Heart Rate monitor is horrible

[Infinitude]

The Heart Rate monitor on the Blaze is absolutely horrible.

I have been using this thing for about 2 weeks now.  At first i was happy with the HR monitor.  It seemed to work okay.  I bike to and from work and it had me in peak for most of it with fat burn for the remainder.  I do long hikes on the weekend and again had me in peak going up the mountain when i could hear my heart thumping and fat burn for the majority of the rest of it.

Then starting last Thursday everything started goign array.  I biked to work and apparently my heart rate was so low i could have been sleeping.  This continued for the next four days.  Hiking up a mountain again hearing my heart thump i was apparently at 72 bpm.  Then going down the mountain and going rather slowly i was at 98bpm.

I actually thought something was wrong with it... so i brought it back to the store and exchanged it for a new one.  After waiting the almost 2 hours it takes to get the Blaze working out of the box (10 mins my **ahem**).  Biked to work this morning and same deal.  Apparently i sleep bike to work at 69bpm going up hills.  (My bpm is actually higher sitting down writing this message!)

I have had Fitbits in the past and was always happy with this but the Blaze is a different story.  Clearly this was rushed out of Q&A way to fast...

If you are going to advertise a heart rate monitor on a wearable please make it atleast SEMI accurate.

[FerdinandFitbit]

Hey there @Infinitude. Welcome to the Fitbit Community! 🙂

Sometimes, the way you wear your tracker affects the readings so please take a look at this other thread where I provided some advice to improve the heart rate readings and see if this makes any difference. Click here to see the post.

Let me know if you need more help with this!

[Flashy]

I'm having the exact same problem.

For the past few days, during activities that has me sweating and breathing heavily, the Blaze is showing that I'm 5 bpm above my resting heart rate.

I used another heart rate monitor to find out what's going on and it shows that my heart rate was 60bpm higher than the Blaze!

What the hell is going on?

Also, yes, I've been wearing Fitbit for months and so I know how to wear it correctly.

[bbarrera]

@Infinitude Definitely want to reset the Blaze and see if that helps... that said, from where I sit the Blaze and Surge and Charge HR were optimized for 24x7 heart rate monitoring, and tradeoff battery life for accuracy. The resting heart rate is pretty accurate, in general. And for steady state cardio (walking, running) its generally good although it has moments where it loses the beat. At least for me, anything with wrists bending (biking, spinning, weight lifting, etc) and heavy sweat can be a real hit or miss, weight lifting is a total miss as I don't take time to hold my wrist steady and let Blaze/Surge 'catch up.'

There are a couple of optical HRMs in the market that generally do better - optimized for accuracy and therefore shorter battery life - one is worn above/below the elbow and the other on the wrist. They generally show high accuracy versus chest strap, although not 100% but generally a lot closer than Fitbit and the other wrist HRMs out there. Chest strap is generally very very close to EKG however I do have a few times (less than 5) per year when my skin is too dry and I need to wet leads (or wait 5 minutes before my chest warms up).

Borrowing a line from a very technical review, Fitbit is great for "the other 23 hours" and hit or miss while exercising. The amount of hit or miss varies by person and type of exercise. And if you don't train in zones, you may not notice accuracy issues except in cases like yours where it clearly lost track of your HR.

I wish Fitbit supported connecting to Bluetooth or ANT+ chest straps for times like this when accuracy clearly suffers.

Again give the reset a try and see if that helps. If that doesn't work then call support and see about an RMA just in case your optical HRM is on the fritz.

[Infinitude]

I have tried resetting it and also turning on off. Plus read the Q&A about HR on fitbit.  None of that worked so i actually exchanged it thinking there may be something wrong with it.  New one does the exact same thing.

More of a vent post... as i realise there is no real solution and that the HR component of this thing just doesn't work that well when you are doing anything other than walking.  Just sucks... Paid $200 for this thing and I expected it to work better than it does.  I knew it wouldnt be perfect but it should be more accurate than it is.  I mean its telling me my bpm is around 60-75 when I am hiking up a mountain and can hear my heart thumping...

