average life span of ionic

[Sandyott]

Hey,

I am curious  How many users have an Ionic that has been functioning more than 8 months?

I bought one  IONIC upon release.  I don't like running with a phone but love my maps.  It died 8 months into use.  Fitbit replaced it. My replacement is now dead.  Replacements don't come with warranties, so  I need to either buy a new Ionic or get something else. So I'm trying to see if it is worth trying again. 3rd watch will be a charm?  My husband's blaze is going on 4 years with no sync issues.  Ionic has always had sync issues..  But sadly the Blaze has no GPS for maps.

[Rich_Laue · Accepted solution]

Since three ionic was released way over a year ago their should be many users with bionics over a year old. Asking on a board where the only people that come are uses that are having problems is not readily the best place to get an unbiased answer.

It is kind of like searching for car accidents to find out how many cars are not in accidents.

BTW both my brothers have 4 year old Fitbit Surge, my niece has a Charge 2, in 2 months 3 years old,  a sister with a 3 year old Alta HR and may relatives with various aged  Fitbits with only a handful of problems. 

[Sandyott]

Yes  a Biased answer  but would also get an idea of how much trouble people have had before switching or giving up.  FYI  I also troll these boards looking for info before buying..

I have had a surge and a one. Both were great.  I have purchased other fitbits for my family.  Many are still working and don't have issues that were not easily resolved or that were not user issues.   I  also asked on a couple other boards and friends..  

[SunsetRunner]

It is true that people come here very often to complain. However, I would turn the focus on the matter of complaints in comparison with forums for other models. Majority of complaints are related to broken Ionics and this is something I don't really observe among other Fitbit devices on such scale. Complaints are one thing. Another, more important in my opinion, is what people complain about and for Ionic there is quite clear pattern repeating on daily basis ( a day without reporting a broken device is a very rare thing on Ionic forum ). I have this idea that Ionics may get better over time ( next batches of hardware ) and Fitbit is just trying to shove the dirt under carpet and wait until all the faulty devices will be gone and people will forget. Who cares the customers will leave. After all, new customers will come.

@Sandyott if two such devices already died on you why would you want to go for third one and pay for it extra? If you burn your hand in fire are you putting it again into flames hoping this time the flame won't be hot?

[Stu_B]

I have had mine 14 months now.  Used for circuits type work out 3 or 4 times a week, football a few times a month, occasional bike rides and hikes, at one point last year I was also swimming 2 or 3 times a month with it (no water issues so far).

So opposite of all the tales of woe and failed Ionics 🙂

[sharenslz]

My own experience - I'm in the UK

first one, bought Dec2017, lasted until June 2018 - 6 months

replaced by Amazon - second Ionic - lasted until Nov 2018 - 5 months

replaced by Amazon - yes I thought they must be getting better - Fitbit will be working on all the problems

what a fool ,

third Ionic lasted 27 days !!

Thank goodness for Amazon - full refund given and purchased the Galaxy.

So, my average over the 3 is approxs - 4 months. For a tracker that cost GBP280.00. and had I been living in USA would have been out of warranty .

No more Fitbit products for me .

[sfringer]

I've had my Ionic for over a year now, and it is still operational. However, I no longer use if for runs as the data reported is not accurate and I don't like taking a chance it may restart during run. I do still wear it for sleep tracking (being in the Sleep Score beta which supposedly makes use of the SpO2 sensor). It still syncs to my Google Pixel 3 without issue.

I probably wore it constantly for the first 9 months, and then replaced it for run tracking and such with a Garmin Forerunner 645 (non-music). The FR645 is just more reliable and allows external sensor connections for even deeper run data.

[DBoth]

Same here. Had the Blaze for a little over a year, store warranty covered it and I upgraded to the IONIC. Took really good care of it, kept a screen protector on it, never showered with it, and only got caught in the rain a few times.. Lasted a little over a year as well, but I forgot to renew my store warranty and now I am out of luck. Can't afford to waste $200 a year for a smart watch, so I am going to have to go with another brand...

