Fitbit Ionic HR very inaccurate

[murfpass]

I was wondering if anyone else's HR on the ionic is very inaccurate? I haven't even tried it working out yet. I'm talking about sitting down at my desk or walking around. Checked my pulse manually  and it was right at 60 BPM. Looked at my watch and it's showing anywhere from 70 to 80. My HR from yesterday looks insane because it's going up and down from 60 to 90 (all while basically sitting at a desk) and i know that my HR hadn't changed. It's like it's not even trying to be correct. I've tried moving the watch up or down. Nothing seems to work. It's accurate sometimes, but being off by 20 BPM when your HR is only at 60 is not even close. 

I've already done a factory reset because it wouldn't sync correctly and lost a good amount of my data from yesterday. I'm wondering if I have a defective device and should return it or if there will be a software update to fix this?

Is anyone else having this issue?

P.S. Tried to post a picture, but there doesn't seem to be a way to do it

[MikeIT]

Murfpass-

If you get up and walk 20 steps- your heart rate will jump rapidly.  I guarantee you that if you got up and walked 20 steps, you will get above 70.

The fastest way to manually check your HR is to watch a clock for 15 seconds and count your heart beats with your finger on your pulse and multiply by 4.  You cant easily do that while running.

So if you register 90-130bps running/walking jogging, and then sit down to take your pulse, your heart will start recovering and lower its rate pretty rapidly.  

Also, depending on what you do while sitting down, your heart rate will fluctuate.   For instance, I am a pretty average healthy guy.   While typing this email, my heart rate was 58-83... most of the jumping around is due to participating in conversations.   

Just food for thought.

Ive found the ionic to be very very accurate.  I did the 15 second count x 4 and it was 79.  Ionic showed 78.   

Its easy to be +- 4 beats per minute using the manual method.

[PeteG-1]

My Ionic is accurate, for workouts, but ONLY if I manually start them.

If I let auto-start do its thing, then my workouts (1.5-3 hr rides, 25-50mi, low miles for winter) are "off" by 25-40 BPM, on average (I rarely even get above 105, for the whole ride).

These are the same routes (winter I only do maybe 8-10 routes, some hillier than others) where my Charge2 auto-started, and recorded my HRM just fine (believable anyway, I'm usually chugging along at "winter pace", something in the 16-19 avg), up in the 80-90% range, as opposed to the 50-60% I see on the Ionic now.  

I tested this a couple of days ago, purposely rode the same exact 26mi loop, at almost the same avg (about 4 minutes delta), and averaged 96 BPM (122, same route, a few days earlier, manually-started).

Either I'm "insanely fit" all-of-a-sudden, olympic+ athlete levels, or something is amiss.  I'm a reasonably fast ex-racer, but I'm not even sure a world-class cyclist could do it with this low an average HRM.

There's a BIG bug in the auto-start algorithm, IMO.  I tried to start a thread about this, but zero responses, even from Fitbit (my guess is because they know, and don't want to admit it).

I'm still waiting, for a Fitbit support person to comment on this...

[Blackperl]

My ionic hear rate is very accurate for me I never seen high spike or heart rate error when looking into all heart beat history even real time checking when running on treadmill my heart rate peak is 174 which is the same as treadmill machine, so I can say my ionic heart rate always spot on with treadmill machine (I check with treadmill every 30 seconds).

My Ionic firmware is  27.31.1.16 (Thailand), this is the 3rd day I've used ionic. So I'm curious that the problem you all faced is about software or hardware version.

If I face any heart rate problem, I will reply this again.

[PeteG-1]

@Blackperl My HR is accurate too, *IF* I manually start my exercise.

If I use auto-start, it ranges, from being about 30-45 BMP/avg under, for a given cycling route say, and similar timing. 

Wile I'd expect to see some variation, I'm barely out of resting HR, when I use auto-start, which is "odd", for a 30mi ride, averaging in the mid 18's, so not slow (for most people, this means riding along at 21-23 "on the flats", so that hills, slowdowns, stops/starts, all average out to say 18.3.  Most would consider this a pretty fast ride, a entry-level race-pace, almost.

Have you tried this with an auto-started exercise?

[Blackperl]

@PeteG-1 The problem you said should definitely be software problem I will test auto start but I think I need chest strap or another watch to test outdoor auto start? Can auto start detect running on Treadmill? 

[PeteG-1]

Nope, it'll just auto-start, depending on the delay (>= minutes) on each activity it's enabled for.

Mine auto-starts when I ride in indoor (cycling) trainer, or my Charge2 used to, I haven't tried it with my Ionic, based on my outdoor auto-start problems.  It probably worked 19/20 times, with my Charge2, only very occasionally did I have to go back and add my trainer rides.

[Akman]

I am having exact same issues. Chatted with "customer service" twice now with them admitting it is a known issue and they are actively trying to fix. They refused to replace my Ionic, even though it is defective.

They have been having issues since October 2017, what the heck does "acitively" trying to fix mean? In the meantime they continue to sell their buggy junk!

