Heart rate inaccurate

[Wills66]

I have started using the Fitbit blaze to track my heart rate for training.

For the first month or so it worked wonderfully, and it has tracked my resting heart rate to be 41 bpm (which is correct!).

However, I have found over the past few weeks that suddenly the tracker stops tracking my heart rate throughout parts of the day, and for some reason thinks my resting heart rate is now 47 bpm, which is a considerable jump!

I have tried using this whilst exercising, and in the beginning, this has worked very well; whereas now, when I am exercising, the tracker seems to think that my heart rate is at about 80-90 bpm when I am pushing it flat out.

Clearly, something is wrong, but I can't figure out what. I have been washing the back of the tracker with water, and have even used the soft bristles on my toothbrush to clean the tracker, yet nothing seems to help. I am left with a Fitbit which tells me my heart rate is way too high if it reads my heart rate at all!

What should I do to resolve this problem?

Thank you very much for your help.

[MKMP332]

My Fitbit is long gone, and I don't miss it a bit. I'm back to just using
my Polar H7 chest strap and Endomondo app. That thing couldn't even count
steps accurately! Really just a gimmick to tell people who see you wearing
it that you workout. In my opinion.

[schmict]

I agree..don't forget how cool it is to receive texts on it!

[atormena]

Receive texts and listen to spotify via bluetooth. 

[jjb149]

I agree. The heart rate meter works only sometimes now.  It often doesn't show any heart rate.  I'm always having to reset it.  It's also completely useless for tracking heart rate during high intensity interval training (HIIT) because it can't keep up with the large changes it heart rate over short amounts of time (or it shows no heart rate at all).  I'm not wearing it incorrectly and I keep it charged.

With the calorie burn also being so inaccurate, this device seems more like an interesting toy than a useful fitness tracker.

[Wilkovian]

I think it works as a step tracker and over the course of the day to determine resting heart rate etc. It's good as a sleep tracker as well. 

If you want super accuracy during workouts though I think optical tech just isn't (and probably never will be) good enough to give you any sort of accuracy - especially (as pointed out above) if it's just wrist mounted. 

I've just resigned myself to the reality that if I want to track a workout accurately I need to use my chest strap and a suitable device and only use the fitbit if I find myself without it (i.e. if I'm at the gym and forgot to bring it or something) and to be honest mostly then I just accept that I won't be able to track my workout. 

For what it's worth when I've done bike rides etc. with both on the estimated calorie burn between my Polar heart rate strap and watch and fitbit Blaze were roughly the same... but the heart rate data simply cannot be trusted from an optical I fear. All of the devices that rely on that to measure heart rate have the same problem. 

I've essentially decided to stick with my Blaze for daily step count etc. and I'm going to get a GPS watch to go with my polar H7 chest strap to use for running, cycling and the gym etc. 

I certainly wouldn't decry fitbit altogether; they've been a great investment for me in terms of my overall health and fitness and it really isn't a stretch to say that they've changed my life in my mid-20s, but I'm just aware of the limitations of the tech. 

I think at some point there'll be an innovation that improves them; maybe stick on chest pads to go with them, or putting my sci-fi (but only just) hat on then some kind of implant maybe that will be super duper accurate and on all the time, but for now the optical tech is as close as you get to the whole deal being wrapped up into one wrist-mounted device and it simply is never going to be that accurate.

[Wilkovian]

I totally agree with this; I suspect something could fairly easily be built into the software on a alot of their devices to allow this as it stands. If they have a bluetooth transmitter and receiver on them (which they obviously do to sync with your phone) then sorting out something to work with a bluetooth heart rate strap would really be ideal. 

That and the lock buttons on the screen! I've since given up completely using it to measure running. It loses signal to my phone repeatedly (which the Blaze relies on for GPS tracking) - I suspect this is because I also use bluetooth headphones with it, but in fairness it does it if I'm not using headphones at all or if I'm using wired phones too. Also, if you touch the screen or it gets any water drops on it or your sleeve touches it etc. etc. then it often reads a false touch and thinks you've pushed a button and that usually pauses the workout. Since this happens without you seeing it most of the time and I don't stare at my watch when I'm running or pedaling this usually means I lose tracking for nearly my entire workout and don't find out until the end - quite frustrating to say the least, especially as my basic as beans Polar watch that I bought ten years ago for £50 and still use with my heart rate monitor has a button lock function for workouts that's really simple to use; hold one button a few seconds until it asks if you want to lock the screen then press another button which enables it then hold the original button for five seconds to unlock it; perfect as it's very unlikely the button would get held in for five seconds plus whilst running or working out and if it did you'd be way more likely to notice; simple technology but somehow overlooked. I like bringing this one up because it seems like it'd be another simple fix for Fitbit to work something into the software that would lock the touchscreen and buttons in a similar way. Admittedly, I don't know much about programming, but it seems to me that all of the elements that they'd need to do so are there and it's an obvious gap in capability so why they wouldn't do that I'm really not sure at this point besides a lack of aftermarket development time which is a little disappointing. I'd be very pleased to discover that I'd missed an announcement on this incidentally but I'm fairly sure that I haven't and from searching there are A LOT of people suggesting and agreeing with the same idea.

