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Inflated heart rate reading

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PLEASE READ BEFORE RESPONDING. Don't just react to the photos. I wore the Charge 2 by itself and the Ionic by itself before doing this test. It was their crazy differences that inclined me to then put them on at the same time -- and the crazy difference remained. Further experiments revealed the true source of the problem, as I explain in my updates below.

 

I've been wearing my Ionic for a few days. The heart rates I see are not similar to those I saw on the Charge 2. I can be standing in place typing at the computer, look at my watch, and see a heart rate of 130.

 

I decided to put some juice in my Charge 2 and go for a walk with both. I took 14 photos of the watches over the course of a hilly mile. The heart rates were only once the same. They often differed by 10, with the Ionic higher. And sometimes the differences were crazy. (See images below.)

 

I tried making the Ionic extra snug half-way through the walk, but the readings remained crazy. For example, I could be at 100 on the Charge 2 and 120 on the Ionic upon cresting a hill, and then hit 90 on the Charge 2 and 150 on the Ionic upon subsequently reaching the bottom of the hill.

 

Is something broken, or am I doing something wrong?

 

UPDATE #1: After more testing with a second Ionic and the present Ionic worn higher on the wrist, I found that the Ionic and the Charge 2 more closely agree on the HR when the Ionic is worn at a distance from the wrist bone. Fitbit recommends that it be worn at least two fingers above this point. Because Fitbit also recommends that the Ionic be worn loosely, Fitbit's own recommendations imply that the device will not give a reliable HR while walking with the hands swinging down at the side. Even so, the Ionic usually reports higher numbers than the Charge 2 when worn higher on the wrist. Finally, at least one person is happy with their HR numbers when the Ionic is worn low on the wrist.

 

People have also replied to this thread with their own experiences getting unusually high HR readings on the Ionic. I don't mean to summarize their findings here.

 

UPDATE #2: Apparently it is known that the devices can interfere with each other when worn on the same wrist. Mind you, I wore one device and got crazy numbers and multiple devices and got reasonable numbers on all by the bottom watch. The purpose of the test was to find out if the watches were broken. What the test told me is that the watches were not broken, but are more accurate higher on the wrist. The test told me that despite any interference there might have been. (Besides, I'm unable to peform the test on both wrists, because one hand must hold the camera.)

 

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Moderator edit: edited title for clarity

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I have an update. I took my hilly 1 mile walk with a Charge 2 and two Ionics. I placed yesterday's Ionic higher on the wrist.

 

I owe people an apology. I have been wearing the Ionic in the wrong location all this time. It must be high up on the wrist in order for it to get accurate readings. In order to comply with Fitbit's requiring to wear it loosely, this means that you have to walk with the hands held up, not swinging at the sides.

 

The following walk shows the result from letting the hands swing at the sides. The Charge 2 and yesterday's Ionic are higher up on the wrist and closer in HR. The new Ionic at the lower wrist kept loosing the HR and regaining it. However, I never saw crazy numbers like I did yesterday (150 after walking down a hill, increased from 140 before walking down -- both of which were wrong).

 

Even so, the Charge 2 and Ionic that were higher on the arm (and snug to remain there while walking), sometimes differed greatly (e.g. 82 on the Charge 2 vs 103 on the Ionic).

 

In conclusion, I'm doubtful that any of these devices gives us a reliable number, but the number is more reliable higher on the wrist. Apparently different watches (of the same model) vary in their reliability lower on the wrist.

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108 REPLIES 108

Hi @jtlapp,

 

Sorry to hear that. I'm confused by your photos showing the Charge 2 and Ionic side-by-side. The confusion is that the dates on the trackers are almost a month apart, so it looks like apples-to-oranges comparison because they couldn't have been from the same exercise.

 

Do you have any photos that show the differing heart rates on both at the same time? That would really help.

Work out...eat... sleep...repeat!
Dave | California

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The Charge 2 was dead a few hours ago. I charged it but didn't set the date and time.

As I said, I walked a mile on hilly terrain with both simultaneously and took pictures.

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@WavyDavey I think it's because the OP hasn't used his Charge 2 for a month and hasn't synced. 

My immediate concern is that the OP is wearing the Ionic so low on his wrist. 

The higher you wear you device on your wrist/arm, the more accurate the HR reading is going to be. This has been discussed numerous times.

I would also suggest updating to the latest firmware for the Ionic. 

 

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People, the entire reason I charged the Charge 2 and took it for a walk is because the Ionic was giving me crazy readings. I wanted to compare them.

 

I wore the Charge 2 for two months walking this path daily. The numbers that the Charge 2 gave me today are the same as those it gave me every day for two months.

 

Please get past the date business. The heart rates differ, and one of them is crazy. 

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According to the Fitbit documentation (and the Uber testing site DCRainmaker: https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2017/09/fitbit-ionic-smartwatch-in-depth-review.html#heart-rate-accuracy) wrist positioning is key to getting accurate heart rate measurements. Wearing two devices they cannot both be in the proper position.  And in your pictures the Ionic seems to be the loser position-wise, sitting almost directly on your wrist bone.

