Heart rate higher during workout mode Charge 5

[SunsetRunner]

I do the same bike ride every night and when I wear the Fitbit normally it only counts a couple active zone minutes. When I track the workout with the bike exercise app it states 20 to 30 minutes of active zone heart rate. There is a discrepancy here that is confusing. Is this a bug?

Moderator edit: subject updated for clarity

[DavideFitbit]

Hi, thank you for sharing all this information about the inconvenience that you've been experiencing with your Charge 5 device, @SunsetRunner.  

Before considering other options, I would recommend performing a restart and to follow all the instructions in this article to improve the accuracy of heart rate information, this has been useful to other users who have experienced inconveniences with heart rate. 

Keep in mind that you earn active zone minutes for time spent in the fat burn, cardio, or peak heart-rate zones. To help you maximize your time, you earn 2 Active Zone Minutes for each minute you’re in the cardio or peak zones. Heart-rate zones are personalized based on your fitness level and age. You can find more information about this here. 

I'll ne around. 

[Wibby]

Hello,

Could it be because when you’re riding a bike you’re not moving your arms and therefore not making stepping movements to activate active minutes?

When you set it for Bike it probably calibrates things differently, taking into account that it’s a different kind of movement. 

Also you’re telling the tracker it’s an exercise session so it’s expecting to see active minutes. 

If your heart rate goes up but you appear to be stationary (as your arms are gripping the handlebars), it probably doesn’t count them as active minutes and might be thinking you’re watching an exciting film or something…

I’ve heard people pushing shopping trollies or prams miss out on steps because of the lack of arm movements.

Its just a guess though.

[SunsetRunner]

So it is counting nearly ten times MORE active minutes on a bike ride when I start the bike ride exercise app versus going on the same bike ride without starting the app. Essentially it is like I can cheat the amount if active zone minutes I get to be higher if I start the biking, walking, or any exercise app on the watch instead of doing the same workout and just letting the watch track active zone minutes with no app running.

[Wibby]

I wouldn't necessarily call it cheating.  It's measuring your heart rate and basing your active minutes off that rather than the number and speed of steps.  Just out of curiosity, how many minutes is your bike ride?  If it's only 2 minutes then there is a huge problem. 

When I had the One which didn't have a heart rate tracker, I got exactly the same number of active minutes as the exercise I did took.  Switching to heart rate based trackers really confused me at first as I rarely get 60 active minutes (or more) when I do a 60 minute weight session.  On the other hand, I get more when I go jogging because my heart goes into the cardio and peak zones more.  I also get more calories credited due to fat burn etc.  

I also find it fascinating comparing the amount of calories and active zone minutes between exercise classes I do on the same day which will vary depending on the moves and the tracks they choose.

If you were doing a step-based activity, the active minutes would probably be the same either way.  I pick up plenty of minutes rushing to and from the station, walking briskly and so on and I don't set those as activities.

This is just my experience though, and as I said before, I'm just guessing based on that.

[SunsetRunner]

Why would you not tell the fitbit you're starting a workout.

You realise that these devices are not AI - they don't instantly recognise "oh, his HR is elevated  - it must be because he's pedalling a bike".  They have no way to distinguish whether your HR is up because you're on a bike, boat or a bump of cocaine.

I don't know how it works exactly, but I assume that starting a bike workout 'loads' a fitbit algorithm for calorie burn based on "muscle load/aerobic" activity on the legs and whatever else is used when you're on a bike

[SunsetRunner]

So the issue I am having is purely about the active zone minutes, which only counts when my heart rate goes above a certain number, not about what the activity or anything is. I think there might be a difference between how the charge 5 counts my heart rate when workout mode is going vs how often it measures my heart rate not in workout mode. My goal is get clarity on this to see if this is a bug with the software. One scenario could be every second of heart rate above a certain number counts in workout mode vs needing a whole minute straight above that number when not in workout mode. 

[elmyrnvbo]

I think I can see what you mean:

I've been tracking today my bike rides with GPS set to Phone, with my iPhone mobile data on, and also tracked it with mobile data off just to see how it tracks.

