Charge 5 heart rate is instable with tattoos

[SunsetRunner]

Hi!

I know that a lot of people have written about this, but I've bought my Fitbit Charger 5 this week and after fews days I've noticed that my HR are really instable. After some reading I've realise that I have some dark tattoos on my non dominant wrist and the Fitbit technology are incapable to read my HR, so I've put my watch on my dominant wrist to see if the reading is better and, for the moment, it seem to work perfectly.

French version/version française :

Bonjour!

Je sais que beaucoup de gens ont écrit à ce sujet, mais j'ai acheté mon Fitbit Charger 5 cette semaine et après quelques jours, j'ai remarqué que mes FC étaient vraiment instables. Après quelques lectures, j'ai réalisé que j'avais des tatouages ​foncés sur mon poignet non dominant et que la technologie Fitbit était incapable de lire ma fréquence cardiaque, j'ai donc mis ma montre sur mon poignet dominant pour voir si la lecture est mieux et, pour le moment, cela semble fonctionner parfaitement.

Moderator Edit: Clarified subject

[tabbymom38]

This may be a crazy question.  I wear my Fitbit on my left wrist (non dominant).  I also wear it on the underside of my wrist.  I have a small tattoo there that sits immediately under the Fitbit device.  Can the ink in your skin cause issues with the device?  I noticed when it's on top of the ink, it does not read my heart rate.  When I move it closer to my hand, where there is no ink, it registers.  Anyone else notice this? 

Thanks!

[SunsetRunner]

Hi!

For me it doesn't work on my tattoos (or the ink if you prefer). So I have to put my charger 5 on my dominant wrist, because I don't have any tattos on that wrist indeed. When I read about that question, I've noticed that some people have experienced that situation too. For my part, I think that because the Fitbit charger 5 uses LED to do the HR reading, the ink tattoo block in a way that reading. In my case, it was the issue, because everything returned to normal when I changed my fibit to my dominant wrist who doesn't have tattoos.

I hope that it'll help you 🙂

french version/version française :

Salut!

Pour moi, cela ne fonctionne pas sur mes tatouages ​​(ou l'encre si vous préférez). Je dois donc mettre mon chargeur 5 sur mon poignet dominant, car je n'ai effectivement aucun tatouage sur ce poignet. Quand j'ai lu à propos de cette question, j'ai remarqué que certaines personnes ont vécu cette situation aussi. Pour ma part, je pense que parce que le chargeur Fitbit 5 utilise la technologie LED pour faire la lecture HR, l'encre de tatouage bloque en quelque sorte cette lecture. Dans mon cas, c'était le problème, car tout est revenu à la normale lorsque j'ai changé mon fibit pour mon poignet dominant qui n'a pas de tatouages.

J'espère que ça va t'aider 🙂

[LZeeW · Accepted solution]

@SunsetRunner  @SunsetRunner   The Fitbit heart rate monitor, like many other fitness tracker brands, gives off the green LED light and it gets reflected back.  It looks for pulsations in very tiny blood vessels in the top skin layers.  Tattoo ink is deposited in that same layer.  The ink can absorb the light, keeping it from being reflected or block the light from sensing the pulsations.  Don't expect a reliable heart rate trace with tattoos.

[Hwood605]

I was told today that if I had dark skin and or tattooed skin the heart rate, 02 and anything else the sensor works for them I can expect issues as the led light can’t penetrate either. There is nothing advertising this anywhere so I wasted money

[Troyl58]

I am having the same issue,  according to everything I have read ink will definitely have an effect on the heart rate sensor 

[Buddyb38]

I have the Inspire 3 and 2 layers of nano tape did the trick, at least it worked for me. 

[nanoatlanta]

Same here. It wasn’t an issue with the Charge 4, but absolutely is with the Charge 5. So annoying. Next step is an Apple Watch. 

[StevieRayK]

Please explain how nano tape works and how you applied it. Thanks. 

[Buddyb38]

Hi,

I don’t know how it works I just know that it works for me. It is also depending on the tattoo, which colors and how dark it is.
Just put some nano tape on the back.

I don’t have the charge anymore but the apple watch ultra which works even better with nano tape.

I hope it will work for you too. Nano tape is not that expensive so worth trying.

Kind regards,
Buddy

[StevieRayK]

Thanks for the quick reply as I've noticed both sleep measurement accuracy and heart rate accuracy has changed drastically since I decided on a left sleave tattoo.

This is the first post on an actual solution to the issue, and I'm grateful that you initially posted a solution because I like solving a problem like this; rather than venting about it.  So for that alone - thank you! 

May actual question should have been:

Do you actually have the tape stuck on the watch and your skin, or just the watch itself?

 Thanks again.. 

[Troyl58]

Thanks for the information

Get Outlook for Android<>