

Resting heart rate is working as expected - It's not useful as an absolute measurement so it's a bit silly to be shooting for a particular value. It is useful as a trend to keep an eye on the general state of health.

GPS works well, syncing works well, don't care about using it to pay. Everything else works as expected.

The screen is awesome. Battery life is fine - I put mine on the charger when I'm in the shower and so far that's keeping it charged. At least as comfy as the Charge 2.

[Dawnieheather78]

Battery- Monday Evening 96% Charged, Wedensday Morning at 66%

(I set to dim display instead of auto this AM hoping it will save some battery)

HeartRate- Seems way off, Jumps to Peak zone while doing non strenuous easy things....and within like 30 seconds.

Stairs/Floors- Got credit for 21 flights of stairs this AM and really did 2 only....ugh

My weather app started working this AM- Yay!

The clock faces, the color options, the display, the screen, the comfort and fit love on the Ionic!!

Navigation I still don't have down...the buttons seem useless. A lot of swiping and tapping and trying to figure out how to get from place to place. Going to Exercise and Starting one or stopping one...always guess so far whether to tap, or click to get it to go...hate that part.

(My other fitbit is a charge 2, which has always been amazing, I really like the Ionic and hope for the best with it, and bugs worked out as time progresses)

[SunsetRunner]

So far mine has been very good as well.

I know it is subjective, but I love the look of the watch.  Battery life has been great!  I took it on a couple of runs and it performed well.

The heart rate monitoring has been good overall, it has had a few anomalies where during vigorous exercise it went up to 190 (which can’t be accurate), but most of the time it has been right in the pocket [I compared it to my Apple Watch series 0, which this is replacing, and they seemed comparable).  So the overall trend will be good for keeping tabs on heart conditioning.

Notifications have been coming through with out a hitch and the sleep tracking has been working with only one day of simplified sleep recording.

I loaded up the Fitbit Pay with a visa, I used it successfully at a Natural Grocers the 2nd day.  The first day I couldn’t get it working.

Overall, I’m very satisfied with it and I’m confident they’ll keep improving it over time.  Still waiting on my sports band though, I think I’ll like that better.

[minigno]

Agree fully...I had only one hiccup so far, that was with setting up wallet, but only because I signed up as a developer and you get updated with development firmware.  This firmware was only a few hours behind the wallet update, and once I was updated there, I was good to go.

Steps are accurate as any fitbit I've had, which is pretty accurate with manual counting.  Stairs have been good, some issues at first not catching them, but an hour in it worked (and by the end of the day it seemed to catch up the 3 or 4 it missed...since then though, pretty perfect).

Some notes to those who experience inaccurate stairs:  problems that are experienced by any barometer-based altimeters are still going to happen.  So if the weather is changing suddenly and barometric pressure is dropping/increasing at high rates and you happen to be walking, you may get extra stairs (sometimes lots) or not get credit for gains.  I'm not sure if this is what is happening for you, but the possibility is there (I noticed this with my One on some days with rapidly changing weather and on my Casio Pro-Trek watch altimeter).

As far as who the minority is, those experiencing trouble are going to be far more likely to visit this forum than those who are not, and will tend to be more vocal when they do.  Without knowing how many units went out the door, it is hard to know what rough percentage of them are having problems.  But if someone bought this and didn't look at the forums in the first place, and the watch works fine, he/she is unlikely to even know this forum is even here.

Also, I would expect to start to see some news articles discussing wide spread issues...I searched yesterday and didn't see any media indications yet...we'll see if that changes.

[POTATOEMAN]

I am very pleased with my Ionic. 0 issues so far.

I love running with my bluetooth headphones, without having to carry my ipod.

The weather app is the quickest way for me to check the daily temps, quicker than starting the ipad.

and GPS for running and cycling works great.

people seem to be having a lot of issues. I'm sure there are a lot of software bugs, but some issues are user induced; people sure seem to be in a hurry to go online and complain and say they are returning their new Fitbit. 

When all else fails, go back and read the manual.