I am looking at my dashboard on the desktop, I can see the bike rides with the Heart rate, avg pbm, also I can see calories burned, but I am seeing for instance "X of Y active minutes"; it is seeing a part of the active minutes. And this value "X" that I am seeing is accurate, it is a round up number of how many minutes I biked; the Y is the total active minutes up to that moment (to my understanding).

ex: for a particular bike ride, 5 of 100 active minutes = 5 minutes of biking for that bike ride from the total 100 active minutes (that includes in my case other bike rides and other exercises)

To me it seems it tracks it correctly.

That being said, I can see my heart rate is in line with the speed metrics of the bike ride graph, so it looks accurate.

I checked the calories and they are accurate.

Maybe try to do a sync on your phone and leave the mobile data on and see what happens WHILE biking.

PS: for me it worked to leave the mobile data on, or to leave it off, BUT I had the GPS set to Phone and bluetooth on continuously (set to Always in Privacy settings on iPhone)

[Fryeedaddy]

I have this exact problem. If I use the tracker to initiate the bike ride, my HR data from the tracker will be much more accurate. I use a bike computer and chest HR monitor, so I know that data is very accurate. Always has been. If I let the tracker auto-detect my outside/gps ride, the average HR data for the ride will be about 20 bpm lower than the chest strap data. If I initiate the tracker’s bike function, then the HR data tends to be only 1-3 bpm lower for the average BPM data compared to the chest strap data. I’m guessing that the algorithm used to estimate HR data is different for each type of function (auto detect vs. cycling app on tracker).  I don’t use the cycling app with GPS that much because I’d rather not drain the battery, but now that the readiness score is available, I may be forced to use the cycling function to get the more accurate HR data. I just wish Fitbit would allow the whole data file from Strava to get posted on your activities dashboard. That would solve my problem. But I’ve seen the Features pages and it doesn’t appear Fitbit has any interest in allowing that. What a shame! 😞

[HeyPap]

So glad to hear that someone else is experiencing the same thing, because that's the same issue I have...only difference is that I'm not a biker, but I see this issue all the time when selecting Weights in the exercise app.  For example, one of my 70-minute weightlifting workouts earned me 50 zone minutes when I used the exercise app.  But a similar weightlifting workout that I did for 75 minutes only earned about 5 zone minutes when I didn't start the exercise app.  I've seen similar behavior when doing aerobic/cardio exercises.  So I wish that Fitbit would explain why this happens and clarify which method is more accurate.  If using the exercise app produces more accurate results, then I'd be a happy camper.  🙂

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Agreed.  Perhaps using the exercise app increases the sensitivity of the heart rate monitor or how often it checks it, which may make the results more accurate.  But the tradeoff might be that it runs your battery down quicker and/or turns off some of the other sensors to prioritize the heart rate monitor, which is why you wouldn't want to run the exercise app for a significant amount of time.  Just my theory.

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Thanks, this is good to know.  This helps justify my thinking that the it's better to use the exercise app during a workout if you want to ensure that the heart rate and zone minutes are captured more accurately.  

[Jenda]

Exactly the same issue here. I can sit at a desk with my Fitbit showing a correct value of ca. 60BPM. Than I start the exercise and continue sitting at the desk. The Fitbit starts with correct HR reading and slowly increases until it reaches around 120BPM. It tracks the sitting as a calorie burn exercise (see attached picture). Interestingly I had this behavior with my Charge 2 and Charge 3 as well. So I am very surprised, that someone is able to track the exercise correctly here. I basically end up just wearing the fitbit on my hand becuase in this state the tracking is ok.

[DavideFitbit]

Hi, thank you for the screenshots, for confirming that you've been experiencing the same problem with your Charge 5 and that you already tried a few troubleshooting steps, @HeyPap @Jenda.   

In this case, if you already tried all the general recommendations mentioned here earlier to improve the accuracy of heart rate and you continue to experience the same problem during your workouts, I do recommend that you get in touch with the Customer Support team for further assistance with this. The best way to get help for this problem is to chat with us online or give us a call. Click here to get connected.

Please know that your comments are greatly appreciated. Our team is always working to enhance your experience and your feedback is a big part of that process.

See you around. 

[jeffoest]

So I have the same problem. I've tried a restart. 

Here is my use case. People are talking about waving their hands and step counting. That is NOT the issue. It's very very simple. Heartrate count. 

