Inaccurate Heart rate when exercising with Blaze

[PiersM]

Having huge issues with the accuracy of the heart rate reading on the Fitbit blaze when exercising. 

When starting say a warm up on a treadmill, the blaze shoots up to 160  and then continues to climb. 

On one work out It was registering 165 compared to 120 on my polar sensor. Sometimes the discrepancies are even larger. I have enough heart rate data from the polar sensor to know that the Fitbit is way way off.

This is huge issue for a fitness devise which makes it completely unusable.

I have read the standard rubbish about, humidity and how to place it on the wrist and none of it fixes the issue.

I have also read posts from people with similar issues. Has anybody heard of a fix or if Fitbit are going to be able to fix this issue? Do these issues get back to Fitbit development team? Because you just get the standard rehearsed lines back from customer help liines which does not tackle the root cause.

I hope Fitbit hear this, look into the issue more seriously and offer a proper fix, otherwise the device is useless and I will switch brands as I am sure other will.

[bbarrera]

@PiersM 

I've had HR accuracy problems while cycling (Blaze moving on wrist) and lifting dumbbells and barbells (wrist tension), although in my case its the opposite situation where Blaze shows 60-90bpm and my HR is really 120-160bpm.

I've read about your situation, but I don't run much. Sometimes an optical HR monitor cannot estimate your pulse and ends up finding the next strongest signal - your steps.

Lets say you have (my) 42" warmup stride, which is roughly 1500 steps per mile. And lets assume the Blaze has (wrongly) locked on to your steps per minute instead of pulse. For the Blaze to show 160 bpm aka steps per minute, that means you are running 1500/160 minutes per mile = 9.375 minutes/mile = 6.4mph.

What speed do you set the treadmill at when you are warming up?

This type of problem impacts some people but not others. And some fix it by changing brands, and sometimes by simply changing positions on the wrist. Personally I'd like to see Fitbit support ant+ and bluetooth chest straps, for those times when I want accurate HR. That would fix it for me.

Hope that helps.

[SunriseGirl]

Would also love to see chest strap compatability for those times when the exercise I am doing( HIIT, Tabata, Weight Training) is not compatible with accurate optical wrist heart rate.  Most of the other popular wrist HR fitness trackers have the chest strap compatability.

[bbarrera · Accepted solution]

@SunriseGirl exactly. Seems to be a philosophical issue with Fitbit management. Hope they see the light and accept that optical HRM on the wrist will likely always suffer from accuracy issues. Guessing the rumors about Fitbit earbuds might bring us more accurate HRM when integrated with wrist HRM. Doesn't solve the gym spin/rower integration problem, but maybe that is also coming with to-be-announced smartwatch.

[bittydrew]

I go 1.5mph on my treadmill and find the same thing my hr goes up suddenly to 134 by the watch and then goes down after time in 30 minutes to the normal spot it should be at think there getting lost and just comming up with a number from the looks of it..

[PiersM]

I no longer use Fitbit to track cardio, such as treadmill. It simply doesn’t work.
Use a chest heart rate monitor tracker such as polar with the fitdigits / iCardio app which will transfer data to
Fitbit

[AlejandraFitbit]

It's great to see you around @PiersM and @bittydrew.

If your trackers are not accurately registering your heart rate, I recommend taking a look at this post, where you will be able to see some things that might be affecting this reading and some tips to improve it. 

I hope this helps, let me know the outcome. 

[bittydrew]

I've tried everything use to track well but now can't depend on it anymore thought it would last more time than a year for the price of them since mine is out of warranty all I get now is a 25% discount to buy a new one and an offer to get a two year warranty at a price sheesh my view is why buy another one to last only a year again , and the two year warranty takes the place of the 25 percent off not that crazy probably will go with a chest one again since these can't depend on them for more that a year and chest ones are cheaper you guys have lost me as a customer I use to think these watches were gonna be the thing till it started to mess up even the new update didn't help it and watch where you buy these the warranty could be no good also because of that like fingerhut the warranty is no good from fitbit because they told me is not an authorized dealer which they sell your watch but you wouldn't cover the warranty just the old thing you get a person once or twice but not three times not even gonna fall to buy another watch because you can't trust them after a year...just my feelings now and hint if there not gonna last over a year you should sell them for 25 dollars then not 200 dollars really over priced for how long they last.