Key Features
- Review Price: £299.99
- GPS and GLONASS
- Heart rate and relative SPO2 sensor
- NFC
- 2.5GB onboard storage
- Waterproof to 50m with swim tracking
- 1000nits screen
- Open SDK for app development
What is the Fitbit Ionic?
The Fitbit Ionic’s unveiling wasn’t a massive surprise, considering the company’s high-profile acquisitions of smartwatch makers Pebble and Vector, and then contactless payment specialist Coin.
The resulting flagship wearable is best described as Fitbit’s first true smartwatch – although, arguably, the company had dipped its toes in the water with the Fitbit Blaze, even if it had carefully navigated around explicitly calling it a ‘smartwatch’.
The Ionic is an amalgam of Fitbit’s recent devices, including the Surge, Blaze and Charge 2, making it the ultimate Fitbit for those wanting more advanced sports tracking.
Unfortunately, smartwatch functionality is half-baked, much like the early days of Pebble’s smartwatches. At launch, the Fitbit Ionic lacks compelling apps and many of the conveniences available on other smartwatches.
Things look a little brighter down the line at least; Fitbit has said that support for the Deezer streaming music service is coming in 2018 where previously only Pandora music streaming was available and only in the US. Deezer subscribers will be able to sync your personalised playlists as well as Flow playlists.
Given time, I’ve no doubt things will change further – Fitbit only opened its SDK to developers shortly before launch – but right now there’s a lot of unfulfilled potential. If there’s one redeeming factor, it’s the four-day battery life, which puts all other smartwatches firmly in the shade.
Fitbit Ionic – Design and screen
In the world of predominantly circular smartwatches, the Apple Watch and now Fitbit Ionic stand out by offering square designs. Fitbit would argue that circular faces hark back to analogue timepieces stuck in the past – and from a user-experience standpoint, I don’t disagree.
Evenso, the Fitbit Ionic’s design remains divisive, especially against the now-established Apple Watch design that’s in its third generation. Some folk I’ve spoken to have been incredibly put off by the Ionic, while I like its retro charm. It’s a smartwatch that looks far better in the flesh than in pics, with many detractors softening on seeing it.
Importantly, the Ionic is light. Far lighter than its design might lead you to expect. It’s a comfortable wearable, even when on your wrist in bed or during exercise. The slightly tapered sides result in less of the Ionic being in constant contact with your wrist, and the fact that it angles away means it tends to bash against your wrist bone far less often, too.
This may not sound like a huge deal, but worn for a longer run it feels more comfortable than an Apple Watch, which I’ve found can rub and knock around after a while.
At launch, the Ionic will be available in three colours. My favourite is the Burnt Orange/Slate Blue model I’d seen at IFA, but the Charcoal/Smoke Grey unit sent in for review is more subtle and easier to dress up or down, depending on the occasion. I prefer the pairing with the optional blue sports band I was sent, which more openly embraces a sporty design.
Overall, however, the Ionic is still far from elegant, appearing boxy and clunky next to the refinement of the Apple Watch’s rounded corners and clean lines. The more I look at its silver casing and thick black bezel, the more it resembles a miniaturised CRT TV strapped to my wrist.
But if there’s one thing that’s far removed from a CRT TV of old, it’s the actual display itself. It’s one of the sharpest and brightest I’ve seen from a smartwatch. It has a top brightness of 1000 nits, which is as bright as an HDR TV – and matches the past two Apple Watch models.
Even under the toughest of bright outdoor conditions, it isn’t a screen you’ll struggle to read, offering sensible auto-brightness adjustments. Colours are punchy and vibrant, and really show off some of the new visual flourishes in the Fitbit OS. It’s sharp, too, with a 348 x 250 resolution across its 1.42-inch screen.
The Ionic supports a quick-release feature that let you swap out the straps with ease; there are two different-sized silicone straps in the box. Unfortunately, there appear to be some quality control issues with these straps.
I’ve tested two different Fitbit Ionic devices – one of which was running unfinished software; the hardware was final, however – and twice I’ve had straps that simply failed to lock into place as they should. Notably, there was no audible click to indicate the straps had been secured.This issue has been apparent at a few product demonstrations I’ve attended, too.
Like the Fitbit Flex 2, the Fitbit Ionic is the second Fitbit model to offer water-resistance to 50m, which is fantastic. Even if you’re not a swimmer, not having to worry about getting the watch wet in the shower is a convenience you’ll quickly learn to appreciate. The waterproofing is helped by the Ionic’s unibody design, which keeps H2O out.