My heart rate is higher when in exercise mode. Weightlifting, for example, I'll be at it for 5 minutes and heart rate is 75. I'll just SIT there and turn on exercise mode to Weights and I can actually SEE the darn heartrate moving on up to 110 or so. THEN, I turn off exercise mode (meanwhile just sitting there) and you guessed - it goes right back down to that 75. Also a simple pulse from the neck shows the 75 to actually be correct. 

So why is the FB not measuring heart rate accurately when in exercize mode? I don't use it anymore for this reason.  It's weird. It IS like an algorithm thing that doesn't need to trigger. Heart rate is heart rate.... 

[Jenda]

Hi,

you have exactly the same behavior as I have. Actually I tested this on my wife Charge 5 and it has exactly the same issue. So there is no way of changing for a less faulty device. 

It is plain and easy. Just forget about starting exercise mode and the tracker will have correct measurement.

It is very sad that Fitbit doesn't do anything against it. But it just reminded me of similar incompetence during running workouts, where Fitbit measured the distance from the length of your steps instead from the GPS. And I am not even sure if this got fixed.

I am just waiting for Garmin to produce something similar small to the Charge 5 and bye bye Fitbit.

[TeckLee]

I have just started my cardiac rehab program today and needed to wear a Polar H10 heart rate sensor to ascertain the heart rate recorded in my fitbit charge 5 is comparable. The physiotherapist needs to know the accuracy of Charge 5 before commencing the program. This is done by a 6 minutes quick walk to elevate the heartbeat. 

The difference in the heart rate results was astonishing, an average of 45 beats different.

end of 1st minute  H10 (74) Charge5 (99)

end of 2nd minute H10 (77) Charge 5 (127)

end of 3rd minute H10 (75) Charge 5 (124)

end of 4th minute H10 (75) Charge 5 (126)

end of 5th minute H10 (76) Charge 5 (124)

end of 6th minute H10 (77) Charge 5 (123)

I have logged a case with support and was informed that this is a known issue and told to wait as the recent "firmware version 20001.171.50 for Charge 5 tracker is now currently at 75%." So as of now, please take your heart rate readings with a pinch of salt. To me this is one of the basic fundamental requirement of an activity tracker and expect no more than 10 beats difference. Such an inaccurate high heart rate readings will instead prevent me from achieving my desired heartbeat zone. I had so much confidence in Charge 5 as this is the fourth generation after HR, charge 3, charge 4, very disappointed.

[DavideFitbit]

Hi everyone, thank you for sharing all your feedback about this inconvenience with your Charge 5 and for confirming that you already tried a few troubleshooting steps. I'm sorry to see that you continue to experience the same problem. 

In this case, if you already tried all the steps mentioned earlier to improve the accuracy of heart rate information and you've updated your device to the latest firmware version (1.171.50) and you continue to have the same problem, I do recommend that you continue the communication with the Customer Support team so they can let you know about the next steps. You can click here to get connected. 

Thanks again for all the comments and information that you've provided so far. The team continues to work to improve the Fitbit experience and your feedback is big part of that process. 

[charleskn]

I assume you're allowing fitbit to auto-recognize cycling in the instances where it is under-counting zone minutes? If so, is fitbit getting approximately the right start and end times? Do the heart rate charts between auto-recognize and manually started appear similar? Calories?

[Jenda]

Hi,

yes the auto-recognize function tracks the workouts perfectly. The start and end is usually right on spot and the HR zones together with the calorie burn seem very accurate to me.
In my opinion this is the only option you have left to correctly track workouts. Starting an exercise from the app just gives you totaly overestimated HR and calorie values.

[charleskn]

I would say that if given similar workouts you should have similar heart rate profiles, regardless of how the exercise was tracked. Whether auto-recognized or tracked manually using one of the activities. Runs and bicycle rides are good because you can also look compare the time & distance to know that the efforts were relatively close.

I don't use auto-recognize for any exercise activities, but it does catch walks, mowing the lawn, etc. However, I don't really pay attention to those.

For me, I have found that my Charge 4 (and now Charge 5) track my heart rate quite well, as compared to a dedicated heart rate monitor that I use for exercises.

[ForestHawk]

When mine gets left in exercise mode for hours (because I often forget to hit “finish”, accidentally, it shows me in active zone minutes for hours at a time.  It is completely inaccurate and frustrating.