New Blaze Owner - heart rate

[Bubbawny]

I just got a Fitbit Blaze. Used it for the firstime on a walk yesterday and today.

Yesterday, it registered my heart rate on a 49 minute walk as being 32 minutes in the red zone, 9 in the orange, and the rest in the yellow. To be honest, while I knew I took a long walk, I didn't think I had been strolling so hard as to be near cardiac arrest.

Today, I took it for another shorter walk. When SLOWLY warming up, the first ten minutes, it said my heart rate went to 161 BPM. Then, after ten minutes, I really walked fast. But the heart rate actually went DOWN to 108 BPM.

WTH!

I could hear my heart speeding up after the ten minute mark. I could feel it.

What a piece of junk. I've wasted my money on this thing. I knew from reading the reviews that the accuracy of these LED-driven heart rate monitors were not as accurate as chest straps.

But I never expected downright false data in such an extraordinary factor than this.

it's a glorified pedometer and even with that, I can't trust it's recording true steps.

For me, I know it's not about the steps. It's about the effort of exertion affecting heart rate for periods of time.

How can anyone use a Blaze to try to "enter a zone of health" and manage their workout with this?

Today I thought I'd start slow, stay in the orange zone, then head to the red zone for ten minutes, then cool down. But at peak effort, it put me in the low yellow zone, and low effort had me in the red zone.

So disappointed. What a piece of junk.

[gtoto1961]

I've not had that issue. Had it not been for blaze I wouldn't have understood why I was feeling like I was. I had a heart rate at rest 111. You can't  sleep with that. And everytime i went to the doctor and they told me my heart rate it would be no more than a couple beats off. Maybe you got a bad one. That can happen in anything out there. Have you talkes to customer support?

[Bubbawny]

Thanks gtoto1961.

I have a similar issue in that i am on this to get more fit. My resting heart rate used to be about 97. Last year, I started C25K (an iphone app) and made it about six almost seven weeks. During that stint, my resting heart rate went from about 97 bpm down to about 70-ish. So while I never did get to completely to the point where I could run a 5k, it did help me get more fit.

However, here I am today. My resting heart rate is still about the same (70-ish), but I am out of shape. I need to lose weight and get my cardiovascular health up. I don't expect I'll ever get a resting heart rate like Lance Armstrong. I'm 52, over weight, predominantly sedentary (I'm a Director of IT) from sitting in front of computers all day and not taking responsibility to get regular and responsible with my fitness (or general lack thereof).

A buddy of mine challenged me to join him on FitBit to a 10k per day walk.  He's a very fit fellow. But I wanted to have this as a form of motivation (competition) to have him  help nudge me into activity.

I've been reading up on the five heart rate zones, something i was not familiar with, as well as peak heart rate according to the AHA. My peak should be 220-52 or around 170.

When I first used the blaze, and it reported that on a moderate walk, my heart was in the RED ZONE for much of the time, it really scared me as to how unfit I was. But while walking, I honestly didn't feel like I was straining.

So then today, I tried my test walk after reading an article about racewalking/intermittent speed for developing cardio health. Essentially, alternating which zone you are in for differing periods of time.

So when I was walking, it almost immediately threw me into the RED ZONE, reporting i was at 161 BPM while lazily walking, then then reporting that it fell into the ORANGE zone and reported 108BPM while i was actually running for a few minutes, I was like...no way!  I could *FEEL* my heart racing when I started jogging (and even for several minutes after I stopped the interval).

The reason I ran this test today wasn't to prove that the FB was not working. I was trying to follow my first effort to do the interval training / racwalking training. So when I saw that the blaze was reporting extremely LOWER heart rates even though I could feel my heart rate rising made me truly doubt the HR (and thus the VOX2 and step counts) of the Blaze.

I want to take my Cardio health seriously. And according to the racewalking/interval training, I need to be able to find a way to change my activity to enter different zones. And if I cant trust the Blaze to help ensure I'm in the right zone, well, it's useless.