Importing Garmin workouts to Fitbit - heart rate not importing accurately

[PAL3]

Hello,

I use the Garmin Edge 500 for Bike workouts.  I haven't tried my Ionic for bike workouts yet - I suppose I could, but I like my computer right out in front on the handlebars and use the cadence indicators regularly.

I don't wear my Ionic while riding, as I don't want to double record.  It seems that when my workout gets imported to the FitBit, the heart information doesn't seem to be accurate on the fitbit summary screens.

My heart rate during my ride today for example averaged about 137, and maxed out at 160, according to Garmin, and that seems pretty accurate for me.  I can see the full heart rate data profile on either Garmin or Training Peaks for the workout.

When I go to Fitbit, it shows that my heart rate averaged about 74bpm, which is totally incorrect for me for workouts of this nature.  I recognized that the data was coming from MyFitnessPal, and so removed that sync, and then tried to get the data sent from my FitnessSyncer account - that one seemed worse - as a complete flatline at 74bpm. 

Is there anyway for me to get an accurate heart rate reading transferred into Fitbit?  

Thanks/

[bbarrera]

@PAL3 Fitbit doesn't allow importing of heart rate and GPS.

Support for cycling is my biggest with Fitbit. I cycle and use a Garmin Edge 520 for tracking my ride, and have these sensors connected to bike computer:

- power

- heart rate

- cadence

- speed

- rear radar

- lights

- temperature

Garmin Connect syncs my rides to Strava, TrainingPeaks, TrainerRoad, Endomondo, MapMyFitness, and RideWithGPS. All the other fitness platforms sync the entire ride, including power/cadence/heart rate. Fitbit  is the only one that requires workarounds, and then strips out everything except for start time, duration, and calories. It always surprises me when someone says Fitbit has an open ecosystem.

To avoid double tracking, you could wear Ionic on wrist and just not track cycling (disable auto-track for cycling, and don't manually record ride). That will get you something for heart rate, it might not be accurate but will be a lot better than what you have now. 

(not that it helps, but I have Garmin Connect sync to Endomondo, and then Endomondo creates a manual activity in Fitbit. Unfortunately the Strava sync results in Fitbit using broken calorie estimator. If I can't get HR then I'd like accurate calorie estimates so Endomondo is my sync solution.).

[PAL3]

Thanks for your reply.  I guess if I want to keep continuous HR information in my FB, I'm going to have to wear it, and just make sure it doesn't record it as an exercise.  That's really too bad that FB doesn't allow full data sync for these types of workouts.  I also find the swim app to be pretty inaccurate, and so may need to go back to my garmin watch for that as well.  

[bbarrera]

At some point after returning Fitbit Force under recall, I realized that step tracking isn't that important. I'm just using my iPhone as Fitbit step tracker these days. Even if Fitbit did allow for full sync, its still missing anything for tracking increases in fitness. And therefore I'd still be relying on Strong to track weight lifting, and TrainerRoad/TrainingPeaks to track increases in cycling fitness and getting for big events.