Active Zone Minutes spike while riding motorcycle (Fitbit Charge 6)

[MrPham]

Hello everyone,

I’m using a Fitbit Charge 6 (66.20001.214.24) and noticed something strange with Active Zone Minutes (AZM). This morning, while riding my motorcycle to work, my device recorded:

- 90 Zone Minutes / 170 calories

- 48 minutes in heart rate zones (6 min moderate, 42 min vigorous/peak)

- Heart rate suddenly spiked to 160–170 bpm and stayed flat at that level for about 40 minutes.

In reality, I was just sitting and riding my scooter. There was no intense exercise at all.

Here’s the problem:

- My heart rate graph jumped up sharply and then stayed unrealistically flat.F

- Fitbit thought it was “Intense activity” even though I was not working out.

- This happens when I ride my motorcycle, so AZM is over-counted.

Has anyone else experienced this issue with Charge 6? Is there a known fix or workaround? Should I disable auto-detect, or is it purely a heart rate sensor misreading due to vibration and sunlight?

Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!

[KatherineNY]

Fitbit thinks I'm riding a Mountain bike while pushing a shopping cart or depending how I was swinging my arms while walking, it auto-detected as Elliptical.  I infer it as motion-based auto detection.  In terms of heart rate, it has congratulated me that I'm earning active zone minutes when I'm drinking alcohol; as my heart rate was elevated even though I'm just sitting there having a drink, purely a response-based auto detection.

During your spike, could it be possible something occurred on the road at the time to elevate your heart rate?

[MrPham]

I already checked, and indeed the device detected me as cycling, but in reality the auto-detection feature is quite poor so I just turned it off.

As for my heart rate: while I was riding my motorbike it was completely normal, I could clearly feel it. My resting heart rate is around 60, so there’s no way it could have stayed at 160–180 for 30 minutes as the device showed. That’s totally unreasonable

[alexthecat]

@MrPham Fitbits have a tendency to read external vibrations as heartbeats. I've experienced that too and I know how frustrating that can be.

I know this isn't ideal but, since you know that you're not exercising while you are riding your motorcycle, would you consider turning off the heart rate monitor during that time? 

To do that, swipe down from the clock screen and tap Settings. Swipe to find Heart Rate and toggle it off. Don't forget to turn the heart rate sensor back on when you reach your destination.