Charge 5 recording heart rate while in pocket

[DaveDL]

I've been carrying my Charge 5 in a pants pocket while engaged in activities that may result in damage to the device. That works OK for the most part and as best I can tell does a good job recording steps. But it also records (estimates, obviously) heart rate. That also appears to do an OK job when I'm working in my shop. But yesterday I was involved in a low intensity activity outside in some heat and humidity, mostly sitting on a stool and using a small chain saw to cut up deadfall; I hardly raised a sweat. During that time, it recorded a heart rate well into the peak zone of up to around 150 and recorded an activity level of around 170. For a 77-year-old man this is much too much and when exercising on my elliptical or hiking uphill my max heart rate generally stays within the cardio range. So there is definitely a problem with this estimation algorithm and this is probably the reason the Charge 5 has an option to turn off Heart Rate in the Settings. However, there is no guidance coming from Fitbit (that I've been able to find) about how to use this, when to turn off Heart Rate monitoring, or even a simple explanation of the algorithm involved. So please, a little light on what's going on here!

[Chitt2]

Heart rate sensor and the active zone minutes are terrible for me. even while sitting randomly my HR will show 140 150 and immediately my active zone mins bump up and ruin everything else. 

Fitbit has no answers to this..apart from resetting the device which doesn't help

[DaveDL]

Chitt2: Is that when the Fitbit is in your pocket or on your arm? Just where did you find an answer from Fitbit about this? And BTW, I got a heart rate of 178 and 150 chevron points yesterday while in the shop with the Fitbit in the pocket, standing and moving normally. 

There must be some rhyme or reason behind Fitbit's estimating heart rate when it senses steps, along with the option to turn Heart Rate off in the tracker settings. Is this because this "feature" isn't ready for prime time? Turning Heart Rate off is not an easy option because it requires paging through settings with several screen presses required. If meant to be used, it should be in the quick settings when scrolling up from the default screen, as in DND Mode, as I certainly want Heart Rate on when the tracker is on my arm, so it needs to be easy to get to. 

Is there ever official Fitbit support in this community, i.e., someone from Fitbit actually responding to an issue brought up on this forum? Or is this the Grand Cop-out that is present online with so many products (Microsoft comes to mind, but there are many) where a "community" is expected to support a vendor's product without assistance from the vendor. To me, any time a vendor's "name dot com" is in a support URL, as in "community dot fitbit dot com, that implies official support from the vendor. Supposedly I can go to Fitbit directly with a question, but it must be done through Twitter, which I don't do. If someone can assure me that there will be a response from Fitbit when getting to support this way, I will try it. 

[Chitt2]

I think the heart rate sensor is a faulty hardware implementation, backed by even faulty software. What is the logic of the watch being idle for 10 minutes, before it notifies the user if the upper or lower heart rate threshold has been breached?

In my case, I had the watch in my pocket for half-hour and may have made a trip to the kitchen and was on work calls. Also, you cannot delete any active minutes, unless it is part of any recorded exercise activity.

I know there might be difficulties implementing such scenarios...but also having 500 active minutes, when only 200 of those are from exercise and the others from idle time misreading is poor. If fitbit tweaks the software to simply notify when it detects heart rate above the threshold, I would be ok

Well all the best. I am simply using the fitbit now as an overpriced step counter and plan to give it to my nephew