My heart sank when I first saw images of the Fitbit Ionic. The new smartwatch from the former king of wearables needs to compete with established platforms and the marketing budgets of Apple, Google and Samsung, but to me it looked hideous, like a device from the future imagined by someone from the 80s: the smartwatch equivalent of a DeLorean.

But up close and on the wrist, the Ionic has a certain charm. The angular design fits nicely around the wrist, with a clear, bright screen that is easy to read, even in direct sunlight. The interface is simple and colourful, and provides your steps walked, resting heart rate, the weather and on-board music playback in just a few swipes.

Fitbit's CEO James Park was in Sydney recently to launch the smartwatch, and was candid about the challenges facing the company. He admits Fitbit's last quarter was "difficult", and is confident the Ionic "will bring the company back to profitability".

But the Ionic remains a tough sell. At $449.95, it's $90 more than Apple's cheapest watch – which remains the device to beat, with the smoothest out-of-box experience and the best third-party app ecosystem. And Apple continues to improve on fitness, Fitbit's core market.

Mr Park believes the Ionic can compete by focusing on doing health and fitness tracking better than any other smartwatch.

Mr Park describes Fitbit as "the world's most active fitness social network, with over 50 million users". When I asked how many of these users are still using the service regularly, Mr Park concedes the number drops by half. That sounds about right: my Fitbit app shows a long list of friends who have fallen away from service, and as an Apple Watch convert, I personally haven't used it for almost a year. But even here, Mr Park is optimistic.

"Fitness is cyclical," he said. "People tend to come and go from whatever goals they might have, be it an app, or a gym membership. And with each new device we release, we're seeing a lot of inactive users return, accounts that were inactive coming back online."

Using the Ionic for a week reminded me that Fitbit's app is still the best in terms of overall health and fitness insights, and the easiest way to challenge friends.

I got just over five days battery life from the device, better than any other smartwatch, which allows it to track sleep as well as fitness. Mr Park believes sensors unique to the Ionic could spot sleep apnea in a wearer with the kind of accuracy normally seen only in hospital-grade equipment.

The device shares much of the DNA of the Pebble Smartwatch, the company acquired by Fitbit in 2016. Mr Park explained the Pebble acquisition powers Ionic's third-party app platform, and he's confident the simplicity of app creation will help build an active marketplace.

The Ionic supports contactless payment with ANZ, NAB and the Commonwealth Bank, so you can pay for a recovery smoothie from your wrist. The device can also store 300 songs, and stream to bluetooth headphones. But you can only sync songs to the watch via a computer, not from a smartphone or a streaming music service, and that feels archaic in 2017.

So with Fitbit entering the smartwatch category, are we seeing the end of the simple fitness tracker? Mr Park doesn't think so.

"We're always going to see a wide range of products at different price points and different form factors, just because there's no one size fits all," he said. "But the general theme is all our devices are going to get smarter."