Broken 'heart rate zone analysis' in recorded exercise

[vertew]

Hi - I posted this message to the 'Alta HR' product forum, then realised is probably more relevant here in the 'Inspire HR' forum, though both products are affected ... 

It's been four months since the infamous July update broke the 'exercise heart rate zone analysis' feature.  Thought I'd add my voice to the long list of frustrated fitbit customers ...

My  missus and I had been using Alta HR's to track our exercise for a long time and all was perfect until the July update which caused the heart rate analysis page to disappear from recorded exercise.  Weeks went by and the feature wasn't fixed.  I thought it might be an issue with just the Alta HR, and decided it might be a good time to upgrade to the Inspire HR model, which had connected GPS.  Nope, same problem, so back to square one (though with a considerably lighter wallet).

The Inspire model, did offer a ray of hope though.  As it has 'connected GPS', you can start exercise from the Inspire itself, which is quite neat.  We tried this a few times and the exercise shows up in the fitbit app exactly as it did the olden, golden days, with heart rate info showing correctly, yay! 

Except ... no.  There's another unrelated issue and it's a bit of shocker.  When starting exercise from the fitbit and running our usual routes, we noticed we seemed to be suddenly 'running further'.  Close examination of the GPS data, shows a load of GPS tracking errors, which exhibit as random double-backs, as though we'd stopped running jumped back 50ft and started running again.  This explained our 'longer runs'.  Some runs are affected by this more than others, it's all a bit random, but it's enough to comprehensively wreck the data.  This happens on both our phones (which are different) and fitbits, which I think rules out a specific phone issue.

So, here's where we are on getting a heart rate analysis in recorded exercise:

1. We can start exercise from the phone and get a recorded session with accurate GPS data and timings, but no heart rate info.  That's rubbish.
2. We can start the exercise from the Inspire device and get a recorded session with hear trate shown perfectly as it was in the good old days (yay), but crazy GPS data, so run distance / times / splits are ruined.
3. We've not done this - but apparently, we could use 'auto-exercise' and let the fitbit automatically detect the exercise, record and show heart rate (yay), but there's no GPS data or map recorded (boo).

My take on this situation is: AGGHHHH !

I really wish I'd not blown cash buying the two fitbit Inspires, in the blind hope that this would fix the issue - we could have moved to another fitness platform.  As things stand, we'll keep using the fitbits as they are for a while and hope there'll be a fix.  If a fix doesn't show up, we'll jump ship next year sometime.

What I can't get my head around is that fitbit had the (pre-July) system so beautifully sorted.  Brilliant little devices, syncing to a well-designed app, recording exercise stats and heart rate.  Perfect.  Then they messed up and broke the app in July.  I can understand that, we all make mistakes.  But now that four months have gone by without a fix, this seems less like a mistake and more like wilful product vandalism.

I can't over-emphasise what a critical feature 'exercise heart rate zone analysis' is and how its absence depletes the overall fitbit experience.  When I exercise, the first thing I want to know is how far / how fast did I go.  The next thing is how my cardio fitness is progressing, via the heart rate zones.  Not having this, means fitbit has lost at least half it's purpose.

I get the sense that there are a lot of people who feel the same way and many will be quietly moving away onto other fitness platforms over time and this would be a terrible shame.  Fitbit, please, PLEASE can you bump the fix of this critical feature up your dev backlog and get it fixed.

In the meantime … if anyone has a better workaround to get an exercise session with 'heart rate zone analysis' reinstated, along with an accurate recorded route on a map … please share!

[YojanaFitbit]

Hi @vertew thanks you for sharing your feedback with us. 

Sorry to hear that you feel that way about these two Fitbit features. Fitbit Inspire HR and Alta HR track and display heart rate information in the same way on the Fitbit app. We’re aware of this information, but may not be able to provide a fix in the immediate future. We'll continue to monitor the situation, and keep our team informed of the impact to you and other customers. We understand that this isn't the resolution you're hoping for, but rest assured we're always working to improve our products. Thanks for your patience while we work in solving this.

You can read more about Connected GPS and GPS accuracy using Fitbit devices here: How do I use the Fitbit app to capture GPS data? and How accurate is my GPS data?

For anything else you would like to see implemented in this feature for the future, consider visiting our Feature Suggestions board. Look under the label "Exercises" for existing ideas that might match your own and vote! You can learn more about how Fitbit decides what suggestions get released in our FAQs.

Don't hesitate to contact me back if you have any additional questions. 

[vertew]

@YojanaFitbit - Hi and thanks very much for your response.  It is good to know that the fitbit team are aware of these issues.

I'd say that the ability to show a heart rate analysis of exercise sessions is core functionality for the Alta and Inspire 'HR monitors'.  This isn't a minor feature that's been broken, it's one of the core reasons people buy 'HR monitors'.   Equally, the 'connected GPS' issue on the Inspire is another critical piece of core functionality that isn't working.

So, given that the Alta and Inspire HR products are not fulfilling large parts of their core purpose, I think I (and everyone else) do deserve a more detailed explanation.  I'm not sure whether you have any better access to fitbit tech teams than the rest of us, but if you do - could you please ask them to disclose more?  Eg. (a) what's the root cause of the problems and (b), what's the status of the fix in the current backlog / plan?

Or, pretty much any additional, specific info would be an improvement on: [paraphrasing] 'we know about these problems, there's no planned fix, but we are monitoring the situation'.

With no specific info to go on, I can't help speculating on what the underlying causes might be (part of another post I submitted to the Alta forum here) ...

As others have said in other posts I think, if there was going to be a fix, we'd have seen it by now, which means the two issues I've mentioned have been judged by fitbit as too expensive to fix.  Eg. very sadly, cost/benefit does not stack up for fitbit.

