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Ionic available Oct 1, SDK tomorrow ?4

10:26 25-Sep-17


Fitbit has announced the global availability of the Ionic, and other new products, as of October 1.  The watch has generally been reviewed as having the best sensors and fitness ecosystem, with accurate heart rate tracking, but many features, such as the oxygen sensor are still completely invisible to the user.  Those need to come to the fore over time and help Fitbit to establish important health partnerships.

More important to me is the availability of the new SDK, tomorrow.  As expected, early reviews have been making a big deal about the inability of the Ionic to respond to or initiate any sort of communication, and I do agree that is a potentially large detriment, if permanent.  Other reviews cite generally stable functionality for the apps that are available, but some difficulties with system integration even after an update to the preview software.  If these are temporary limitations that are resolved within the first month, I'm not too concerned.  Most products in this class have their rough spots on launch.  On the other hand, if Apple, and especially Google make integration difficult that could be a major problem.  Eventually, I would like to see the watch use voice commands and the user's preferred assistant from Google or Apple.  Pebble had many of these features, so it's hard to imagine why the Ionic wouldn't eventually support them.

To that end, CrowdWisers has purchased an Ionic for review by a mobile app developer and certified fitness instructor/model.  Look for more on that next month.  Sales figures remain the primary short-term determinative factor for the stock price, particularly for the holiday season.  Hopefully we will see something on that soon.