Ionic HR accuracy during exercise. Did I waste my money...

[Harlequin99]

Hi,

Bought the Ionic second hand, so I might have a faulty one, but I find the HR monitor to be pathetically inaccurate during exercise. I have tried four different positions on the arm during runs. I have tried varying firmness of  fit. I have tried water on the wrist. Nothing seems to make it work. Sometimes it is accurate, and sometimes it is not. If I reboot the watch before using it, it is accurate for a time. I have done a factory reset twice (which is painfully slow - especially when loading music back onto the device - very poor). None of this has worked for any length of time. Certainly, it does not work for an hour long run.

Running

I reboot the watch, it is fine for a while and then it starts producing false information. The best thing is to reboot the watch again. Then for the next 15 to 20 mins it appears to be accurate, but then it goes back into, what I have affectionately called "Fitbit  Mode", where it adds about 30 beats per minute on - sometimes 40 or 50. It will remain like this till either the running mode is finished or the watch is rebooted (Like an old windows 3.1 OS - very dodgy and unstable).

Note that the watch has not changed position on the arm, my run is on flat ground (no hills) just steady state jogging. It is like after twenty minutes the watch decides to go crazy - go into Fitbit Mode 🙂

At one point the watch was telling me I was at 180bpm. I turned off the running tracking mode, while still jogging, and the HR monitor dropped down to 135bpm - about accurate - in the normal (non-running) mode. When I turned on the running mode again, it progressively went up again to 160bpm... This was while keeping a steady state jog on the flat. So this appears to be a software issue with the watch. Rebooting to make the watch accurate obviously resets the operating system and software as well as hardware. Since it is accurate for a time, my assumption is that it is a software issue - any thoughts?

Today My run is broken into four "runs" on the app as I rebooted twice and ended the running program twice. There are obviously gaps in the "run" where the watch was rebooting, or finding a satellite fix or the run mode was turned off and then turned back on for a "new" run, all the while jogging. This makes the watch essentially useless for running: Inaccurate for tracking time, distance, heart rate, kcal...

Weight Training

This is where the HR monitor really goes nuts. I understand that movement of the wrist gives false figures, but what I have experienced is incompetent. My HR on other measuring devices (fitness machines, other HR watches etc... ) is typically about 80bpm with spikes during exercise. The Fitbit Ionic stays at 130bpm permanently (note that other HR watches I have owned did not do this - only the Ionic). This is 60% inaccurate on average. Sometimes it does dip down to be accurate, but this is typically an anomaly. At one point I had finished an exercise (lateral raises) and was sitting resting and the Ionic HR rose to 175bpm. Note that my arm was steady and still as I rested (heart rate dropping) - the watch just went into super Fitbit mode where it was 120% inaccurate. It was a bit embarrassing as I burst out laughing at how pathetic the information was and I got "looks" 🙂 That training session recorded a 400 kcal burn. This is absolutely false (would have been about 150 to 200 max)

Is this as good as Fitbit gets? I do not think the watch is faulty as it gives accurate readings while not exercising, generally, with only the occasional dodgy reading. I bought the watch to help me as I am training to do my first half marathon and so far it has been pretty unhelpful as it gives so much false information that nothing the watch tells me can be relied upon to be in any way accurate. I had a really cheap Chinese fitness watch and its HR was far more accurate... 

I read this post: https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Ionic/All-ionic-users-are-getting-20-to-40-bpm-higher-HR-readings-wh...

Is this correct?

I have read the Fitbit guides and all the forum posts and tried all of the advice on how to get accurate readings during exercise, to no avail. I feel that it is really just poor hardware design and/or poor software. Are there any other hints other than watch wrist placement, strap firmness, water on wrist to make the device useful?