Fitbit Ionic – Specs and sensors
While trackers such as the Charge 2 and Blaze require connected GPS from your paired smartphone for location, the Ionic offers a phone-free experience. The Ionic has GPS built in, much like the Surge. It offers one better in the form of support for GLONASS as well.
It also features a new Relative SPO2 sensor, which can detect your blood oxygen levels. Fitbit hasn’t announced an actual use for this just yet, but possible applications could be for medical conditions such as sleep apnoea – potentially taking sleep tracking to the next level.
A fan of listening to music while you exercise? Then you’ll be pleased to learn that the Ionic offers around 2.5GB for storing music, another reason to leave that phone at home. Bluetooth pairing for wireless headphones is available too.
The inclusion of NFC further bolsters your phone-free experience. You can use the new Fitbit Pay service for contactless payments, much like Apple Pay on the Apple Watch – handy, if you find yourself out on a run and needing to make an emergency purchase. To access the functionality, simply hold down the left physical button to bring up the payment screen.
At time of review, the Fitbit Pay functionality wasn’t available, however. Fitbit said it would be available in the UK within the next month, and Fitbit was true to its word. That is, with a rather large caveat. Three weeks on and while Fitbit has indeed launched in the UK, it’s only supported by one bank. And if your mind is going to one of the UK’s big high street banks like Barclays, Natwest or Santander, you’re going to be left disappointed. Fitbit Pay is currently only supported by start-up bank Starling, which is a mobile only bank.
It’s all a far cry from the number of banks supporting Apple Pay or Android Pay. In fairness, Fitbit has said it’s in talks with other leading UK banks but why these agreements weren’t reach earlier is anyone’s guess.
On the underside of the device you’ll find the Fitbit PurePulse heart rate monitor, but it now sits completely flush with the rear of the Ionic’s body, rather than extending slightly as it did on previous trackers. This slight tweak should supposedly help with heart rate readings. Inside you’ll find the usual accelerometers, gyroscopes and altimeters used for Fitbit’s all-day activity tracking.
Fitbit Ionic – Exercise and activity tracking
Activity tracking is a pretty standard affair for anyone who’s ever worn a Fitbit fitness tracker. There’s the usual ability to count steps seen elsewhere, and advanced sleep tracking in the form of Sleep Stages and Sleep Insights, both of which debuted with the Fitbit Alta HR and later rolled out to Fitbit’s other advanced trackers as a software update.
In the Fitbit companion app you can change your goal from the standard step counting to distance covered, calories burned or stairs climbed courtesy of the altimeter. A buzz on your wrist will indicate when you’ve hit your goal.
You can also turn on move reminders and set how many active hours you want during a day. These are hours where you aim to hit more than 250 steps; if you’re a little short as you approach the end of the hour, a reminder will buzz on your wrist to let you know how many more steps you need to take to stay on course. This is great if you’re desk-bound or find yourself sedentary all day.
The sleep tracking is one of my favourite implementations from a wearable, offering a decent level of information regarding time spent in different sleep phases. It’s now far easier to digest all the data captured overnight, with easy-to-read graphs and benchmark data relative to your 30-day average and other people in the same demographic.
As a result, it’s far easier to determine the actual quality of your sleep, rather than simply looking at the duration. Even if you’re achieving eight hours of sleep a night, you might still find yourself waking up tired; a look at your sleep stages may reveal the reasoning for it.
Silent alarms are available from the Alarm app on the watch. These buzz away on your wrist to wake you in the morning, which is great if you don’t want to wake your partner.
As for full exercise tracking, there are shortcuts for Run, Bike, Swim, Treadmill, Weights, Interval Timer and a general Workout, accessible by default from the Exercise app. These seven slots are customisable from the Fitbit mobile app if you want to swap them out.
For exercise such as running and cycling, the GPS is relatively quick to lock. This meant I was able to set off on a run with far less of a hold-up compared to a TomTom Spark 3 that I was also wearing. On the Ionic it takes about 30-40 seconds; the Spark 3, on the other hand, could on occasion take up to a minute before it was ready.
Before you set off, you can hit the cog icon to configure the run tracking, from toggling the GPS to setting the information displayed on the screen. During a run, for example, the screen is split into three stats slots. The top and bottom are fixed to whatever you want, such as distance or calories burned, whereas the middle stat can show multiple different metrics by swiping at the display.
