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Since we can now get HR all day, can we not get HRV all day too? Even if not all day, being able to switch to 'HRV testing' mode would be very useful. Would be amazing to wake up and see if we are ready for strenous exercise... or eat a meal and discover that you are sensitive to some food.
I think it would be a great addition to have the option to purchase a chest strap monitor to further monitor heart rate in greater detail. This would also allow for the monitoring of Heart Rate Variability (HRV). This would give users the option of using the wrist HR tracking for everyday use but the chest strap for workouts and HRV. This would help Fitbit users have all of their data in one tracker instead of using the Fitbit and having to also use a Polar monitor and an additional app.
Precisely the reason why I bought the Charge HR. This feature would put it heads and shoulders above the other HR Monitors/ Fitness Devices currently out there now. Please introduce this feature!
Emily, i would not be interested in adding a chest strap to improve the accuracy of the Surge, I wear a chest strap with my polar and the primary motivation for me to purchase the Surge was to eliminate the chest strap. It was not my expectation that it would be as good but hoped it would provide a consistent difference that I could make the mental adjustment for. I now realize that this a) will not work b) would have resulted in an erroneous calorie burn total. I would hope fitbit will ultimately solve the problem and provide a wrist worn device with an accurate HR and related calorie burn. In the meantime I will continue to use my polar when working out and manually adjusting the calories burned as I have done for quite some time now.
For day to day monitoring I think the HR monitoring works great, but as soon as I start exercising it starts to have big troubles giving me an accurate reading. So I personally would love to have the option to use a cheststrap that meassures HR during exercise and syncs to the fitbit through BT.
Of course, the best would be if the wristbased monitoring got a bit better but I don't know if the tech is capable of more, hardware-wise.
I think that the Fitbit application should support as many heart rate monitors as possible due to one fact alone. They still have people using trackers that do not have heart rate monitors built in to them. On top of that HRV is being used to monitor stress and recovery both while awake and asleep.
I created a fitbit account specifically to make this suggestion, I'm pleased to see others think this would be useful. I currently have a MS band, it's great, but like all optical HR monitors it's really not very accurate during rigorous workouts. Not bad during runs sometimes, but surprisingly horibly inaccuate when on the stationary bike. The readings are WAY off compared to my chest strap. However, I like the optical sensor for resting heartbeat and daily avg heartrate data.
I'd buy a fitbit charge HR or surge in a minute if it supported bluetooth chest straps to use to supplement the optical sensor but until then will stick with the Band or whoever's product allows chest strap pairing 1st (except for the Polar loop, which is nice but too basic).
Why can't we just accept the optical HR tech for what it is? It's pretty decent for when you're not exercising, sometimes it's accurate when exercising, but not reliably so and not even close to the accuracy of a chest strap. So just allow the optional pairing of a bluetooth strap - problem solved.
Agreed. HR strap compatibility would make the products a lot more attractive to those who are used to the accuracy of HR straps - which is basically everyone into active fitness.
I'm adding to great commentary already here in hopes this increase the amount of visibility on this topic. I am agnostic to how it's done (chest strap, something else on a sports bra), but there needs to be a better way to get an accurate heart rate reading during rigorous exercise. Here's an example: During my last workout I had completed a bunch of burpies where I could barely breath and I checked my pulse and it said that I had a heart rate of 91. It's frustrating because it's not even in the ballpark of where I know I was based on experience. It also threw off my entire workout stats on the dashboard - looked like I had taken a walk around the block vs. hitting a PR with lifting and integrating HIIT.
I like the monitoring during the day and while slepping - totally cool. Just need a better solution for vigorous exercise because I don't want to worry about my fitbit while I'm trying to focus on killing some burpies:-)
I completely support this idea! Fitbit's heart rate monitoring is not accurate during intense exercise and Fitbit needs to admit this. Allowing the Charge HR to pair with a chest strap would be an immediate, easy fix.
HRV analysis is a very powerful way to examine the balance between autonomic and sympathetic nervous systems. Yes it can be impacted by irrelevant factors, but the clinical validity in multiple diseases has been proven. This should be a relatively simple implementation based on the data already collected.
I came here to make this suggestion. Fitbits heart rate monitoring is not accurate during intense excercise. Allowing Fitbit Surge/Charge/App to pair with a chest strap would be an easy and effective fix.
A chest strap is needed for accurate intense workout. The optical sensor cannot handle the task. Want really want my Surge to be used as my single device for 5K and 10K runs/races. It works great for everything except accurate HR!
I noticed other posts in the forums that were asking the same question. Could you include Heart Rate Variability? HRV is measured by the amount of time in between heart beats and can tell you if you are overtraining. There are many apps for this and it actually seems that could be something pretty simple to add.
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