Heart rate monitor stops and starts during exercise

[MikeR417]

I have had my Ionic for 1.5 years now and the HR monitor has never given me a problem. I have checked it against a polar chest strap off and on, and it has been pretty accurate.  A couple of weeks ago it while exercising it has suddenly dropped the HR to my resting value, or shown a double dash.  It will then come back at the correct heart rate. It does this several times in an hour.

I have checked position of watch, cleaned sensor, rebooted a couple of times,and made sure it was not too tight.  I have also re-positioned it to be on the bottom of my wrist.  I have now had to wear my Polar chest strap and cell phone app to accurately track my HR.  This is extremely annoying.    Why should this happen suddenly after working so well.

Mike

[RicardoFitbit]

Hello @MikeR417 thanks for bringing this to my attention. it's nice to see you again participating in our Community Forums. I'm happy to give you a hand with your Ionic device.

Seems odd that the heart rate sensors of your Ionic device are performing in such way, this is certainly not a common situation nor the way we designed our heart rate tracking feature. Thanks for your effort and patience troubleshooting your Ionic prior posting. Let me share with you that occasionally the Fitbit can have difficulty finding a signal, typically due to the tracker's fit. I recommend experimenting with how high you place the device on your wrist.

When you're not exercising, wearing the tracker just above the wrist bone--as you would a watch--typically works fine. However, moving the tracker up a couple inches can be helpful during high-intensity exercises or exercises that cause you to bend your wrist frequently. If you haven't already done so, please review our recommendations for wear and other tips here.  

If you're wearing the Ionic correctly and the heart rate setting isn't turned off, try changing the setting (Off to On) and then syncing your Fitbit. The change won't take affect until you sync. If heart rate still doesn't appear after the sync, try restarting your device one more time. 

I'll be here if you need anything else, please keep me posted. 

[MikeR417]

Thank you for getting back to me. It is odd that the HR monitoring has worked so well for so long and is now going bonkers.

I did a soft reset and that made no difference.  I always have worn the watch 3- 4 finger widths above the wrist, I have routinely done that.  The watch band is not too tight, putting it on the bottom side of my left arm (downward facing) made no difference.  I have cleaned off the sensor several times with no success.  It does not matter if the watch battery is 100% or less.  The HR monitoring function is turned on, I never turn it off.  I will try turning it off and on and resync to see if that makes a difference.  Then I will try it again tomorrow

Regards,

Mike

[MikeR417]

Today I tried repositioning the watch on my wrist, moving it closer and further away, as well as on the inside of my wrist.  It still dropped out.  I also tried turning off the GPS, but that did not help. I also monitored the hear rate on the home screen while walking my dogs, and the HR dropped out on that mode.

Before I did the above I washed the sensors and my wrist.  I

The only thing I have not done is a factory reset, and I'll do that after 12 AM so as not to lose todays readings.

any other ideas?

Mike

[RicardoFitbit]

You're welcome @MikeR417 thanks for your reply, my sincere apologies for the delay in responding your posts. 

Thank you for taking in consideration the information and troubleshooting steps that were shared on my previous post, your effort and patience troubleshooting your device with me are appreciated. Seems odd that after trying some troubleshooting steps your Ionic is still not recording heart rate data. That said, please try our factory reset following the next steps and let me know how it goes:

1. On the device, hold all three buttons for about 10 to 12 seconds. 
2. When the Fitbit logo disappears, quickly release the bottom right button, continuing to hold down the left and top right buttons (releasing the bottom right button as soon as the logo disappears is time sensitive). 
3. When the device vibrates, release all buttons. 
4. Wait for approximately 1-2 minutes while the device clears all data. Eventually, the Fitbit logo appears and the device boots and displays Fitbit.com/setup.
5. When the device successfully resets, please use the normal out of the box process of updating the firmware. You can check: How do I update my Fitbit device? for more details. 

Take in consideration that a factory reset deletes any stored data, which includes all data that hasn't synced to your Fitbit account and your applications, alarms, etc. 

I'll be waiting for your reply. Let me know if you have any additional questions.