During a number of 10K test runs on official courses, the Fitbit Ionic tended to over-judge the distance, typically by around 1-200m. The TomTom Spark 3 and Apple Watch Series 2 got much closer to a 10km recording, allowing for a little extra distance for deviations from a linear path around the course.
Heart rate monitoring was at least close between the various test devices, and the Ionic’s PurePulse sensor performed much better than the Charge 2 did in terms of how quickly it adjusted for a recovery heart rate post-race. The heart rate information is also used for Fitbit’s Cardio Fitness score, which is essentially your VO2 Max. This is a great way to keep an eye on your overall fitness level.
Having physical buttons to use while swimming is great, because touchscreens really don’t work well when covered with water. The Ionic is able to automatically track lengths, but you’ll need to set the pool length in the Fitbit app – not via the cog settings menu on the watch itself.
The lap-counting worked accurately, nailing the correct distance during my tests. Sadly, it isn’t possible to receive any heart rate information during a swim, but you can see calorie burn and the impact on your day’s activity levels.
Finally, on the fitness side is Fitbit Coach, the replacement for Fitstar. The Ionic comes with three workouts on the watch: 10-Minute Abs, 7-Minute Workout and the longest duration Treasure Chest, which runs for 20 minutes.
The workouts are great for those unable to get to a gym or out for a run. I went through them while in a hotel room during a press trip, for example. The routines are clearly explained with the display showing a real person going through the form and technique. Buzzes from the watch let you know when to move onto the next workout, and the screen displays your current heart rate and the time remaining.
While these three workouts are available off the bat on the Ionic, Fitbit Coach is a subscription service, and provides a greater selection of workouts. Fitbit has said audio coaching will come to the Ionic in 2018, too.
Fitbit Ionic – Smartwatch functionality
Those looking for a smartwatch experience that can rival the likes of the Apple Watch watchOS, the raft of Android Wear-based devices, or Samsung’s Tizen-powered wearables, are likely to be disappointed by what’s currently on offer.
The experience on the Ionic feels reminiscent of Pebble’s smartwatches. But we’re talking early Pebble OS – not later, following a number of refinements to the operating system. Fitbit OS is going to feel incredibly basic for anyone used to a modern smartwatch.
Fitbit OS offers a pared back, passive experience that was fine in the early days of a smartwatch, when people just wanted a way to view their notifications and messages without whipping out their phone. In 2017, this isn’t enough.
The Ionic is able to display any notification that’s pinged through to your phone, letting you enable and disable what comes through from the Fitbit app onto your device. But these notifications are simply delivered and added to a long list, with no way to actually interact with them.
In addition, the swipe-up gesture to bring up notifications was on occasion unresponsive, requiring more than one attempt to get the gesture to register. Swiping through the list of notifications also felt laggy and slow.
Since there’s no microphone built into the Ionic, there isn’t the option of dictated responses, but there’s also no on-screen keyboard or even pre-canned responses – the latter of which was at least available on Pebble devices in later years. The one saving grace is that messages and notifications come through in their entirety, rather than being abbreviated version for which you’d still need to pull out your phone.
The watch is flanked by a single button on the left and a pair on the right – which again feels Pebble-esque. These can be used to navigate Fitbit OS menus and to interact with the watch itself when using the touchscreen might prove too fiddly – during a run or swim, for example.
Unfortunately, the interactions can be a little confusing. Some actions use swipes from the edge of the screen to go back; some use the left button. Sometimes, the hardware buttons correspond with labels on the screen; at other times those labels are actually touch buttons and the hardware buttons don’t do anything at all. Fitbit OS jumps between the two methods, with the lack of consistency requiring some training.
Then we come to the apps, or should I say the lack thereof. In the UK, you have Strava and Weather at launch. That’s literally the end of the list. It’s also a very basic Strava experience.
Those in the US get Pandora and Starbucks too – but that’s it. Granted, Fitbit has only just opened up its SDK to developers and has promised that it will be easy to develop apps, but access should have been provided far sooner so a more substantial app store could have been ready at launch.
As mentioned, support for the streaming service Deezer is coming in 2018 but there’s no firm date just yet for when. It’s also not the most popular service but it’s at least a start.
It’s a similar case for watch faces. A small number of Fitbit-developed options are available out of the box – some are actually rather nice and make great use of that crisp display – but you’ll have to wait for more to become available. The whole experience feels rather poorly planned and rushed to market. Fledgling app stores have suffered a similar slow start in the past, but I haven’t experienced anything as extreme as this in a while.
