Open Water app for Ionic

[tribri]

I just reviewed a ton of apps out for the Ionic, a wide range of subjects. Why isn't anyone writing an app for open water swimming? Or maybe not call it open water, how about just a swim app that is more comparable to the other swim watches (Apple and Garmin)? Something that doesn't just count laps, but uses all the functionality of the Ionic such as GPS, accelerometers, etc. to record strokes and linear distance (point a to point b). I read how superior Fitbit is to all other wearables, yet the Ionic is out performed  by the competition in this application. The Ionic uses these technologies to know when I am walking, running, biking, aerobics... counting steps. Seems logical it should do the same for swimming? Why not count strokes? If Fitbit does not want to develop or modify its swim app, why not a 3rd party app?

Moderator edit: label

[RobertoME]

Hello @tribri, nice to see you keep participating in the Fitbit Community! I was reading your post and so far I do not have updates if there is an indie app for the Ionic in development. However I'm going to share your comments with our teams as a feedback, this helps us to improve the Fitbit experience in future releases.

I saw you are already supporting this idea in our Feature Suggestion board: 
Open water swimming for Ionic. This is great since our product team looks forward to reading and incorporating your suggestions into future versions of Fitbit trackers and apps.

If you are interested in learning more about creating apps for Ionic, please refer to this article: How do I develop new apps for the Fitbit App Gallery?

See you around and once again, thank you for your feedback.

[tribri]

Thank you for the feedback RobertoFitbit.

I would love to see the Ionic support Open Water swimming, as would many others.

Just seems to me Fitbit would benefit so much by this. I is so disappointing seeing comments and replys to posts telling Ionic owners to go to other platforms since the Ionic can not provide them what they are looking for. And to my mind, from all that I see the Ionic can do, it just seems so obvious the technology and sensor are in the device already. What really could be different in a Garmin or Apple watch????

Thanks

[RobertoME]

Hi @tribri, thank you for sharing your thoughts and you are correct. Rest assure the Support for the Fitbit Ionic still is in our plans and many surprises are still to come to offer you the best.

Just be aware some suggestions take time to be implemented and in some cases this are declined. In either case you will received updates based on the progression of the idea you have voted to keep you informed.

See you later and stay awesome!

[Duke552]

Any news?

[tribri]

No, it's been 4 months, but "these things take time" as was the reply. In the mean time Fitbit customers are leaving for other platforms

[Duke552]

Sure , i would like to know if this suggestion is taken into account or not.

There is no news, so i suppose ionic will Never support Open water tracking  😵

Some Polar and Garmin watch support this as perfection... 

Please some news from moderator ?

Thank you

[LanuzaFitbit]

Hello @Duke552 and @tribri.

I understand that it can be frustrating to not get any news on the matter. Please be sure that all suggestions are taken into consideration and that as soon as there is anything to update or announce we'll be sure to let everyone know. If you have any specific questions regarding the way the Feature Suggestions board works, you can read more about it in here.

Let me know if you have any further questions.

[lenny4d]

@tribri  the issue of the current fitbits not supporting open-water swimming is an unfortunate but well known thing. In fact the 'swimming mode' is pretty basic in that it does not do anything else than detecting laps (i.e., change of direction). Even if someone cooked up an open-water swimming 'app' of some sort it would not log it stats into the main exercise section of the fitibit app/dashboard.

That being said, when we look at the independent app development (3rd party), it would be good to get the requirements right from the start (and community driven!). I have no idea what other (Garmin etc) watches have and how good they really are...

Some ideas: on the watch:

• must count & show strokes
• must have & show a timer
• must calculate (average) pace, optionally show
• must detect stroke type and cope with changing stroke type
• if GPS available (Ionic only) must log GPS and calculate distance; otherwise use approx distance/stroke
• must be able to be paused
• configurable vibration alarm that goes over at given elapsed time/stroke count/distance intervals

Cannot log heartbeat and thus neither compute calories (unless someone has a suggestion for an approximation formula)

Anything else that open water swimmers want or that competing devices offer? Most of it is 'easy' except for counting strokes. There one needs to have someone onboard that has done that type of programming (that is using the accelerometers (and gyro) to detect the type of and count strokes).

I haven't written an app myself yet and only have the Versa, but am quite keen, if only because I am keen recreational open-water swimmer and want to log my OWS stats.

Would be nice if the companion 'app' (the one on the mobile device a/o dashboard) could aggregate and show all the those attributes for every logged event with the app.

[PhillipPAP]

Couldn't agree more. I received a fitbit ionic as a present but without having better features for swimming particularly for open water for me the ionic is little more than a fashon statement with a few bells and whistles.

[yenpho]

So disappointed with the Fitbit Ionic that it doesn't support open water swimming, wasted AUD$300 for a glorified digital watch !!!

Sorry for myself not having done a better research on this watch before rushing out to buy it !!