Feedback about Fitbit Ionic

[MelissaRN]

I've never owned a Fitbit product.  I recently began using the Fitbit app as a way to log water, food and steps and I am enjoying it and finding it motivating.

I'm thinking about making the plunge and purchasing the Fitbit Ionic.  (I also was looking at the Blaze.)

So question, would you buy the Fitbit Ionic again?  Do you regret it?  Love it?  Think it's worth it or not?

Any feedback is appreciated.   Thank you in advance!  

Moderator Edit: Clarified subject

[SmyrnaSoccerRef]

From my personal experience, I would probably say "yes" to buying the Ionic again.  I have not had many of the problems that folks have reported in the Ionic forum.  My Alarm stopped functioning on Day 2 after receiving and setting up the watch, but the issue was resolved in the first firmware update.  I have sporadic issues with text and call alerts not occurring at random times. Annoying, but not worth ditching the whole thing. 

In my situation, in late 2016 / early 2017 I had a Garmin Forerunner 620 that worked quite well, but didn't do things that the Ionic does well.  I started researching Fitbit products and it appeared that the Surge would meet all of my needs.  Then I started reading the Surge discussion forum and found a preponderance of negative feedback about the watch band among other complaints.  So I waited for the "Surge 2" which ended up being called the "Ionic". 

As I read the Ionic discussion forum today, if I were brand/product agnostic and were reading the forum postings on the Ionic as an objective reader, I might choose to go another direction, because the Ionic feedback posted in this forum resembles what I saw for the Surge.  That said, I took the plunge with the Ionic before issues were discovered, posted, and flames fanned, and yet I really like the Ionic 5 months later. 

I feel sad for those of you experiencing issues to the point where you would not purchase again.  I'm sure there are some manufacturing defects on some units, and I feel that the expectations of some Ionic buyers may have been a bit too high, resulting in disappointment for some of you.  Others like me are quite content with our purchase.  The Ionic is a better device than the Surge, and there will be another smart/fitness watch that will supplant the Ionic in another couple of years which will be better than the Ionic. That's just the way things work.

[Nick248]

If you can verify the serial number, then the reason I was given was "we don't honor non dealer" thru Ebay, so you can verify mine is or is not a real ionic, why won't you replace my ionic that is only 2 months old ? see ticket numbers 23332091. I have spent many hours on the phone with techs that probably more than covers your cost of a replacement.

[Onekeeper]

I would not. The step count is not accurate, it is large, it is expensive for inaccuracies.

It depends if you are interested in music on your wrist, paying from your wrist or actually using for exercise. 

I was looking for a replacement for my One. It does not motivate me like the One. It irritates me when I get 300 steps for folding laundry. I didn’t even move my feet.

Therefore, you need to decide what is important to you. Good Luck.

[Alexiamarie]

About 3 weeks ago I contacted Fitbit about my ionic not working. We did all the trouble shooting steps and was sent to the department that deals with warranties. They told me to send back my ionic which I did! I also paid for my shipping, I was also promised expedited shipping back. The first week went by and I asked about my Fitbit and I got a message that they had to wait for the warehouse department to look for it mind you that my Fitbit has already been there for a week and they confirmed it with my tracking number. A few more days passed and I contacted them again  and said that I didn’t understand why it was taking so long and that I was starting to become upset. I recieved the same message as before about the warehouse having to find it. Well we are at week two now and I still have not recieved my ionic back or an email with an update or anything. I have been a continued client of Fitbit since the first one came out. Everyone in my house hold has one and at this point me and the other 3 people in my house are considering not using fit bit anymore with this terrible service I have recieved. 

[SantiR]

Hello everyone! Thanks for your continuous participation on this thread about buying the Ionic once again.

I'd like to thank you all for the feedback provided here regarding Ionic and for sharing your experiences with the Ionic Community.

I'd also like to ask if you already updated Ionic to its latest version? Please check this post for more details on this and for steps on updating it. 

Keep me posted! 

[Alison-X]

I may not. Fitbit releases new watches each year. I always switch to the new models.

[Nick248]

I agree, I've given up and ordered the Versa, I sure hope they have gotten rid of the bugs, and purchased it from Fitbit as insurance it will be replaced. DO NOT BUY ONE FROM EBAY ! 

[Tigamilla]

First of all - I really want this watch to be a success.

However, I don't think I was quite ready for the complete mishmash of everything that it is. The setup procedure alone was unbelievably slow and required multiple attempts - instead of being excited by my new toy I was venting to customer support on twitter.

Once that finished it took me hours to realise that I hadn't received a single notification - cue more Googling, error messages and settings in the phone etc. This sort of worked, but Whatsapp notifications still didn't make it through. Cue more Googling and settings. Then it worked - I couldn't tell you what setting or random thing made it work in the end.

Then I decided to see if I could control music on my phone from it - this required EVEN MORE googling and pairing (something that I assumed was already paired!), the pairing menu is terrible with a tiny (not obvious) toggle between pair / on / off. Then it paired with my phone, worked for a bit a stopped, now it's working again. 

Every single thing has felt like a struggle to make it work - and whats worse is that my 2 year old Pebble Time Steel does all of the above flawlessly, painlessly, consistently and without having to pair it twice to cntrol music. I thing for a lot of people much of this would be a massive faff and they would give up or never get to see the features that are buried away behind what are in my opinion some strange design choices - handing Apple another win.