[SunsetRunner]

@MikeR417 I have been experiencing the two-dashes issue since my first Fitbit device - Charge 2 which was really my only complaint about it. I see it also on Ionic. My Ionic cant't handle high intensity workouts and it either shows too low HR or not at all. Not always, sometimes and lot less than it was happening when I was using Charge 2. Got used to it.

You seem to go through all you could. I was about to tell you to make sure the sensors are clean but apparently you have done that already. Not sure if there is more troubleshooting to be done. Yeah, you can try the factory reset, known cure for everything in Fitbit world but I doubt it will solve HR reading problem. I did FR last December and see no difference and wasted lots of time setting whole thing up.

You mentioned Polar chest strap. Recently, I started using PolarOH1 which is optical and very close to the chest strap in terms of accuracy ( and more comfortable to wear ). I thought that it could be my skin or something else me related that causes optical sensors not to work for me but OH1 proved that theory wrong. One thing I want to try one day is seeing whether Ionic may get better results when worn like OH1 - high forearm or bicep, but don't know how to put it there. Otherwise, the solution for two-dashes was the watch that connects to the external sensor.

[RicardoFitbit]

HI @SunsetRunner it's nice to see you again participating here in the Community Forums.

Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts and personal experience with your Fitbit devices. Don't hesitate to contact me back if you need further assistance or have any additional questions for me to answer, I'll be here.

See you around. 

[MikeR417]

I did a factory reset, and that did not do anything to improve detection.  I did not mention that the GPS function of the watch does not capture the satellite.  I think it is a software issue for both of them.

I wonder if the watch is magnetized?  When I had my watch off, sleeping, or charging I was unaware that I was setting the watch down next to a not very strong magnet.  If so, can the watch be demagnetized?

Mike

[MikeR417]

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@SunsetRunner wrote:

@MikeR417 I have been experiencing the two-dashes issue since my first Fitbit device - Charge 2 which was really my only complaint about it. I see it also on Ionic. My Ionic cant't handle high intensity workouts and it either shows too low HR or not at all. Not always, sometimes and lot less than it was happening when I was using Charge 2. Got used to it.

You seem to go through all you could. I was about to tell you to make sure the sensors are clean but apparently you have done that already. Not sure if there is more troubleshooting to be done. Yeah, you can try the factory reset, known cure for everything in Fitbit world but I doubt it will solve HR reading problem. I did FR last December and see no difference and wasted lots of time setting whole thing up.

You mentioned Polar chest strap. Recently, I started using PolarOH1 which is optical and very close to the chest strap in terms of accuracy ( and more comfortable to wear ). I thought that it could be my skin or something else me related that causes optical sensors not to work for me but OH1 proved that theory wrong. One thing I want to try one day is seeing whether Ionic may get better results when worn like OH1 - high forearm or bicep, but don't know how to put it there. Otherwise, the solution for two-dashes was the watch that connects to the external sensor.

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If you dig through all the watch bands for ionic on Amazon you can find a large velcro strap that you can use to put it on your upper arm. They are fairly cheap but well made.

[BrendaCharu]

This is the same exact problem I started experiencing a couple weeks ago. For me, it coincides with the latest software update, but not sure it's the cause. I've had my Iconic Fitbit close to three years and never experienced this. I've taken all the steps you have, except the factory reset. From your comment and that of others, this doe snot appear to solve the issue, so I will not do it. Did this ever get resolved for you? From the comments below it doe snot appear to be the case.

[Jon_D]

Same problem here. It also started at some point, out of the blue, while I have never had any issues before. Has anyone been able to fix this?

[LiliyaFitbit]

Welcome to the Fitbit Community, @Jon_D.

Thank you for joining the thread and sharing that you're experiencing the same issue with your watch. I recommend restarting your watch and reviewing our complete tips in What factors can affect my heart-rate reading on my Fitbit device?

Additionally, I recommend checking if your Fitbit app is updated to the latest version as updates come with new features and bug fixes: How do I update the Fitbit app?

Hope this helps.