Ionic

soontobetoned
soontobetoned Posts: 13 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
I have been a Fitbit user now for many years, ever since the Fitbit one, right through to the blaze, premium account holder too, I am toying with the idea of trying the Ionic verses a total switch to Garmin can any Ionic users give me some feedback on how they are getting on with the Ionic please.

Replies

  • Davidsdottir
    Davidsdottir Posts: 1,285 Member
    I had a One, Flex, Bharge HR, and Blaze...

    Upgraded to the Garmin Vivoactive 3 and love it.
  • soontobetoned
    soontobetoned Posts: 13 Member
    Thank you David interested Why are you didn’t try the ionic if you don’t mind me asking?
  • rsergeant79
    rsergeant79 Posts: 45 Member
    I am also a Garmin convert - I had a charge and Surge - I got fed up with the inaccuracies of the gps compared to my husbands Garmin and so ditched the Fitbit - this was before the ionic came out though so I can’t comment on the hoc accuracy - love my Garmin though and also find that my daily calorie burn is lower (possible more accurate?) than the Fitbit
  • Davidsdottir
    Davidsdottir Posts: 1,285 Member
    I had issues with my Blaze syncing as well as GPS issues. I once ram 7 miles and was told I'd burned a whopping 81 calories. I used to rave about their customer support, but now they're not as interested in helping resolve issues.
  • Davidsdottir
    Davidsdottir Posts: 1,285 Member
    Davidsdottir wrote: »
    I had a One, Flex, Bharge HR, and Blaze...

    Upgraded to the Garmin Vivoactive 3 and love it.

    Ugh, Charge, not Bharge LOL
  • Wheelhouse15
    Wheelhouse15 Posts: 5,575 Member
    edited January 2018
    Davidsdottir wrote: »
    I had a One, Flex, Bharge HR, and Blaze...

    Upgraded to the Garmin Vivoactive 3 and love it.

    I have the Vivoactive 3 as well, I had the Flex and Charge, but my experience with the Charge band made me give up and go to the Vivoactive 2. I started looking at the Blaze as well but Garmin give you a waterproof watch, which I prefer since I swim occasionally, plus it has the built in GPS. My only complaint with the Garmin HR watches is that the algorithm for the calories burned double counts the active calories and really inflates the numbers.

    The Ionic looks pretty good, but it's a different category of watch and I don't even have my watch connected to my phone often; just enough to upload the data. I find that the battery life lasts much longer with the blue tooth off. I'm not really interested in an AppleWatch style device so the Vivoactive 3 gives me all the features I want for a better price. Ugly, but I can deal with that lol.
  • shadow2soul
    shadow2soul Posts: 7,692 Member
    I'm debating between the Ionic or switching to Garmin Vivoactive 3.

    Last time I tried Garmin was in 2014 and I had a lot of trouble with Garmin Connect. It was down a lot during the almost 2 months I had the Vivofit. However, I loved the Vivofit. I thought it was more accurate than Fitbit. I just couldn't get past all the down time Garmin connect had then. There has been a lot of updates since then, so I am thinking I might go that route.

    Lately my Blaze and Flex 2 are having trouble syncing with the app. I sometimes spend a good 20 mins restarting things until they sync. Battery life on my Blaze has also declined a lot, but I have had it since it was released.
  • Wheelhouse15
    Wheelhouse15 Posts: 5,575 Member
    shadow2soul wrote: »
    I'm debating between the Ionic or switching to Garmin Vivoactive 3.

    Last time I tried Garmin was in 2014 and I had a lot of trouble with Garmin Connect. It was down a lot during the almost 2 months I had the Vivofit. However, I loved the Vivofit. I thought it was more accurate than Fitbit. I just couldn't get past all the down time Garmin connect had then. There has been a lot of updates since then, so I am thinking I might go that route.

    Lately my Blaze and Flex 2 are having trouble syncing with the app. I sometimes spend a good 20 mins restarting things until they sync. Battery life on my Blaze has also declined a lot, but I have had it since it was released.

    I have been using Garmin Connect for a couple years and haven't had many issues.
  • shadow2soul
    shadow2soul Posts: 7,692 Member
    Wheelhouse15 wrote: »
    shadow2soul wrote: »
    I'm debating between the Ionic or switching to Garmin Vivoactive 3.

    Last time I tried Garmin was in 2014 and I had a lot of trouble with Garmin Connect. It was down a lot during the almost 2 months I had the Vivofit. However, I loved the Vivofit. I thought it was more accurate than Fitbit. I just couldn't get past all the down time Garmin connect had then. There has been a lot of updates since then, so I am thinking I might go that route.

    Lately my Blaze and Flex 2 are having trouble syncing with the app. I sometimes spend a good 20 mins restarting things until they sync. Battery life on my Blaze has also declined a lot, but I have had it since it was released.

    I have been using Garmin Connect for a couple years and haven't had many issues.

    That's good to hear. I had it Dec 2014-Jan 2015 and just had a lot of trouble with the app. I think though that was when Vivofit's were being promoted on Biggest Loser so it could have been just server overload. I just looked up the App in the play store and it's definitely more colorful than it had been. Looks like a lot of new features too.
  • Wheelhouse15
    Wheelhouse15 Posts: 5,575 Member
    edited January 2018
    shadow2soul wrote: »
    Wheelhouse15 wrote: »
    shadow2soul wrote: »
    I'm debating between the Ionic or switching to Garmin Vivoactive 3.