[RatedE]

I've had mine for over 15 months now.  No real issues until I did the OS 3.0 update and then things were really unstable (it would reset on its own quite frequently) but I think maybe the new software didn't install cleanly, so I did a factory reset and reinstalled OS 3.0 and everything has been fine since then.

*edit:  my Ionic eventually died. Tried the Versa, it also had issues. I’ve left Fitbit. 

[DBoth]

I would do a factory reset, but I can't even get the IONIC to turn on.
Tried that with the Blaze, and it didn't fix it either.

[HollyDay74]

Welcome to the club... I posed a similar post to this and it was deleted.

Isn't it terrible that hundreds of us (and those are just people that come to the forums to post) have Ionics that have failed at the 12-15 month time period. I will never understand how Fitbit get's away with this. I would love for the company to stand behind their product; for them to tell us WHY the device is failing at this crucial time period. They don't seem to have an explanation; all they offer is a discount on a new one...no thank you!

[SunsetRunner]

@HollyDay74 "hundreds" is quite accurate term. Just on this forum I managed to extract 230 unique user names of people who ever dealt with at least one Ionic replacement. Yet, it is a little over 10% of all the records I extracted but since manual verification ( sometimes there are false positives ) is a chore so after 230 I stopped. It doesn't include people who reported their watch is dead but they haven't reached out to the support yet. So yeah, hundreds just here on this forum.

[SunsetRunner]

Mine made just over a year and was fortunate to receive a replacement after it mysteriously died. I purchased mine from a known retailer on 12/24/2017.  The replacement unit seems to do things a bit better such as the dreaded music sync, but it has started to reboot on its own as of late which is something the other unit I had started to do prior to it crapping out (happens when playing music)  Fingers crossed that it lasts at least another year. I really like the Ionic and am in the minority when I say this, but I think the Ionic minus the issues is a great fitness device-Imo.

Update  5-4-2019

With regards to my mystery rebooting comment above while listening to music on my Ionic, I noticed it seemed to be a particular track I was repeatedly listening to which was a lengthy song over 10 minutes long, that the rebooting seemed to happen at some point during this song.  I removed the song and have not had that issue since.  Not sure if that was the reason, but fingers crossed that it was a one off.

still very happy with the Ionic....

[Rich_Laue]

@HollyDay74  failing at the 12 month would still be under warranty.  Failing after the warranty is over,  would not be covered and like a dishwasher,  my brothers failed in the 4th month and the repair cost was almost the price of a new dishwasher, can you guess what he did? Yes bought a dishwasher at full cost,  yes he could have pursued to have his repaired but....

So for the price of a repair the user gets a new unit, under warranty the replacement would be free but it might be a remanufactured unit. 

What I don't understand is why millions of Fitbit users have 3,4, even 6+ year old trackers with only minor issues and others can not get their unit(s) to last 3,4 or even 6 months, going through 2 or 3 trackers every year. 

I have one Fitbit,  my favorite, that I had to give up simply because Fitbit decided to not support it anymore since it was incompatible with bluetooth communication. Third unit was discontinued in 2011 and purchased in 2012.

Before anyone says weight do you keep studying with Fitbit,  I ask not studying with Fitbit,  I arm simply telling you of my experience,  and the experience of the many Fitbit users I met yearly.  It is rare that I hear of complaints that I am unable to resolve within minutes. Sorry this is simply my experience and having many,  12 I know of relatives, with fitbits,  and many coworkers who come to me with their issues,  just saying...

[sharenslz]

a dishwasher failing in the 4th month must have been under warranty ??

This discussion is about the Ionic . I also know lots of members at the gym who have Fitbit products.

No one still has their Ionic - of the 8 in my immediate group all have returned them after various problems.I would hope that some of us knew how to keep a tracker working, apart from charging issues, upgrade, sync, the black screen of death - so many with identical problems cannot be the operators - but I believe points to faulty Ionics

And the warranty given in the USA - 1 year, yet I get 2 years in the UK ?? How is that fair to the USA customers - and Fitbit is American !!, way to go!

