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controlling music player on my phone (spotify) from ionic?

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so i select bluetooth classic settings and put it on pair and then pair it in my phone's bluetooth setup page, then everything works great. i see the band name and song name of everything that's playing, all the controls work fine. the issue is that a day latter (or whatever) if i want to control the music on my phone from my ionic again i have to either repair or reset up everything to get it working again. if i just repair it, the player controls work but it doesn't get any song artist / track name info.  on my samsungs, everything was automatic, i didn't have to set it up once, much less every single time.

 

any ideas? is this just how primitive the ionics music connection / features are? or is this a bug? 

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I just purchased an IONIC.  It setup just fine but I cannot get it to control music playback on my phone.  That doesn't seem to be working properly.   I had a BLAZE before the ionic and that worked just fine.   Do I need to try removing the Fitbit App from my phone, reinstalling it and setting up my IONIC again to try to make this work?   Is there a simpler solution or a known bug that I should be aware of?

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I'm having the same problem. Only option seems to be to use the pre-installed Pandora service or transfer music directly to the ionic from my home media but no way to just control the media player on my phone? This is a huge disappointment if this doesn't work.

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Yes, this will also be a huge disappointment for me, a setback...as that feature was something I used extensively with the BLAZE

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OK, I figured it out.  Here are the steps to get basic media controller working to have your watch act as the media controller for something playing on your phone.

 

1. Ionic: go to 'Settings' app on your watch, scroll to 'Bluetooth'

2. Ionic: scroll to 'Bluetooth Classic' and switch to 'Pair'

3. Phone: go to your phone and pair to "Ionic (classic)"

4. Now you should have some basic control capabilities from your watch to your phone.

 

My results vary by which service I'm using.  Google Play Music and Podcast Addict work pretty well. NPR One doesn't. I'll continue to play with it today and update on progress.

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pairing it works, but it's obnoxious you have to manually do that everytime, the garmin watches do that automatically for you. also there is the issue of the song/artist info not reliably working. 

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My phone does not have an IONIC (classic) option to pair to.  It has an IONIC entry in the blue tooth list and that says paired but it won't connect.   For the BLAZE, I now recall, I did have to get a BLAZE (classic) entry in the blue tooth paired devices before it would work, and there were instructions I found somewhere on the internet or in FITBIT support on how to do that.    

 

How did you get the IONIC (classic) device onto your phone as a paired device?   

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I fixed this problem.   I am running a Samsung S7 Edge with Android version 7.0.   

 

BTW, I talked with Fitbit support over their internet chat service and they were basically useless, the person I spoke to.   All they could come up with was to try to convince me to follow the steps documented in the Fitbit manual to set this feature up, which I had already tried several times before contacting them, and I had told them that. 

 

Here is what I did and it worked and this was similar to what I had to do I believe, when I purchased the Blaze:

1) In the phone settings Blue Tooth Paired devices list, I unpaired the device named "Ionic"

2) Turned off bluetooth on my mobile phone and restarted the mobile phone.

3) After restarting, turned blue tooth back on in the phone.   The "Ionic" blue tooth device was no longer there...which is what you want...your phone doesn't need that to pair to for the basic Ionic syncing needed to get stats to the Fitbit App

4) On the Fitbit Ionic, entered the settings screen then ==> Bluetooth ==> Blue Tooth Classic.   Set that option to "Pair"

5) My phone then found a blue tooth device named "Ionic (Classic)" and I completed pairing/connecting to it on my phone.   There is still no blue tooth device on my phone named "Ionic" and that's a good thing. 

 

It's (the Fitbit Ionic) now controlling music playback on my phone, working beautifully...and has a better interface for controlling that feature than the Blaze that I just replaced had. 

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Thanks Slasher. This worked for me. I had to  turn bluetooth on and off over and over before my phone saw the Ionic Classic though.

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Iphone 6+, ios 11.1.2

 UPDATE: For some inexplicable reason, it began to work??? I have the Ionic set to BT Classic, ultimately I think it paired via the app & not the phone's/Ionic discovery process. It took numerous attempts.

 

Thank you for your step by step process. Unfortunately, this has not worked for me. I've cycled through the process twice. No luck.

 

I have the Ionic set to BT classic/pair while the BT is turned off/then on on the phone. Phone shows searching but never pairs. 

 

Yet, when I open the FB app, I'm prompted to pair via BT, which I did. Still not can control the music.

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Does anybody know how to keep the Ionic connected to the phone? After I paired it and after 10-15 minutes without changing tracks it automatically disconnected the device. I see the Bluetooth classic on the Ionic has an "On" option but my phone only connect when it's on the "Pair" option. When you go to the "On" option after pairing you have to go to "off" first, but it disconnected after that and won't pair. It's kind of annoying since I cannot go out and re-pair during a workout session.

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@Tieu It’s not entirely clear from your message what your problem is but, there are two types of Bluetooth in play here; BT LE and BT Classic. BT LE is used for all the syncing etc and only maintains an active connection when it’s needed and actually doing something. BT Classic is only used for music, to headphones etc.

 

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Yes, I'm talking about  the Bluetooth Classic to play music and change music tracks on the phone. After 10-15 minutes of not doing anything it disconnected from the phone and the setting for the Bluetooth turned to off automatically. So I had to go back in the ionic turned it to "pair" and it reconnect to the phone. Is there a way to keep it connected?

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@Tieu I believe this has been covered elsewhere. There is a workaround to stop the issue you’re encountering - simply pause the music and restart it again at some point within the first ten minutes, before it’s cut out.

 

What is happening is the Bluetooth thinks it’s been “forgotten” and disconnects, even though music is playing. By interacting with it, by pausing the music and restarting, it seems to remember the connection. Apparently you only need to do this once.

 

Hope this helps

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Okay I got it work now. After I pair it in the "pair" option in the watch. Play the music and then switch to the "on" option. Then it will stay connected. Almost thought about switching to Samsung gear S3 because of this. Thank you

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Do you get any artist names? I don't get that on here.

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That's funny because it worked with my Ionic but just 2 seconds. Now I can control music but can't see any artist names anymore..

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Now that I'm connected to my phone it won't disconnect....I went to setting in my watch turned off the Bluetooth classic, but my phone is still connected to it and my watch can still control the music....too many problems with his new product.

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Thx for the break down!  For some reason now my phone can't find the watch (ionic classic) to pair with. I think I'm going back to my Blaze! 

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Heres how i got it done.

 

1. remove all Ionic from your blutooth settings.

2. Go to your WATCH settings / Blutooth. Then set BT Classic to PAIR

3. Back to your phone, Pair with with IONIC CLASSIC in your phone settings.

4. Back to the watch. Go to the home screen. Then swipe down.

5. Hit top right corrner menu ...  Then we have new options. 

6. Bottom left to select your phone. 

7. Select Phone option ,back out and we are all done.

8. Load up spotify and then when you swipe down you will see your info and be able to control it.

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