Fitbit launches its first smartwatch at IFA 2017, but can it do any better after the Apple Watch tried and failed?

Update: Fitbit Ionic goes on sale on 1 October in the UK

Fitbit has finally announced that its first smartwatch – the Fitbit Ionic – will go on sale from 1 October 2017. In the UK, you can pick up the Fitbit Ionic at John Lewis, Currys PC World, Argos, Very, the Fitbit website and Amazon UK for £300 in a choice of three colours: burnt orange tracker and clasp with slate blue band, smoke grey tracker and clasp with charcoal band or silver tracker and clasp with blue band.

Following the launch, you can pick up the Fitbit Coach personal training app, which goes live on Android, iOS and Windows devices for £7.99 a month or £39 a year. Fitbit Coach’s first guided fitness programs go live in 2018.

That being said, you can find my original Fitbit Ionic hands on review, below.

Fitbit Ionic review

Before now, Fitbit seemed to have taken a firm stance against smartwatches. The company is no stranger to little devices strapped around your wrist – with its Alta, Flex and Charge fitness trackers – but it’s never really ventured into the smartwatches. But now that IFA 2017 has kicked off, the firm’s stance is a little Ionic really, don’t you think?

Yep, pardon my awful pun, but I can argue it was called for. Fitbit’s Ionic is the firm’s first stab at a proper smartwatch. There was last year’s Blaze of course, but that was still lacking many features we’d expect from a smartwatch. The Fitbit Ionic properly butts heads with the Apple Watch, and there’s plenty about it to pique your interest.

Fitbit Ionic review: UK price, release date and specifications

Fitbit Ionic review: Design, key features and first impressions

To cut things short, Fitbit’s Ionic smartwatch is everything those leaks pointed out to be. Just like Fitbits before it, the Ionic’s central module – made from aerospace-grade aluminium no less – can be detached to all sorts of straps you see fit. Likewise, this is the second Fitbit device suited for swimming, after the Flex 2 set that idea in motion last year.

Heck, the Fitbit Ionic pretty much comes with all the bells and whistles you’d expect it to. There’s onboard Wi-Fi, GPS, NFC for contactless payments and Bluetooth for connecting to other devices. But the best thing is the new SpO2 monitor which tracks blood oxygen levels. Neat, eh?

The latter is something Fitbit is really pushing this year. The firm says this will help alert users to sleep apnea, which it says is a direct result of low blood oxygen levels. It’s also, as with most of these features, a useful metric for your workouts.

Fitbit wants you to leave your phone at home, too. There’s enough space onboard for roughly 300 songs, with 2.5GB of internal storage.

Speaking of which, with GPS on and music playing, expect the Ionic to last around ten hours on a single charge, or four days’ worth of light use. This is just a smidge less than Fitbit’s other fitness trackers, but is night and day compared to other, more power-hungry smartwatches. It seems Fitbit’s acquisition of Pebble and its long-lasting fitness trackers is beginning to pay off.

And that brings us to software. You see, Pebble was bought by Fitbit not so long ago in an effort to take on some of their expertise into Fitbit’s OS. Rather than going the Android route, Fitbit opts for its own operating system – fittingly called Fitbit OS – and it’s a sleek and speedy experience, at least at first glance. Don’t worry about a lack of apps at launch, either: Fitbit says we can expect the likes of Starbucks and AccuWeather as well as many other commercial apps.

Fitbit Ionic review: Early verdict

Fitbit’s Ionic sounds like the complete smartwatch package, right? Brace yourself, the ionic will launch for £300. Yep, that’s £300.

That’s more than Huawei’s excellent Watch 2 and – crucially – encroaches on Gear S3 and Apple Watch 2 territory. Not a smart move on Fitbit’s part, they’d have done themselves a solid by undercutting their biggest competition.

Regardless, I’m impressed with what Fitbit is offering with their first stab at a smartwatch. The Ionic looks the part, is crammed with the usual suite of fitness features, and it just might be the smartphone to beat come launch. Might be best to wait a few months for a possible price drop, though.

Sоurсе: expertreviews.co.uk