Sometime back, the leaked renders of Fitbit’s first ever smartwatch made rounds on the internet. And today, Fitbit has officially announced its smartwatch - the Ionic. Fitbit claims it to be a powerful combo of fitness-tracker and smartwatch.
This is not the first time when Fitbit is confident about its wearable; we heard similar claims for the Fitbit Blaze, which later failed to woo the buyers. However, in comparison to the Blaze, the Fitbit Ionic comes across as a tremendous improvement.
The Ionic offers most of the general fitness tracking features that we have already seen on other Fitbit wearables. Ionic also comes with a pedometer that counts step, built-in GPS for location assistance, sleep tracker, a heart-rate sensor to track active and resting beats per minute, water-resistance coating for swim tracking, and personal coach for on-screen workouts.
Fitness-tracking features constitute just half of the goodness in Ionic, the rest of the features are of a smartwatch. The Ionic shows notifications for calls, texts, calendar events, and the alerts from Twitter, Facebook, Gmail, and others. It also has access to Fitbit’s app store, which we think has a lot to catch up with other app stores like Android Wear and Tizen. Fitbit says that it has partnered with Strava, Starbucks, and Pandora.
Fitbit Pay for contactless payments
The most valued addition to the Ionic is the Fitbit Pay. Yes, the Ionic comes with NFC chip that enables contactless payments. On Fitbit Pay, you will be able to add your Visa, Mastercard, or AMEX debit/credit card and pay at the stores that accept Android and Samsung Pay. Earlier this year, Google introduced Android Pay on Android Wear with Android Wear 2.0, which means that Fitbit is not too late to the party.
Fitbit reports that the Ionic features “multi-day battery” that will easily get through 4 days or more. If the claim is true, then Ionic is ahead of Android Wear watches that offer lesser battery backup.
The Fitbit Ionic will be available in three colour variants - Charocal & Smoke Gray, Slate Blue & Burnt Orange, and Blue Gray & Silver Gray. The package will also include classic rubber band strap, sport strap, and stylish leather strap. Ionic is priced at $299.95 and is now up for pre-ordering via Fitbit's website, shipping is expected to starts in 3 to 4 weeks.
