Fitbit Launches Ionic, A US $300 Smartwatch Competitor To The Apple Watch

Fitbit has officially unveiled the new ‘Ionic’ smartwatch with fitness and health tracking capabilities a price of US $299. The new smartwatch will directly compete with the Apple Watch Series 2 which starts at USD 369.

The new Ionic by Fitbit features built-in GPS for outdoor fitness tracking, water resistance up to 50 meters for swim tracking, an all-day heart rate sensor, NFC, and an app platform. The smartwatch is said to have 4+ day battery life on a single charge with sleep tracking capabilities. Fitbit says that the Ionic smartwatch has a SpO2 sensor which measures blood oxygen levels and could be used to discover sleep apnea in the future. Unlike the Apple Watch Series 2 that has a hidden mechanism to eject water, the Ionic’s unibody design prevents water from getting inside, making it water-resistant up to 50 meters.

The device has 2.5GB of onboard storage for syncing up to 300 songs for offline playback to Bluetooth headphones, and Pandora Plus or Premium subscribers can download stations for standalone playback as well. However, Fitbit has said that the battery will only last up to 10 hours during continuous music playback or GPS usage.

To stay on par with the Apple Watch, Fitbit Ionic also has contactless payment options. Fitbit Pay will work with American Express cards and select Visa and Mastercards in the US and Canada from supported banks. Ionic is also an app platform with Strava, Accuweather, Flipboard and more apps coming soon. The company has also announced a Fitbit SDK based on the company’s Pebble acquisition, so developers can create their own apps for the smartwatch. The device will feature smart notifications from popular apps like Twitter and Whatsapp as well as call and text alerts.

Both the Apple Watch Series 2 and the new Fitbit Ionic feature a touch display with a brightness of up to 1,000 nits for outdoor use, and the Ionic will let users swap bands to change the style. Similar to what Apple did with Nike and launched special edition Apple Watch Nike+, Fitbit will partner up with Adidas to launch a special edition version of Ionic next year.

There are rumours that Apple will unveil a LTE-enabled version of the Apple Watch on September 12 along with the iPhone 8. The Fitbit Ionic is up for pre-orders on the Fitbit website right now at a price of USD 299.95.