What a lousy company. 

[DennEppe]

Mine has shown inaccuracies as well, and I've had mine for a couple days.  It will dip low (lower than I know what is actually is) and go up to 140 bpm or higher.

I expect more from a $300 watch / fitness tracker!!

[daskalou]

My Fitbit Ionic is very inaccurate too.

Regardless of whether I start my workouts manually or if they're auto-detected, the heart rate detection is way off. I've compared with heart rate sensors at my gym, and the Ionic can be off by as much as 30 BPM or more (in both directions).

Seems to be hedging its bets a lot of the time. Telling me my HR is between 110-120 when it is really 150+, and sometimes even when my real HR has dropped below 90 (as measured by other HR monitors).

[PeteG-1]

---

@daskalou wrote:

My Fitbit Ionic is very inaccurate too.

Regardless of whether I start my workouts manually or if they're auto-detected, the heart rate detection is way off. I've compared with heart rate sensors at my gym, and the Ionic can be off by as much as 30 BPM or more (in both directions).

Seems to be hedging its bets a lot of the time. Telling me my HR is between 110-120 when it is really 150+, and sometimes even when my real HR has dropped below 90 (as measured by other HR monitors).

---

@daskalou Yep, my HR was way under, about the same 30-45 on average, when I was riding.

Mine worked better (not as good as my Charge2, but better) if I manually started them, but it was still ridiculously inaccurate, for a device that's supposed to be the "upscale model".

My wife (after watching me retry 6 times, to get the last firmware update, 3 each, WiFi/BT) finally convinced me that I should return it, even though it had been her XMas gift.  She said I was never going to trust it, coming from an engineering viewpoint, she knows me too well ;-]

[Akman]

I tried wearing my Ionic on the inside of my wrist as others suggested,  and this improved the accuracy significantly. It's a hassle having to do this before every run. Hopefully fitbit will get their act together and fix this!

[indianwin2001]

For $300 you shouldn't ha e to wear it inside. Other companies way he's don't perform like that and neither should  fitbits

[wedzir]

In the end I was sick and tired of the inaccuracy.. I went and purchased an iWatch 3... spend a little more and totally happy now.. Sold the Ionic for nearly the new price....  After 6 years done with FitBit

[Nettuno]

I'm waiting for a Firmware Update by the end of January otherwise I'll be back to Polar definitely more professional ..

Fitbit is not suitable for fitness ... I think it is dangerous for those who play sports with cardiac effort

the ionic it's just a well-publicized toy

[fluxx]

I'm also waiting for one more firmware update and hope it fixes the hr problems. I have doubts because my Charge 2 was perfect, I fear its a design problem if the Ionic is way worse 6 months after the initial release. Please Fitbit, prove me wrong! 

[PeteG-1]

Yep, I'm thinking it's more than likely a h/w issue too, given the length of time.  

I decided to move back to my perfectly-functioning Charge2, for now.  

I really wanted some of the smartwatch functionality of the Ionic, but I also *expected* it to perform at least as well as the Charge2, particularly "the basics".

I'm not sure what I'll do next, I kind of like the FB interface, and I use a different device for my really fast riding anyway, but I was really getting used to using the FB for my "rest days", and the sleep tracking is nice too.

I suppose I could export all my data into XLS/CSV or similar, and move it into a new "ecosystem", but I'm sure some of it won't get parsed correctly, and it'll be annoying, best-case.

I've worked on a lot of s/w and h/w "standards", over my career, and it's starting to seem like they need a "fitness data" standard.  I bet the industry isn't so "keen" though, it would make it much easier for people to switch, rather than "stick it out" through a bad product cycle...

[daskalou]

PeteG-1: Does each fitness brand document their data export formats? I'm looking for a new software project to tackle, so if creating a standard is something that is possible with current publicly available information, I'd be happy to explore it.

[PeteG-1]

@daskalou Not sure about *every* fitness brand, but I think the majors do, since they all have an SDK, and want to have interoperability with the key apps out there, like Strava and such.

It's way more efficient (obviously) for them to have these brands maintain their apps, and just abstract the h/w part for them, through the SDK.

What I haven't done, is look into what it takes to download the SDK, or get access to their XML or other data structures.

It does seem like there's an "app hole", although I suppose it could be out there, already, somewhere.

I'm sort of in-between stuff too, about to start exploring options, I could possibly do the PM/design side...

[PeteG-1]

Zenobase does some of this, I was digging around a bit.

It "consumes" your data anyway, smaller (manually queried) chunks for the free version, and larger ones for paid.

It's not really a "data-migration" solution, per-se, but it does get all your data, into one location, also exportable.  I think you could write a macro, possibly, to make the data consumable by a new fitness app.

Kind of a process though, and not really tested, E-to-E.

I'm still wondering why there isn't more of a standard, like the Tacx for GPS.

[Water_flower]

My ionic appears to stall...a lot. I have resulted in counting, comparing with other device and it appear to only count one third to half the steps, distance and time. I feel it was rolled out before all the kinks were fixed. Very disappointed.