Inaccurate Heart Rate Charge 5

[Shanna79]

I bought a Charge 5 for Christmas. First it was great, but now a month later the heart rate is become more and more inaccurate. I just got back from the gym. I walk/ran on the treadmill. I walked for 3 minutes and ran for 2 minutes off and on.  I started checking the Charge 5 against the heart rate on the treadmill. Sometimes they were within 5 beats of each other and other times they were over 50 beats apart. When I was running the treadmill said my HR was in the 160’s and the Charge 5 said it was 120. I took the watch off, cleaned the back with my shirt, I used the settings and restarted it, but it kept giving me inaccurate readings. I’m very disappointed. I feel like I bought a $200 watch that is only good for counting my steps. 

[Shao3000]

I have the exact same problem.  Once I got over the initial disappointment that a Google owned product didn't integrate with Google Fit, I've been trying to make the best of it, but the heart rate tracking is useless as soon as I start any kind of exercise. 

It doesn't matter how tight/loose it is.  Tried different wrists, turning to front and back of wrist.  Restarting it makes no difference.  It just reports completely wildly inaccurate numbers, I've seen it showing as low as 90 BPM when my Polar chest HR, elliptical machine HR reader and a pulse oximeter and listening to the heart beat thumping in my head all confirmed I was hitting 170+ BPM.  

My elliptical actually does integrate to Google Fit (via if it), so I have graphs showing these wildly different heart readings.   Very occasionally it will get it right for 5 or 10 seconds then drop back down.

I'm ridiculously disappointed with this product, I hope it's something an update can fix, since this is clearly not just a problem with my device.

[kbhagglund]

I have the same problem and am super disappointed. When on the elliptical, I count my heart rate and its often off by 30-40 beats.