Thanks for the suggestions all though.

[meresydotes]

I have found that, contrary to what fitbit support says, my blaze HR accuracy depends more on how "stuck" the led is to my skin, rather than where on my arm I wear it. Support recommends that you move the wristband several inches up your arm for accurate HR tracking. This just isn't feasible when you're sweating!

I've found that the HR can actually be acceptably accurate when the sensor is resting against the top of the back of my hand, as long as it's just resting there, and not stuck there. If it drops the signal, I can just shake my arm a little and it picks it up again. Don't wear it too tight, or too loose.

Also, if you're doing a particular workout, it tends to be more accurate if you start that workout type on the blaze. I workout on a treadmill and I go into "treadmill mode" when I start my workout. I've found that, if I don't do this, or if I even try walking or running, the blaze does the same thing as yours - I feel like I'm huffing and puffing and about to die and it tells me my HR is 72. And then I throw it out the window!

[BFMat17]

Heart rate seems accurate to me on my Blaze.  I have a blood pressure cuff that records pulse rate and it's almost always within 1 or 2 beats of the reading on my Blaze. 

[MikeS1971]

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@BFMat17 wrote:

Heart rate seems accurate to me on my Blaze.  I have a blood pressure cuff that records pulse rate and it's almost always within 1 or 2 beats of the reading on my Blaze. 

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Do you wear that blood pressure cuff while you exercise? FitBit HR reading are fairly accurate while resting or low intensity exercising. One the intensity increases, HR accuracy decreases to the point that it can't keep up.

[gt500blue]

I bought the blaze last week.  I suffered a heart attack and wanted to be able to monitor my heart rate while working out and doing cardio.  This thing is horrible when it comes to HRM.  While at the heart rehab center, M-W-F I'm connected with an EKG type device that the cardio nurse monitors while I run, bike and stair climb.  I need to keep my HR no more than 30 beats above my resting HR.  For me, I have a need for accuracy, not all the other gadgetry.  I should have read more about it, but thought that FITBIT had this stuff figured out.  When I am at rest, my HR is 65 (thanks to modern day meds).  WHen I work out, the EKG system tells me I'm at 85 beats.  Perfect for this point in my recovery!  But my fitbit, no matter where I wear it, not matter tight or loose, no matter sweaty or dry says my HR is well over 100 and sometimes even 115 or 120 BPM.  It's junk.  

[SeismicCWave]

I am totally disappointed with the Fitbit Heart Rate monitor. It is totally foolish. As soon as I sweat my heart rate drops. I want to know when does some one exercise and NOT sweat. Maybe Fitbit creators are Martians. This is my fourth Fitbit and every one of them do the same thing. I am tired if trying to exchanging them.

[shipo]

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@SeismicCWave wrote:

I am totally disappointed with the Fitbit Heart Rate monitor. It is totally foolish. As soon as I sweat my heart rate drops. I want to know when does some one exercise and NOT sweat. Maybe Fitbit creators are Martians. This is my fourth Fitbit and every one of them do the same thing. I am tired if trying to exchanging them.

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I've found by notching my band down one or even two holes to make sure the tracker isn't slipping around on my sweaty wrist (and I sweat profusely), dramatically improves HRM accuracy.

[mrcraig]

Heart rate monitor is horrid and terrribly inaccurate. I use it purely for sleep monitoring now. The fitbit community forums keep blaming the user, wear it high, wear it the other way around, wear it looser, shave, don't sweat, don't do intervals. It would be nice if fitbit would accept that it cant handle intervals and tells us their plans to fix it.

[ALL001]

Same as all of above. 

Bought an Inspire HR for only one purpose: high heart rate interval work. It proudly reports 98 bpm when I am over 175. How is this even safe?

Absolute garbage, will be returning.