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@Rich_Laue wrote:

failing at the 12 month would still be under warranty.  Failing after the warranty is over,  would not be covered and like a dishwasher,  my brothers failed in the 4th month and the repair cost was almost the price of a new dishwasher, can you guess what he did? Yes bought a dishwasher at full cost,  yes he could have pursued to have his repaired but....

So for the price of a repair the user gets a new unit, under warranty the replacement would be free but it might be a remanufactured unit. 

What I don't understand is why millions of Fitbit users have 3,4, even 6+ year old trackers with only minor issues and others can not get their unit(s) to last 3,4 or even 6 months, going through 2 or 3 trackers every year. 

I have one Fitbit,  my favorite, that I had to give up simply because Fitbit decided to not support it anymore since it was incompatible with bluetooth communication. Third unit was discontinued in 2011 and purchased in 2012.

Before anyone says weight do you keep studying with Fitbit,  I ask not studying with Fitbit,  I arm simply telling you of my experience,  and the experience of the many Fitbit users I met yearly.  It is rare that I hear of complaints that I am unable to resolve within minutes. Sorry this is simply my experience and having many,  12 I know of relatives, with fitbits,  and many coworkers who come to me with their issues,  just saying...

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[DBoth]

I have to agree with Holly. I have several friends with the older Fitbits as well. They last a long time, as they are not that complicated as well built. But I am specifically talking about the IONIC and the (wonder why it was discontinued) Blaze lasting me only a little more than 12 months each as I stated before. I took out a 2-year store warranty for the Blaze and when it was returned (after 15 months) my wife used the credit (return money) towards purchasing me a new IONIC for Christmas. It failed in February after the NEXT year (14 months). She thought the warranty carried over to the new product, and it did not - so now I'm out and would have to purchase a new one. Considering how long the Fitbit 'smart watches' lasted me, and all of the problems that I can see other people are incurring - why would I take the chance of buying another one for $200+? BTW - my wife and daughter still use their 5+ year old Flexs' with only battery life suffering from time. I'm not knocking Fitbit, just their 'smart watch' product line.

[Rich_Laue]

The Blaze was Discontinued when the Versa was released.  The Versa contains many of the user requests that write asked to be added to the Blaze. Unfortunately the Blaze does not have a true operating system or the extra memory for music storage or the NFC hardware it was impossible to add most of three requested features to the Blaze. 

[Mrs_Mook]

I have the same question.  I was in love with Fitbit until a little over a month ago.  I have convinced at least 8 other people to join the fitbit family.  Now I am not so sure that was a good idea.  I joined fitbit in December 2015, I believe I started with the Charge, it fell apart and they replaced it with a Alta mid 2016.  Near the end of 2016, I purchased a Charge 2.  It lasted a bit over 2 years, but the screen just went out and is no longer under warranty.  Note, I know it is still functioning, because I had just fully charged it when the screen went out and it still vibrates when the alarm goes off.  In the meantime, I received a Charge 3 for my birthday in October 2018.  It died, late November/early December 2018.  Fitbit sent me a replacement.  The replacement died in January 2019, the 3rd replacement died late February 2019.  Obviously, the Charge 3 was not for me.  I was able to get a full refund and a 25% off coupon for another fitbit.  My issue is do I purchase another fitbit, which if it last through the warranty will die shortly after, or move on?  If I move on are there any suggestion on a comparable product (Garmin, Withings, etc)?  I really need suggestions and quickly.

[frenchyb]

My Ionic just died after 14 months. I have tried recharging it, cleaned the contacts and attempted to reset it, to no avail. I haven't contacted customer support yet, but based on the other replies on this forum, I am not expecting a satisfactory solution.

I've reverted to using my Charge HR, which is still working fine, but there's no way I'm buying another one of their products.

[Mrs_Mook]

Thank you for your response! This helps me greatly.



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