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> My Fitbit Ionic (about $300) stopped working one month after the 12 month warranty ran out My Fitbit Ionic stopped working 6 months into the 12 month warrant

> My Fitbit Ionic (about $300) stopped working one month after the 12 month warranty ran out My Fitbit Ionic stopped working 6 months into the 12 month warranty and they flaked on the warranty anyway. Many Ionics were secretly sold without the manufacturer's warranty. The problem turned out to be a shorted capacitor. My secretly-warranty-less ionic was sold during the Great Capacitor Shortage. Coincidence? Maybe. I doubt we'll ever know. https://photos.app.goo.gl/tpQ8CmtaZjJGCEUo6 https://photos.app.goo.gl/tpQ8CmtaZjJGCEUo6

wrkronmiller 7y ago
How can a device be sold to an end-user without a warranty? Was the device sold by a third party or something?
- jjoonathan 7y ago
  Yep, I bought it new in a sealed box from an Amazon third party store with prime shipping a week or two after product launch. Fitbit said they "had" to refuse my warranty on account of having purchased the watch from an "unauthorized re-seller" because of clones, but their software already checks serial numbers for duplicates and rejects clones, so that sounds like an excuse. Incidentally, my next watch was a Garmin, and while I tried to buy it from the official Garmin store on Amazon I found a 3rd party store on the receipt, so I contacted Garmin and ask them if this would invalidate my warranty. They said it would not. They made good on that promise two weeks ago when a fatigue crack showed up in the plastic frame. tl;dr Fuck Fitbit, Go Garmin!
  - abawany 7y ago
    Another vote for Garmin warranty: my strap catch broke (the little loop that holds the long end of the strap down). I chatted online with them and they shipped me the 50c catch in what appeared to be a large box that must have cost at least $4 to ship. A bit overkill but that's how you retain customers I guess.
mcnichol 7y ago
That was a fantastic little run-through on your teardown and repair of the ionic. Do you make videos/streams of your work? Would love to watch.
- jjoonathan 7y ago
  No, but maybe that's something to think about :)

wrkronmiller 7y ago

How can a device be sold to an end-user without a warranty? Was the device sold by a third party or something?

jjoonathan 7y ago
Yep, I bought it new in a sealed box from an Amazon third party store with prime shipping a week or two after product launch. Fitbit said they "had" to refuse my warranty on account of having purchased the watch from an "unauthorized re-seller" because of clones, but their software already checks serial numbers for duplicates and rejects clones, so that sounds like an excuse. Incidentally, my next watch was a Garmin, and while I tried to buy it from the official Garmin store on Amazon I found a 3rd party store on the receipt, so I contacted Garmin and ask them if this would invalidate my warranty. They said it would not. They made good on that promise two weeks ago when a fatigue crack showed up in the plastic frame. tl;dr Fuck Fitbit, Go Garmin!
- abawany 7y ago
  Another vote for Garmin warranty: my strap catch broke (the little loop that holds the long end of the strap down). I chatted online with them and they shipped me the 50c catch in what appeared to be a large box that must have cost at least $4 to ship. A bit overkill but that's how you retain customers I guess.

mcnichol 7y ago

That was a fantastic little run-through on your teardown and repair of the ionic. Do you make videos/streams of your work? Would love to watch.

jjoonathan 7y ago
No, but maybe that's something to think about :)