Blaze heart rate accuracy is way off, other issues

[SomeoneElse]

I've had a Blaze for about two and a half years. I initially hoped that there would be updates to help fix some issues, and a few were, but I think that there are some fundamental hardware problems with this thing, or perhaps I just got a bad one.

Heart rate monitor: The accuracy is incredibly bad. As in 40+ bpm bad. Resting heart rate seems reasonably accurate, but any time I get my heart pumping, it winds up being insanely low. I can be at the gym and use a chest strap heart rate monitor or even the grips on the treadmill. Either one will tell me that my heart rate is right around 180bpm. The Fitbit? Usually 135bpm or so. It's rare that I see it go above 140 in any circumstances and 150 is nigh impossible. This is with steady running, not HIIT. If I'm on a stationary bike then it's somehow even worse. I've seen less than 80bpm on the Fitbit while I know my heart rate is around 130-140bpm. I wear it snugly (but not too tightly) on my wrist, just a bit behind the bone on the narrower part, but I've tried moving it around a bit with no effect. I'm pretty hairy, but I can't really do anything about that. Setting it to workout mode or leaving it on the usual doesn't seem to make a difference. I realize that it's not going to be as good as a chest strap, but I also expect it to be better than useless.

Resting heart rate: I think Fitbit's algorithm is broken. I slept pretty well last night. My heart rate probably averaged in the upper 50s. It hit 65bpm at one point, but that was the highest it got. My previous day was 63bpm resting heart rate. Shortly after getting out of bed, the app tells me that my resting heart rate today is 64bpm. Um...yeah, that makes no sense at all. Is it somehow using the previous day's data?

Notifications: These are nice and I do seem to get them consistently when I have a text or other app pop up a notification on my phone. The problem is that my Blaze randomly decides to disable notifications for no reason. I find myself checking every day to make sure that they're still on.

Sleep tracking: Really, why did Fitbit even bother with this? I see that some nights I have a period of time shortly after falling asleep where I don't move, sometimes over an hour. Almost certainly deep sleep. Fitbit registers it as light sleep with maybe a tiny dip into deep sleep. Other times in the night can easily follow a similar pattern. There are also times where I wake up in the morning and know that I was dreaming right before I woke up, yet Fitbit doesn't pick up REM sleep. This really should have been left to just showing restlessness. Anyone got an MSLT to compare to their Fitbit readout? I don't expect the Fitbit to be as accurate as an MSLT, but I would hope it could be better than this.

Raise arm to show: Do I even need to mention this? Who else has done wrist/arm acrobatics just trying to get the screen to light up? Sometimes it works great, and sometimes it seems impossible to get it to show up without pushing a button.

[imintenn]

 I have also had a Blaze for a couple of years.  Overall, I like it, but recently have been considering some other fitness watches.  Would try an Apple, but the battery life is a show stopper for me.  Here are some of my concerns:

Heart rate monitor:  I agree with your assessment.  Slow wind-up or wind-down when heart rate changes.  Also inaccuracies - many times it indicates higher or lower than other monitors.  Sometimes it is accurate.  The heart rate indication also goes blank several times during a workout.  Overall, I just keep an eye on it for the general heart rate level, but do not consider it accurate each minute.

Resting heart rate (RHR):  Not sure what goes on here.  For example, I am sitting here today with my heart rate at 55 bpm - about the time that my Fitbit logs the RHR.  I look at the Fitbit app and there is no recorded level, yet.  Sync - still no entry, so believe it will catch the low level I am seeing.  In a few minutes, I look and see 64 bpm logged as my RHR for the day.  The algorithm seems broken and randomly catches a RHR level when it wants.  I would suggest letting the user define the time at which to log the rate - same time of day and taken during a time of inactivity; or scan the heart rate trend for the day to find the low heart rates that are repeated throughout the day to log as RHR.  I want to use it to just look at the overall trend of the median level, but one high random number throws this off.  An average of the trend seems like it would be a better indicator than the median.

Sleep tracking:  I have nothing else to compare to with respect to accuracy.  Overall, I like this feature to track my sleep trends, as it helps me to adjust habits when I start to cut my sleep short.

Fitbit App:  Slow and clunky.  For example, when I open the app, it takes several seconds before I can interact with it.  I log my weight, and entering a new value sometimes takes a minute or so just to enter a value.  Make it snappy!

Clock Faces:  Very limited selection.  The ones I like are difficult to see when outside.  There are very few new faces being offered. The software/clock faces on the newer models on the website are much more appealing.

Seems as if the Blaze has been put on the "obsolete" list and efforts being put on the newer models.  II am on my second Fitbit model in 3 years.  Neither of these models are offered for sale now.  I like the concept....but....  If this is Fitbit's strategy to get customers to buy the newest version every couple of years by not maintaining the older models - I will be an ex-user soon.

[SomeoneElse]

It's not even slow wind-up on heart rate. I can be jogging for 10+ minutes and it'll still be hovering in the mid 130s. It just doesn't really move much further.

I like the idea of sleep tracking, but the sleep stages seem to be way off for me. I had my 10 year old son try it out yesterday. I guess his hairless wrists are a lot more accurate as his sleep stages looked a lot more like what you'd expect to see. Mine, not so much, and I'm pretty sure that ties in with the inaccuracies in heart rate. Lots of restful stretches of sleep that only register as light for reasons that I can't determine. I'm wondering if they should've kept the old sleep tracking that just showed restlessness instead of trying to calculate sleep stages like this.

I hear you on the app. I've seen it tell me to connect to the internet to see historic data...and my phone has a connection just fine. I have to quit the app and restart it to get data.

Apple Watch battery stats from Apple are based on surprisingly heavy use. They do tend to last longer than advertised. However, it also doesn't do constant heart rate tracking like a Fitbit unless you're working out, which is disappointing.

[Joiseyg]

I thought it was accurate until I went to doc for stress test and it was 10-20+ points off. It was lower than the ekg showed which is actually dangerous because you don’t realize you are beyond your peak! Very disappointied it’s so far off for the price. They claim accuracy but not even close! I checked at the gym today again and still way off! 🙄😣

[Fowl]

I know exactly what you mean Joiseyg, my blaze was replaced under warranty about a month ago and yesterday I went to do a stress test. I asked the nurse if it is ok to wear the blaze as I didn't want anything to mess up the reading. After I got the go-ahead I secured the blaze around my wrist similar to when I go to the gym and at almost every stage of the stress test the blaze was between 40-50 BPM low.  When I reached the 180bpm at the final part of the stress test the blaze was showing 136bmp, talk about way off🙄 that an understatement.