As we're not getting any real info from fitbit on what the root cause of these issues is, here's my guess:

• Missing exercise heart rate zones (exercise started from phone) - The GUI elements to show 'heart rate zone analysis' still exist in the app, so that's not the issue.  Functionality to merge the exercise HR data stream from fitbit device with GPS data stream from phone was probably 'missed' when the app was rearchitected back in the summer.  A horrible mistake to be sure and adding this back later is no doubt, a major job.  On a positive note, at least a fix is possible.  Fitbit could bite the bullet, up the priority and deliver this fix.  This might require some new roadmap functionality to be delayed, but ... when you've killed your core functionality, surely that trumps new features ?? ??
• Inaccurate GPS recorded tracks (exercise started from fitbit) - this is the new 'connected GPS' functionality in the 'Inspire' fitbit.  The fact that this hasn't been fixed means there's something fundamentally wrong at a hardware level, probably also related to merging data streams between fitbit device and phone.  The phone is sending GPS data to the fitbit, which merges this with GPS tracking points to create a single exercise data file.  Timing between device and phone is critical here.  Latency issues could result in jumps/skips in the data file, which is exactly what's happening.  Timing issues are most likely on the fitbit given that its small processor is probably being asked to do a lot of work.  The bad news is that fixing this may be very tough and could require a lot of work to optimise the efficiency of all processes running on the fitbit. It may be that the device is just being asked to do 'too much' and the only fix is a more radical scaling back of processing tasks.  A software fix may not even be possible, so customers would need to wait for a new fitbit. 

So, that's my guess.  Could be total garbage, but we won't know unless fitbit open up about what is really going on.  If anyone has any other ideas on what the root cause might be, please do chip in.  If we can't look forward to a fix, at least we can have some fun second-guessing how fitbit managed to kill their exercise HR tracking functionality 😀.

cheers, Andrew.

[SunsetRunner]

Totally agree with you in the first point... should be able to get heart rate data and GPS data for a walk/run/bike. For me it’s about having the heart rate data in the exercise summary and being able to use audio cues whilst I’m doing the exercise.

have to say though that I haven’t had an issue with GPS accuracy (I’ve only had my Inspire HR for a week) having tracked my exercise with the device and on another app simultaneously. It’s also matched up to routes planned on another app too. No sign of back tracks etc. could there have been an issue with GPS signal at the time?

[vertew]

Hi @SunsetRunner - the GPS accuracy issue (double-backs) only seems to happens when you specifically start tracking the exercise session from the Inspire device itself.  Eg. tap on the Inspire screen, go to 'Exercise', then 'Run' (or whatever exercise you choose), then 'Connect' etc.  Starting the exercise session from your phone gives a (relatively) accurate GPS route, but no heart rate zone analysis.

I have around 30 runs between my wife and myself, over several weeks using different phones that show the GPS errors / jumps, skips and double-backs.  I very much doubt that this is a GPS reception issue, given that we're running across open countryside in the UK.  We eventually gave up, as this data was wrecking our stats and went back to starting exercise from the phone again.  So we now have reasonably accurate GPS recorded routes again, but no heart rate analysis.

How are you starting your exercise?  If you are definitely starting your exercise session from your Inspire device and not your phone, then I'd be interested to hear whether that's working well.

I noticed that not all my runs were equally bad.   Some had a few errors and some were terrible.  Some were so bad that a 5k run could be recorded as 6k due to all the double-backs.  Take a close look at some of your recorded routes, started directly from the Inspire device.  Zoom in as far as you can and follow the route.  Some rounding of corners is to be expected, but double-backs where you appear jump back 50ft would be a problem ...

cheers, Andrew.

[vertew]

Reminder of what we're missing ... ah, those heady days when fitbit HR monitors showed an analysis of heart rate for exercise sessions started from phone.  Image and content from fitbit blog ...

Know Your Heart Rate Zones

You’ve probably noticed that after logging a workout, your Fitbit app shows you a colorful graph depicting how much time you spent in three heart rate zones. Knowing a little bit about how these zones were created can help you make the most of them.

[vertew]

Very sadly and very annoyingly, it's time for me to say goodbye to fitbit. I've been experimenting with some of the gamin trackers and the 'Vivosmart 4' is nearly perfect. It does all the things that fitbit used to do, but fitbit have now managed to mess up ...

1. Accurate GPS tracking - using Connected GPS. This is looks as accurate as anyone could expect from a phone and there are no skips and double-backs.
2. Exercise Heart Rate Zones - present and correct. Not much more to say, they just work.
   Image pasted below shows three screens from the phone app with info shown.

I say 'nearly perfect' - the only thing it doesn't do (or I've not worked out how to do) is voice alerts on split times for running. But I'm very happy to put up with that as the device shows split pace on the screen anyway. The screen is also a lot more responsive than the 'Inspire', screen, which I'd pretty much given up on trying to interact with anyway.

I've bulk-exported most of my fitbit data into garmin, which was reasonably easy. It just remains for me to lay our fitbit devices to rest on ebay on in a drawer. Perhaps we'll have a little ceremony. Fitbit introduced me to the concept of fitness tracking and worked perfectly for 18 months - I'm really grateful for that. Then the 'July update' happened, about which no more needs to be said.

So goodbye fitbit. I'll have another look at the ecosystem in 2022 when we next upgrade - who knows, perhaps fitbit will have seen fit to fix the heart rate zones by then? Or perhaps I'll leave it to 2024 ...

[ltlsquirrel]

An interesting read and I must say, I really miss the heart rate zones too.

[absolom]

It's absolutely unbelievable that we have to choose between heart rate tracking and gps/pace times on a fitness device.  I will definitely be switching to something OTHER than fitbit.  Goodbye fitbit!