At this point I am at my wits end with all of the trouble and frustration that owning a Fitbit has caused. I wonder if I had bought a Garmin, would I be having all of these problems. I cannot afford another fitness watch, and I am loath to offload the Fitbit onto some else (giving them all these issues). Do I just take to the Fitbit Ionic with a hammer and know that I have been taken for a ride, and manually calculate my running stats or use a phone?

[SunsetRunner]

In my case, it depends on the type of activity. During simple walking the HR registered by Ionic is higher ( sometimes 20-30bpm ) than registered by other devices ( PolarH10 (ECG), PolarOH1 (optical), Suunto Spartan, checked with the mobile phone or simply tested manually ). It changes with the intensity. More intense exercise shifts the difference and Ionic shows less or sometimes it doesn't show anything at all ( two dashes ). It doesn't bother me though as Ionic isn't my primary device anymore.

[SunsetRunner]

@Harlequin99  today I checked whether too high HR during the simple walk is still the case. I have compared optical PolarOH1 ( paired with Suunto watch, so ran out of devices to add Suunto to the comparison ), PolarH10 ( chest-strap, expected to be the most accurate ) and Ionic. Here are the results:

PolarH10, ECG, the most accurate:

PolarOH1, optical, like Ionic, worn on my bicep ( should be worn either on the forearm or bicep ).

Ionic ( optical )

Now, H10 + OH1, despite different technologies, they are pretty close. I should mention one thing. There are a spike and short hole in the H10 readings. It is caused by me - for a few seconds I turned it off to make sure that both devices are not reading from OH1 ( it's possible, so I had to make sure that I'm using both sensors ).

Now adding the Ionic on top:

Calories read by all three, all based on HR:

Suunto (OH1): 179kcal

PolarFlow (H10): 100kcal

Fitbit: 285kcal

I learnt by experience that Suunto overestimates the number of calories and I usually follow the PolarBeat/PolarFlow. In this case, calories burned estimated by Fitbit are nearly 3x of what PolarFlow indicated. Looking at graphs it's quite clear why. My HR registered by Ionic ( I made sure it was worn the proper way! ) is way too high!

Interestingly, during more intense exercise the situation is always reverted. Ionic shows lowest HR of all the sensors I use, hence the calories burnt are at low. But well, that I don't mind, better to show less than more. The problem is that I spend 30-60 minutes working out and sometimes several hours just walking. That's why I don't use Ionic for any serious tasks anymore. It's unlikely that two devices are wrong and Ionic is right ( and I know that during walking my HR barely reaches 80 unless I try hard like walking up the hill which is visible in the range of 33 to 41 😄 ).

Make whatever you want out of it 😉 I stopped fighting Fitbit about that but will continue to inform users using actual data ( from time to time 😉 ).

[Harlequin99]

I've decided just to ignore the heart rate monitor. It is obviously not very accurate, and hence the calorie burn is also inaccurate. This makes adding food etc... kind of pointless if your goal is weight loss, for me anyway on this watch. When absolutely still, it appears to be ok, but when doing any form of movement it is just very unreliable. 

Today's run was exactly the same:

Again, this was on flat ground, steady state jogging. You can see that after 15 mins it goes into a (Fitbit) mode where it gives false information...

[Harlequin99]

The walk this morning was just as poor as Heart Rate monitoring gets. Sat at 121 bpm average. This is about 30 to 40 too high. Should have been between 18 and 90, maybe a maximum of 100, my estimate, but the tracker only went that low a few times. It said that most of the work was Cardio, though in reality it was only ever fat burning...

Does anyone know if there is a way to adjust the heart rate monitor in real time to correct it, or perhaps in the app? Is there a way to correct all the false data (edit the calorie burn down to realistic levels)?

[Harlequin99]

Run this morning shows the Heart Rate monitor going crazy again.

The usual 10 to 15 mins ok, then goes into fitbit mode (nuts). Again average heart rate way out, calories burned way out. Does anyone know if there is a way to reset the HR monitor during a run (Exercise->run tracking). I think at my age, if my heart rate got to 190, I would be dead 🙂