My biggest temptation to jump ship is that Polar, Garmin etc. etc. offer watches that have optical heart rate AND the ability to use a chest strap with the watch - so you could wear it during the day without and just sync a strap to it when you're working out. Their watches don't look as good though (in my opinion) for daily usage and I don't know how good they are for daily step monitoring etc. Plus as it stands I simply can't be bothered looking up new apps and so on yet. I've opted to buy a (fairly) cheap Polar watch with GPS onboard that I can use with my chest strap for now and record runs and so on via MapMyRun/Ride/Workout and then port that data back to the fitbit app for the time being. Not ideal, but hey ho. As I say, the chest strap is preferable for kettlebell workouts etc. anyway because then I can put the watch in my pocket and it's not going to get smashed quite so easily. 

[jjb149]

Unfortunately, I bought the fitbit for calorie burn and heart rate
tracking, relying on fitbit's claims that the device actually does these
things. In fact, it doesn't do either of these things with any useful
degree of accuracy or reliability. My problem with Fitbit is that they
know this, but they continue to claim it works for these things.

[Old_Graw]

Thank you for your good advice, and suggestions.  This unit was a gift from my children, that I started to use in February.  The heart-rate function worked perfectly for almost three weeks, and then simply stopped.  I might suggest that this aspect of the device is simply defective.

Graw

[Lord_Dean]

I wouldn't hold your breath on them fixing anything.  They've had major problems with this since I got mine a year ago.  It's pretty sad.  Really, its a watch (which you need to sync to your phone, or it doesn't even tell time), which gives you wildly inaccurate data, and doesn't perform as promised.  If this was a 30 dollar chinese mail-order piece, that'd be one thing -- but for a premium, expensive device, it really fails.  
Can't say I'd ever buy from Fitbit again.  

[atormena]

Hello Lord_Dean, you told everything... it's pretty sad. Completely agree with you... 

[AlejandraFitbit]

Hello all, I hope you are doing fine.

I am sorry to hear about the issue you all have been experiencing with your heart rate information. I would like to know if you have followed the steps provided in this post? If you haven't, I recommend taking a look at it and follow the instructions provided there.

I hope this helps, let me know the outcome. 

[atormena]

This is not funny... 

[TerryFit]

Can’t believe this ...!

[Lord_Dean]

Did she just point is at this same thread?  😦😜

[atormena]

This is also known as "canned answer" it is easier like that than to treat the customers in a decent way. 

[gmorrell]

whathappend the band?

[TerryFit]

One can only assume this was an example of either naivety or deliberate  avoidance of acknowledging the truth about a products performance against the customers' perception of the performance, as created by the manufactures' marketing. 

To be fair I assume the moderators are volunteers not the manufacturer's "staff", ( and if so I don't want to blame or appear ungrateful for moderators efforts. They play an important role in helping users) so I am hoping this was just a naive uniformed response.

There is a heap of previous blog feedback from users to easily show that the suggested "fixes" to the HR and Calorie readings are simply not working and or are only working when using the product in a non natural or unacceptable way (e.g. pushing the band up your arm in order to get more accurate readings)

[Wilkovian]

Hi, 

I think we're all aware of the suggested fixes available on the post that you recommended. 

The issue here is that they're not working for us I'm afraid. 

Thanks for coming back to us about this but I think most of us were looking for some more concrete fixes which I understand are difficult to implement once hardware is produced and shipped. 

Speaking for myself; I'd feel a lot better if I thought Fitbit themselves were taking these issues onboard and trying to fix them in some way moving forward rather than just ignoring them and hoping that they go away. 

Again, I'd like to reiterate that I've been a big fan and avid proponent of Fitbit devices for a number of years now; but I do find it unsettling that the company as a whole does not appear, publicly at least, to be  taking these sorts of responses onboard. I'd like to think we're being critical in a constructive manner and suggesting things that we, as customers, would like to see in future iterations of the devices. 

I have to say that so far I've been very disappointed by how the company appears to be responding to these sorts of issues. Perhaps there are legal implications that they're trying to protect themselves from or similar, but I am starting to feel quite let down that they aren't so much as acknowledging that they have heard and understood people's responses here; let alone giving us any indication on how they intend to respond to these issues. 

I think we'd like to know that they are at least considering these problems and attempting to overcome them rather than simply pointing us towards suggested 'fixes' that we have at this point all tried and found to be inadequate. 

Again, no disrespect to you and thank you for taking the time to respond, but we've all seen that list and are still having problems hence the continued discussion. I think we're hoping for something new and preferably some sign that these issues are being taken seriously given the amount of money that we as customers have all given to Fitbit one way or another at this point.  

[schmict]

Truth is we got sucked into their marketing and bought an item that just didn't work for us as it was marketed.  Leave honest reviews wherever you have made the purchase and inform anyone doing research before making a purchase of the shortcomings of fitbit.  It is time to just chalk it up as lesson learned and move on to something better suited.

[Bnice]

Couldn’t agree more with your post,Wilkovian!

Loved my Fitbits for the past 8 years. Also have given them as presents many times. But I think it’s time to look somewhere else for fitness related gadgets. Already made a start with my scales. The Fitbit scales had packed up and I only got the standard ‘try this’ response, even after explain in detail that I’d done those things several times without any result. So I got myself a different brand and they work beautifully.

All the best!
Bnice