What do others think? Am I being unfair? Expecting too much? (For 229 pounds I expected the same seamless or better experience that I got with the Pebble, I was smiling in the first hour of owning gen one and gen two of that, not gritting my teeth in frustration). Also things like my 12 year old Garmin brick has far more running options e.g. intervals by time, distance etc...I think at this price we should expect a better experience and all round package? 

P.S: this very second I've just checked it... and the music control has disconnected....UUUUUGHHHHHHH...

P.P.S: I also own a Surge and that does what it says on the tin, and seems to be giving a better heart rate (cross cheked against phone app) than the Ionic?

[B0ne]

I bought 2 ionic trackers from Fitbit and only 1 works right. All the help we get from Fitbit is stonewalling and infinite holds. Once they get your money they could care less!

[Alicat2104]

Mine has worked better since I removed my Charge 2 from my account which is annoying as I was using it while my Ionic was charging, but it seemed to be causing conflicts somehow.  I still maintain that the Ionic is in no way worth the price tag.

[Tigamilla]

I have just returned mine - after a very painful set up experience and bluetooth dropouts and music controls not working. Then after rading about the dodgy GPS and dodgy heart rate monitoring... the final straw was waking up to "watch face error" - just not worth the hassle. 

Definitely not worth the £229 that I paid for (now fully refunded).

I have next to me a beatiful Garmin 645 music still in it's box...Im sure I will have no regrets.

[EJB18]

I would, I like mine a lot! I've had it since Christmas and have not experienced any of the issues I see some others have had. I don't use the on-board music feature however I use just about all others. I find the step count accurate although I have never manually counted my steps for a day to compare since I feel repeatability is more important than accuracy. The GPS sensor I have found to be off maybe 2% but again for me, that's close enough. I do wish the SpO2 sensor was active but it's not like I need it, I'm just curious to track this variable.

[NeilN]

I have to say no, unfortunately. I bought a Fitbit Ionic for my dad, charged the battery and planned on setting it up for him. I turn on the watch and it gets hung on the welcome message with the Fitbit logo. Tried to restart it, probably ten times, but same thing over and over.

Contacted customer support by email. Described the problem and was very clear on the point that the watch it self was hung on the welcome message and that it did not react to tapping or swiping.

They took several days to answer and then asked for my dad’s email and what device we were attempting to set up the watch on, which to me seems irrelevant since the watch it self seems to be the problem.

So no I am tot happy at all with the Ionic, and as it now stands would not recommend it to anyone. I own a Fitbit Surge which I am satisfied with except for the occasional sync problem.

[Rdubmu]

I returned mine... I have been very happy with my Apple Watch series 3. It’s great when walking my dogs I can still text and call people while my phone sits on the counter at home. The apps are better, the Starbucks app isn’t just a barcode reader. You can reload, see how much is on the card. My fitness pal, and lots of other apps have apps for the Apple Watch. I charge my watch at night and finish the day at around 50% if I use the gps, or 75% if I don’t. I highly suggest the series 3 with cellular intergration. 

[Shield]

I used to tell all my friends to get an Ionic.

After the silly issues with the latest firmware (TODAY is broken; won't show two items at once and disappears after 3-5 minutes) and the awful requirements to load music (Windows 10, Microsoft account, computer with wifi (basically has to be loaded from a laptop - most desktops 1 year or older don't have built-in wifi adapters) I'm over it.

Shame they won't allow folks to revert to previous firmware versions.

I'm sure I'll be labeled as someone afraid of change (I'm not) - but change for change's sake esp. when half-baked is pointless.

What a shame.  Great hardware with some goofy quirks.  I would never recommend this to someone who isn't tech savvy, and most tech savvy people will want Spotify or other music sources.  And better apps.

Just a random thought from a former die-hard fan.  Fitbit, stop having your customer base be beta testers.

[jbender68]

I really like the fitness capabilities of the Iconic, but fitbit's refusal to address the notifications issue is really disappointing, right now notifications that you got a text, app notifications, ect are barley noticeable which really take so much benefits of a smart watch away

[Cal95]

Had my Ionic for 4 days now and its been a complete nightmare since minute one.loses connection to my phone constantly even though i have all day sync turned on. It hasnt synced my sleep data or active minutes to my phone once and if it did it wouldnt matter because all my data gets deleted the next day anyway.

I've uninstalled and reinstalled the app, restarted the ionic countless times, forgot the device etc all the usual go to "solutions". This is my first Fitbit product and i am extremely close to returning it, if i do it will be my last.

[Giampi71]

Best smartwatch I had and it's getting better and better. So happy that I started to learn how to make clockfaces and apps and I soon hope to release something mine.

Is there anything to improve? yes, many aspects can be improved but the Fitbit OS developers seem working very well.

[D8veh]

Definitely not. I had a Charge 2 that was faultless, but I made the mistake of upgrading to an Ionic, which is absolutely terrible. It's got to be the most frustrating product I've ever had. It has a complete mind of its own wen it comes to syncing, so you can never see results when you want. Now, it's as good as bricked.

[DMacAZ]

Don't waste your money on Fitbit.  Great ideas but their software is and connection issues make their devices utterly useless.  Better to throw your cash in the fire and watch it burn.  At least you know you deliberately threw your money away.