HR accuracy on the Blaze feedback

[Bradford3]

I just got my Blaze and went on a bike ride wearing my Wahoo heartbeat strap and both the strap and the Blaze averaged 136 bpm.

I was very impressed. Everytime I looked at the Blaze it was with in a hand full of BPM compared to my Strap.
I have heard people complain about the accuracy but for me it is great. The strap maxed at 169 and the Blaze 159.

My only beef is it doesn't count steps for cycling like my charge did.


http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a362/b_rad4/A9E15632-0292-4658-A35A-D5578B7A6B19.png

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a362/b_rad4/62DBE2A1-119B-4E7D-85AD-34286F0FEEC9.png

[img]http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a362/b_rad4/A9E15632-0292-4658-A35A-D5578B7A6B19.png[/img]

[img]http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a362/b_rad4/62DBE2A1-119B-4E7D-85AD-34286F0FEEC9.png[/img]

Moderator edit: subject for clarity

[bbarrera]

Opinion about HR accuracy always depends on what matters to you. The graphs are roughly the same but not the same. If you don't care about specifics then ok, HR averages are the same, but calories very different between the two (1231 Wahoo, 696 Blaze). I just rode an hour and 37 minutes last week with average HR 139bpm (max 151bpm), the calorie burn on that ride was roughly 1250 calories (I'm 200lbs and in good shape). At least for me, I've found Wahoo and Garmin and Apple Watch to be in general agreement on calorie burn for bike rides, and Blaze and Surge to be off.

If you don't care about specifics, stop reading. If you do care.... the Blaze took longer to start tracking your HR and it misses the peak HR. If you overlaid the graphs the differences would be easier to see. Again for me your graph is not good enough as I do interval training at least 3 times a week, say an over/under interval on Tuesday which is riding for 2 minutes between 150-155bpm and then 1 minute betwen 156-160bpm (and then repeat 3 times, rest for 5 min, for a total of 17 minutes, and then repeat entire 17 minutes again for a total of 68 minutes of intervals. Your Wahoo burn zone looks to be about 150-155bpm, which coincidently is my "under" HR zone. 

[Rich_Laue]

Please remember that the chest strap is monitoring the electrical signals that control the heart.. Pure pulse is monitoring the changes in the blood density caused by the hearts pumping of the blood.. Yes the meter will respond a little different.. Also on the graphs Fitbit does some sverahing.

[bbarrera]

Yes, chest straps are widely acknowledged as gold standard for average person. Optical HRM use indirect method, and every vendor has differences. I've used some optical HRM that have very little lag, while Fitbit does more averaging and shows more lag and therefore tends to miss peaks and valleys when doing short intevals.

Regarding graphs, its trivial to output TCX for any Wahoo activity (even w/o GPS), and do the same for Fitbit GPS tracked activities. Then its straightforward to put recorded HR data on the same graph.

[bbarrera]

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@Bradford3 wrote:
My only beef is it doesn't count steps for cycling like my charge did.

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Putting Blaze into cycling activity mode will supress step count, and I believe the other GPS modes look for steps and using those while cycling will mess up distance.

If you care more about steps than HR, say for a Daily Showdown challenge, then you could try and get more steps by putting Blaze in pocket or wear on ankle (and not putting into exercise mode).

[Bradford3]

Re: calorie count, the wahoo app way over estimates. I import my cycling into strava after and it gives me a much more accurate count.

Good to know about the cycling more. From now on I won't turn that on and just let my strava activity be imported into myfitnesspal, which will then import it to Fitbit.

[bbarrera]

I use Garmin bike computer, it sends ride to a handful of sites including Endomondo, which then sends to Fitbit as an activity (but strips away map, HR, cadence, and temp).