Why you'll love it: The Fitbit Ionic tracks your daily activity, gives you in-depth workout stats, and real-time coaching, plus, it has smartwatch features.
While it definitely has a place in the smartwatch arena, the Ionic puts fitness tracking first, which isn’t a bad thing if your main priority is to track daily activity and workouts. The smartwatch market is continuing to grow, and with big contenders like Apple dominating the scene, it makes sense that Fitbit released its own version of a smartwatch. I tested the Ionic and was impressed with all the features it offers.
Design wise, the Ionic isn’t the sleekest looking smartwatch out there. It’s angular and bulky — especially on my small wrist. However, despite being on the bulky side, I still found it comfortable to wear throughout the day. People with larger wrists may find it to be the perfect size, too.
Though it does offer in-depth sleep tracking like the Charge 2 and the Alta HR, because of its bigger design I didn’t find it to be the most comfortable thing to wear to bed. I did love it’s bright, full-color display that made it easy to go through all my stats for the day.
Like most of the other Fitbits, the Ionic comes in multiple colors and with multiple strap options that can be easily snapped on and off. The Ionic is also waterproof so swimmers rejoice — you can now track your laps in the pool. It also has a decent multi-day battery life. While testing, it lasted almost 5 days for me before I had to recharge it.
So what does the Ionic do? If you look at it as a stand-alone fitness tracker, it does its job extremely well. It tracks steps, calories burned, and floors climbed. In addition, it offers heart rate monitoring, sleep tracking, and has a built-in GPS. I especially appreciated the built-in GPS as a runner. It was nice not to have to take my phone with me on my runs to track distance. The Ionic can also store music.
The Ionic has plenty of tools to improve your workout experience. You can track workouts in real time on the large screen, and get coached through actual workouts on the watch. Three basic workouts are included with the Coach app. It will also automatically sense an exercise or activity if you forget to start the timer for a workout. It’s also compatible with Bluetooth headphones for listening to stored music or coaching cues.
While it does extremely well as a fitness tracker, there is still some work to be done on the smartwatch front. However, if fitness is your focus and you just want the main features a smartwatch offers, you won’t be disappointed. You can receive call, text, and calendar notifications, check the weather, sync additional workouts with Strava (if you have an account), and even make payments with your watch (similar to Apple Pay).
While apps are available, there is currently a limited selection, which will hopefully improve over time. As far as displaying the time goes, there are multiple options for customizing your watch face. One of my favorites was under the Fitbit Labs section, which features a watch with an interactive pet that you “feed” with steps. My Cat Luna, with a cute green-eyed kitty, definitely inspired me to walk a little further each day. The dog lovers won’t be disappointed either as there are dog options, too. Fitbit aims to please everyone with all the different displays to choose from.
While reviews were positive overall, some reviewers would like to see more apps become available for the Ionic, and do complain that the display can be a little slow at times. I had no issues with the display except when working out — I do wish that it would stay on a little longer and react more quickly. Otherwise, I enjoyed working out and running with the Ionic and loved the full-color screen with the interchangeable clock faces.
This reviewer says it best: If your main priority is to have a reliable fitness tracker, with smartwatch features being secondary you’ll be happy with the Ionic. It may not have all the smartwatch features of the Apple Watch, but it goes above and beyond as an advanced fitness tracker.
Pros: Daily activity tracking, built-in GPS, heart-rate monitoring, sleep tracking, waterproof, great workout features, decent battery life, multiple watch faces to choose from, phone notifications
Cons: Bulky design, limited number of apps currently available, display can be slow at times
Buy the Fitbit Ionic for $229.95 (originally $299.95)