Getting music onto the Fitbit Ionic requires you to install the Fitbit desktop software and to have your computer on the same Wi-Fi network as your device. You can then drag and drop playlists, which are wirelessly synced across. You can’t just drag and drop music over a USB connection – so if you’re caught somewhere without access to a wireless network, you won’t be able to update your music catalogue. Support for Spotify or any other music service would be most welcome.
I found the process of transferring music incredibly frustrating. Sometimes, my computer wouldn’t detect the Ionic, even though it was waiting in music transfer mode. Even if they did find each other, music transfer wouldn’t always work first time – or would be painfully slow.
Once you do get music on-board, you’re free to pair Bluetooth headphones – which at least works well and, as mentioned, means you can leave your phone at home when heading out for a run. It’s just getting to that point that’s a pain.
Fitbit Labs
Recently, Fitbit debuted a number of new apps under the moniker of ‘Fitbit Labs’. These range from watch faces to app that bring with them new features. One example is Fitbit Pet, which brings a virtual cat or dog to your watch screen. It’s a bit like a Tamagotchi of old, wherein you can earn food to feed it by hitting your steps milestones. It’s a fun little motivator on top of just a plain cute watch face. There’s also a game called Think Fast that tests your reflexes and memory by performing tasks such as matching colours, shapes and prices to test your mental sharpness.
Other apps available include a Mood Log to track your emotional state throughout the day and a Tennis swing analyser. Another app called Treasure Trek is similar to the virtual pet, but instead of earning food your steps power your pirate ship on its quest for more treasure. While the Fitbit Labs apps are fun and a nice distraction, they’re designed as a test bed for trying out new ideas. Hopefully these lead to more fully developed apps appearing on the Fitbit app
Fitbit Ionic – Battery life
If the Fitbit Ionic has one saving grace, it’s the battery life. Fitbit rates it at 4+ days and this was about right in the two weeks I’ve been wearing one. Depending on your use you can get closer to five days if you’re not tracking any workouts. GPS usage is the real battery drain, offering you about 10 hours of battery life.
Four days is around what you’ll see from Fitbit’s standard fitness trackers, so it’s impressive the company has managed to maintain that sort of stamina, especially with the display used.
Should I buy the Fitbit Ionic?
While I can see the potential of the Fitbit Ionic, I can only review the device in front of me right now. Unfortunately, as it stands, the Ionic feels rushed to market, pushed out to combat the impending Apple Watch Series 3 announcement and subsequent release. The fact that in the two weeks before the launch I’ve had three firmware updates to install doesn’t do anything to change that feeling.
As a device that’s being billed as Fitbit’s first smartwatch, the smarts are practically non-existent. Failing to launch with a greater number of apps or music partnerships is a misstep and it’s a shame that Fitbit Pay isn’t better supported at launch.
There’s every chance things will improve over time, much in the same way Pebble’s ecosystem evolved with developer support and OS updates. But when you consider that both Fitbit and Pebble are mature companies, I would have expected a more complete package at launch.
The exercise and fitness side of the Ionic delivers as I’d expect from Fitbit, with refinements to the app making the system approachable and insightful. I’d argue that swim tracking, in particular, is better here than it is on the Apple Watch. Then there’s that stellar battery life, which many rivals just can’t touch.
But for just £30 more, the Apple Watch Series 3 GPS model screams far better value, eclipsing the Ionic for smartwatch smarts. If you have an iPhone, that is. If you’re an Android user, or a Fitbit loyalist, then it isn’t a simple decision – although you’ll likely feel let down by the ‘smartwatch’ moniker – even if the rest is pretty great. For those users I’d recommend the Samsung Gear Fit2, which is available for significantly less money yet still has more in the way of app support for its Tizen-based operating system.
Ultimately, if the Ionic was launched as a replacement for the Fitbit Blaze – and at a similar price point – I’d be positively gushing over it. But as a £300 smartwatch, it needed more time in the oven.
I’ll be keeping an eye on the Fitbit Ionic over the coming months, and will be returning to the device once the app ecosystem matures. But for now, the Fitbit Ionic isn’t a smartwatch I can wholeheartedly recommend.
Verdict
The Fitbit Ionic offers bags of potential, and the fitness side really excels – but right now, the smartwatch functionality is lacking.
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