 

Personally I’ve been getting similar results with my Ionic as my Charge 2, although in just a few runs my HR has been somewhat higher with the Ionic. But as DCRainmaker points out, individual results can vary a lot due to a variety of factors.

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I did a test workout: 300 calorie row on a concept ii. I wore the Ionic on my left wrist and a Garmin VivoActive 2 (with chest strap attached) on my right. The Ionic had a tiny amount of latency but matched the Garmin beat for beat and calories too. When the Ionic had a wobble I pushed it up my wrist as I had sweated a little. I was very impressed.

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Thanks for the responses. I'm concluding that the Ionic is broken.

Most people are responding to what they see in the images and to nothing else. As I said, the Ionic reports the same crazy stuff even when strapped tight to my wrist with no other watch on.

I'll get in touch with customer support.

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you can't have them on the same wrist for a test (put one on each wrist), also the ionic is going to measure high heart rates more accurately than the charge 2 because it's an improved sensor. you could still have a dud or the new sensor might not work on your particular skin tone, but don't consider the charge 2 a benchmark, it's good at resting rate heart rate but is not as good, for most people, at exercise level heart rate, especially intense exercise. 

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So initially I thought my heart rate spikes seen on my Ionic heart rate logs were anomalous, but now I've heard of numerous folks showing unusually high heart rates shortly after starting a walk or a run.  Looking back at my run log, since last Thursday I've gone for six runs of which four of them showed a heart rate spike during the early stages of the run.

 

Does the Ionic have an issue transitioning from a low heart rate to a high exercise induced heart rate?

 

FWIW, I did see a few heart rate spikes when I was wearing my Surge, however, that was from maybe three or four runs sprinkled in amongst many hundreds of runs.

 

05-Oct-2017:

HR-Spike-20171005.png

06-Oct-2017:

HR-Spike-20171006.png

09-Oct-2017:

HR-Spike-20171009.png

10-Oct-2017:

HR-Spike-20171010.png

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@shipo wrote:

 

Does the Ionic have an issue transitioning from a low heart rate to a high exercise induced heart rate?

 


@shipo The simple answer: they shipped Ionic before the software was ready.

 

Of course I'm assuming this will get fixed in a software update. It sure looks like a software issue as steady state exercise is generally fine from the more detailed reviews I've read.

Aria, Fitbit MobileTrack on iOS. Previous: Flex, Force, Surge, Blaze

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@bbarrera wrote:

@shipo wrote:

 

Does the Ionic have an issue transitioning from a low heart rate to a high exercise induced heart rate?

 


@shipo The simple answer: they shipped Ionic before the software was ready.

 

Of course I'm assuming this will get fixed in a software update. It sure looks like a software issue as steady state exercise is generally fine from the more detailed reviews I've read.


Well, if they stand by the readings, then I might need to make a cardiologist appointment.

 

Funny thing, I'm old(ish) and it takes me a mile or two to loosen up and get rolling, I mean really, I'm one of those runners who comes out of the gate at a ten to eleven minute per mile pace (when the Ionic shows my heart rate as high as 210 BPM), but then as I speed up into the low nine to mid eight minute pace range, my heart rate drops down into the 130-150 BPM range.

 

 

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@shipo it almost looks like Ionic is locking onto your running pace - 210 is way to high for me, but I'm not a runner like you. The graph with initial 170bpm looks like my running pace.

 

Eventually it locks onto your HR.

Aria, Fitbit MobileTrack on iOS. Previous: Flex, Force, Surge, Blaze

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I've been in touch with customer support. They had not heard of problems with the Ionic HR before. I happen to have access to a second Ionic and am now seeing if it gives me the same problem. I'll do the same experiment again this evening, but with the second Ionic.

 

Initial indications are that the firs Ionic was broken. A few hours of wear of the second Ionic are giving me reasonable readings.

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Here's my heart chart from a short leisurely walk yesterday.

 

screenshot.68.jpg

 

Previously with the Charge 2, I would get a spike right at the beginning, sometimes into the peak zone. But it's so brief it doesn't register as even a single minute, not the three straight minutes shown above.

 

I have some interval training later in the week, and look forward to seeing how the Ionic handles the switching between heart rate zones with that.

 

Work out...eat... sleep...repeat!
Dave | California

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@bbarrera wrote:

@shipo it almost looks like Ionic is locking onto your running pace - 210 is way to high for me, but I'm not a runner like you. The graph with initial 170bpm looks like my running pace.

 

Eventually it locks onto your HR.


Yeah, given I'm 60 years old, I'm thinking if I was actually beating along at 210 my heart would probably explode (figuratively speaking); even 170 is something I typically only see during a race when I'm working a nasty hill or letting it all hang out during the last mile or two sprint to the finish.