    Last time I tried Garmin was in 2014 and I had a lot of trouble with Garmin Connect. It was down a lot during the almost 2 months I had the Vivofit. However, I loved the Vivofit. I thought it was more accurate than Fitbit. I just couldn't get past all the down time Garmin connect had then. There has been a lot of updates since then, so I am thinking I might go that route.

    Lately my Blaze and Flex 2 are having trouble syncing with the app. I sometimes spend a good 20 mins restarting things until they sync. Battery life on my Blaze has also declined a lot, but I have had it since it was released.

    I have been using Garmin Connect for a couple years and haven't had many issues.

    That's good to hear. I had it Dec 2014-Jan 2015 and just had a lot of trouble with the app. I think though that was when Vivofit's were being promoted on Biggest Loser so it could have been just server overload. I just looked up the App in the play store and it's definitely more colorful than it had been. Looks like a lot of new features too.

    It has come along way. When I first used the app it was pretty basic and not very appealing visually, but about a two months after I started they rolled out a new version, pretty much what they have now, and it's a lot better now. I still think FitBit has a better interface but Garmin is very good as well.

    Also, I had a ton of issues with the Fitbit watches synching to my phone as well. Garmin has never given me an issue there.
  • Davidsdottir
    Davidsdottir Posts: 1,285 Member
    Wheelhouse15 wrote: »
    Davidsdottir wrote: »
    I had a One, Flex, Bharge HR, and Blaze...

    Upgraded to the Garmin Vivoactive 3 and love it.

    I have the Vivoactive 3 as well, I had the Flex and Charge, but my experience with the Charge band made me give up and go to the Vivoactive 2. I started looking at the Blaze as well but Garmin give you a waterproof watch, which I prefer since I swim occasionally, plus it has the built in GPS. My only complaint with the Garmin HR watches is that the algorithm for the calories burned double counts the active calories and really inflates the numbers.

    The Ionic looks pretty good, but it's a different category of watch and I don't even have my watch connected to my phone often; just enough to upload the data. I find that the battery life lasts much longer with the blue tooth off. I'm not really interested in an AppleWatch style device so the Vivoactive 3 gives me all the features I want for a better price. Ugly, but I can deal with that lol.

    I actually like the way the Vivoactive 3 looks and was excited to get it! I think the Ionic is ugly as hell and the Apple watch does nothing for me.
  • Wheelhouse15
    Wheelhouse15 Posts: 5,575 Member
    Davidsdottir wrote: »
    Wheelhouse15 wrote: »
    Davidsdottir wrote: »
    I had a One, Flex, Bharge HR, and Blaze...

    Upgraded to the Garmin Vivoactive 3 and love it.

    I have the Vivoactive 3 as well, I had the Flex and Charge, but my experience with the Charge band made me give up and go to the Vivoactive 2. I started looking at the Blaze as well but Garmin give you a waterproof watch, which I prefer since I swim occasionally, plus it has the built in GPS. My only complaint with the Garmin HR watches is that the algorithm for the calories burned double counts the active calories and really inflates the numbers.

    The Ionic looks pretty good, but it's a different category of watch and I don't even have my watch connected to my phone often; just enough to upload the data. I find that the battery life lasts much longer with the blue tooth off. I'm not really interested in an AppleWatch style device so the Vivoactive 3 gives me all the features I want for a better price. Ugly, but I can deal with that lol.

    I actually like the way the Vivoactive 3 looks and was excited to get it! I think the Ionic is ugly as hell and the Apple watch does nothing for me.

    Well, I can say it has grown on me but, I do prefer the Apple Watch style. However, I'll always take function over form here, if I want style I'll head to my tailor, he's from Milan and thinks I'm hopeless lol.
  • Duck_Puddle
    Duck_Puddle Posts: 3,237 Member
    edited January 2018
    I have an Ionic and a Garmin fenix5s. I’ve previously had a boatload of other fitbits and Garmins.

    If you want an activity tracker with some smart watch features and considerably more flexible phone notifications and require minimal (if any) actual training data-the Fitbit is fine. I’ve had a Surge and the Ionic and have never had GPS “inaccuracies” that extend beyond what would be considered reasonable for any consumer device. I haven’t yet attempted to load my Ionic with music nor connected it to BT headphones, so I can’t speak to those.

    However-fitbit provides almost no training data, and what it does record isn’t easily transferred elsewhere for ease of use.

    My Garmin records mountains of training data that is easily accessible in Garmin connect or can be used in Training Peaks or elsewhere. Garmin is infinitely more valuable from the standpoint of performance improvement (running a faster 10k, increasing cycling power, vo2max, etc.). Garmin notifications are wretchedly inflexible and make the “Smart watch” aspect really unusable for me (on my Fenix and my VAHR).

    So-My recommendation-if you want an activity tracker with smartwatch functions, the Fitbit would be better. If you want a training device-go with Garmin.

Categories