Review on 💪 Optimized Fitbit Ionic Smartwatch by Matt Tito

Updated 4/28/18 Now that I've had the watch for about 6 months I'm thinking about the two features that matter most to me. Me, Music and GPS: - Do not buy this watch if you are interested in music syncing. The process is horrific at best. I just try to change the music I have on board once or twice a month as it usually takes me a few days to transfer around 18 hours of music. - Buy this watch if you are interested in using GPS. In my experience it's as accurate as my Garmin or the GPS on my phone. very positive difference in usability. Notifications - I turned them off for SMS because it's too annoying to have another notification and buzz on my watch when I'm actively texting someone. In any case, they only worked part-time. Sleep tracking is still interesting. It seems to accurately record sleep and wake times. Battery life hasn't deteriorated yet. Overall I wouldn't buy this device again as one of the two main features I bought it for doesn't work very well. First, I looked for a fitness watch with an integrated music memory on the market. The smartwatch features are a bonus but not quite what I was looking for. YMMV. At the same time, I run / walk with a watch almost every day. I also took the watch with me on hikes. I was looking for a device that would allow me to leave my phone at home and this got the job done. The GPS is fairly accurate and gives consistent and correct results for almost all of my workouts. Training information is uploaded to Strava; From there I downloaded random GPX files and tested them in other apps, and the distance Fitbit gives me matches what I see in other apps most of the time. That's enough for me and I'm a bit picky when it comes to accurate GPS on the device. The Strava app on Ionic only shows "in progress" activity. I also do other promotions, it would be nice if they were also displayed. The music transfer process is terrible. The fact that a laptop is required is a big problem for a lot of people, but luckily not for me. But even on Windows 10, you still have to take your own music, put it on an iTunes or Windows Media Player playlist, launch the Fitbit desktop app, hope, pray, and click on each other's heels for the app and your Ionic find and chat and then initiate the transfer and wait. and wait. Transferring music takes forever and I couldn't get it right on the first try. It shouldn't be that hard. Music playback is okay; The Ionic never automatically connects to my BT (Plantronics BackBeat Fit) headphones, but they are in the list of devices I can connect to, so I have to manually select them every time I want to play music. You cannot leave this exercise to do something else on the watch without completing the exercise and then restarting it. So that means you can't switch music or skip tracks during a workout. Don't stop mid-workout to buy a snack with your Fitbit Wallet unless you plan to finish your activity and start a new one later. Notifications are ok but not great. You work 90% of the time. When you're actively texting someone, every text you receive will appear on Ionic. It would be great if Ionic knew your phone is unlocked and didn't give you a notification when you're actively using your phone. To clear notifications, you need to scroll down to find Clear All button. Better to put it at the top of the list. You can swipe right on individual notifications to clear them. The heart rate monitor is exactly what you would expect from a wrist HRM. It's fairly accurate, doesn't handle high frequencies very well, and just cuts out from time to time and doesn't recover by the end of the exercise. It seems to track my resting heart rate well. Sleep tracking is interesting. It seems to accurately record the time of my falling asleep and waking up. I have no idea if there is any value in REM - light sleep - deep sleep rates. They seem to reflect how I perceive my dream that night. Installing new watch faces from the app is hit or miss for me. Some crash during installation, some freeze, some work fine. I have reported my issue regarding this to the Fitbit community. Battery life seems pretty good. After a day of use, which includes a 1-hour workout with GPS and music, only about 20% of the battery is drained. I think that's acceptable. The weather app is good. Works reliably. The screen is nice, bright and clear. When wiping, however, it becomes a little slower. Sometimes I have to try swiping up or down two or three times to see notifications or switch screens. I bought the official Fitbit brand sport band and I love it too. The blue and yellow colors look gorgeous, the ventilation keeps sweat from building up during activities and the blue tinted buckle is a nice finishing touch. I used to have Charge 2s and bought some cheap non-Fitbit bands for them and had issues with color fading and whatnot. This bracelet from the Fitbit brand shows no signs of wear after a few weeks, almost around the clock. The device itself is by no means dainty, but I find it doesn't look all that huge on my wrist. I personally like the square form factor better than the round one. I'm not trying to imitate a round watch, I'm looking for a functional device with some fitness features and a few apps. To me it makes sense to have a rectangular screen rather than trying to get the functionality to work on a rounded screen. I previously tried the Samsung Gear Fit2 Pro but returned it due to poor GPS accuracy. However, since I have a Samsung phone, I really liked the integration of the two devices. The Fit2 felt like a seamless extension of my phone, which was really nice (probably similar to iPhone and Apple Watch users). Given the integration with the phone, the maturity of the platform, and the apps available, I'm vaguely considering the Samsung Gear Sport. The Fitbit Ionic may indeed be a great device, but it feels like the software has never been rigorously tested. I found a screen in the app that still called the device "Higgs". These things should never go into a released product - it's not a huge app with countless layers of screens. There shouldn't be any crashes when switching clock screens, this is a pretty basic feature. I received this device as it is today; not for what I'm hoping for in the future, because you never know if an app will be developed for it. I feel that for the price of the device, the software that controls it should have been more reliable and they should have had more app options available from day one.