 

Thinking back, my first leg of the 2015 Reach the Beach relay included a 1-mile jaunt up a frigging black-diamond ski slope; we climbed 1,000' feet in that mile and it darned near killed the lot of us.  🙂  I just pulled up the "Activity" for that leg and see during the climb my heart peaked (per my Surge) at 183; I'm betting that is pretty much my max these days.  🙂

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@shipo ok, I'll bite. How did you pull up the Activity for 2015 event? I'm pretty handy around computers but for some reason on Fitbit app and web dashboard I've only been able to scroll and scroll and scroll until eventually I get to the activity. I'm five years younger, been training for two years and hit 170-174bpm maybe once a month - on an all out sprint during Wed night group ride.

 

Whats your average running pace? Optical HRM on the wrist are famous for occasionally locking onto running pace instead of HR. Its not uncommon for elite runners to have a cadence of 180-210 steps per minute.

Aria, Fitbit MobileTrack on iOS. Previous: Flex, Force, Surge, Blaze

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@bbarrera wrote:

@shipo ok, I'll bite. How did you pull up the Activity for 2015 event? I'm pretty handy around computers but for some reason on Fitbit app and web dashboard I've only been able to scroll and scroll and scroll until eventually I get to the activity. I'm five years younger, been training for two years and hit 170-174bpm maybe once a month - on an all out sprint during Wed night group ride.

 

Whats your average running pace? Optical HRM on the wrist are famous for occasionally locking onto running pace instead of HR. Its not uncommon for elite runners to have a cadence of 180-210 steps per minute.


Let's see if I can answer all your questions:

  • I went to the Fitbit.com Dashboard, clicked the back arrow next to "Today" one time, and then changed the URL line to: https://www.fitbit.com/2015/09/18; the "Recent Exercise" tile shows the three most recent activities going backwards from that date.
  • Yeah, I don't see 170+ more than once or twice per month, usually during a race; my favorite 10-mile run has nearly a thousand feet of climbing, half way through the sixth mile there is a hill which, per MapMyRun, is a 12% grade for maybe 100 yards followed by a grade of more like 8% for another quarter mile.  Given that is my last nasty climb of the run, if I'm feeling frisky I'll gun it up the hill and can easily get my pulse up in the 170 BPM zone.
  • My average running pace kind of varies based upon what I'm doing; my most recent race was 11 miles (yeah, I know, an odd distance), I finished it in 1:22 which is just about a 7:30 pace.  As for training, yikes, that's all over the map; on a cool day I might run 8:20 for my 10-mile loop, on a hot and humid day, it might be a bit over 10:00 per mile.
  • Funny thing, I've never had my HRM lock on to my cadence; for a different thread I went back and looked up my cadence for various runs and races; I think my slowest cadence logged was 157 on a very hot humid day on a hilly course, my fastest cadence was during a flat out 1-mile sprint where I hit 174.
  • Regarding what elite runners do cadence wise, while 180-210 is accurate, that covers the spectrum from marathoners to sprinters; I don't think I've ever heard of an elite marathoner with a cadence of over 185 or so, while sprinters easily get up in the low 200s.
  • Circling back to that nasty hill climb where I hit 183 BPM, I just calculated my overall cadence (up and friggin' down), would you believe my average cadence was 142?  Geez I hated that leg, it was my first of three for the relay and it absolutely wrecked me for the next two (I held my own but I felt like a moldy sack of poo, without the sack).
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@shipo wrote:
  • I went to the Fitbit.com Dashboard, clicked the back arrow next to "Today" one time, and then changed the URL line to: https://www.fitbit.com/2015/09/18; the "Recent Exercise" tile shows the three most recent activities going backwards from that date.
  • Yeah, I don't see 170+ more than once or twice per month, usually during a race; my favorite 10-mile run has nearly a thousand feet of climbing, half way through the sixth mile there is a hill which, per MapMyRun, is a 12% grade for maybe 100 yards followed by a grade of more like 8% for another quarter mile.  Given that is my last nasty climb of the run, if I'm feeling frisky I'll gun it up the hill and can easily get my pulse up in the 170 BPM zone.

Thanks for the url hack, still a bit frustrating as it requires knowing the date. But much better than scrolling forever thru a short list of activities.

 

Last weekend I did a 2 mile climb up 8% grade with a couple steep 0.1 mile pitches at 12%. I'm too heavy to be a climber, so I kick back to my one hour power level and HR settles into upper 140s. Getting ready for a big 100 mile ride in a month, the signature climb is 3100' over 9.3 miles at average grade of 6% with a bunch of short 15% kickers. At my current weight and pedestrian power its about 90 minutes of climbing, and in the middle of the signature climb includes a steeper 9% section at 5km / 3.1 miles. Views should be fantastic. http://trainright.com/granfondo/figmtn/#

 

Hope the next firmware update resolves the HR issue for everyone.

Aria, Fitbit MobileTrack on iOS. Previous: Flex, Force, Surge, Blaze

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@bbarrera, good luck on the climb; hope you've got some good gears.  🙂

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