Ionic Heart Rate Accuracy

[Kat_W]

Has anyone else noticed that the Heart Rate sensor is very inaccurate?  Currently my Ionic is showing that my heart rate is in excess of 120, while at the same time my pulse ox machine (a medical device) is saying it's 82.  The Samsung health app is inline with what the pulse ox is saying.  I'm not sure if I have a defective Ionic or if others are having the same issue. ( Note: Sorry if there are any spelling errors, I am tryping around my cat, who has decided to sit directly in front of the screen)

Moderator edit: edited title for clarity

[JohnHolmes]

Ok. I’ll try that. Again, that’s really lame a $300 watch specifically designed with tracking heart rate has to be rebooted all the time! That’s like buying a Porsche and having to bang on the hood 4 times then kicking the wheel to get it to start.

Sent from my iPhone

[Cainan]

From what I understand, from all of my own personal research, a wrist sensor will never be as accurate as a chest strap monitor. I'd say that if you need absolute accuracy, stick with the chest strap for your workouts. Hopefully the technology will get better in the future. 

[JohnHolmes]

Yes, I understand that but a difference of almost 30 BPM is unacceptable! The Apple Watch does a great job with tracking HR and they aren’t even a fitness or watch company! Why can’t Fitbit who’s sole purpose is creating fitness watches get this part of the technology to work? $300 for a watch that isn’t smart and doesn’t even track HR remotely accurately. The tap-tap of the screen doesn’t even work well when it’s in sleep mode. What does this watch actually do well?

Sent from my iPhone

[Kermit75]

I agree. I have now worn my Ionic for 4 months and overall not as pleased as I was with the Charge 2. For the past few bike rides, my Ionic stated that my heart rate reached 205. Here's the problem with that: I'm 42 and I was able to hold a conversation the entire bike ride. Maybe 175 but 205 no way. The Ionic sleep reading seems to be way off as well. 

[Kermit75]

When I spend $300, I expected the devise to work as advertised. 

[erikkai]

Interesting. I hope Fitbit is paying attention to this board. Seems there could be a quality control issue with manufacturing.

Overall, I have nothing but accurate readings with my Ionic. Of course, I follow the Fitbit guidance on how to wear during exercise.

Good luck on getting a correction. Maybe contact support for warranty repair/replace.

Sent from my iPhone

[Denodan]

Mine does

[Mark2018]

A lot of claims. Yes, the heart rate is not accurate. I have had better ones on my Charge 2!

Did you all reported that problem to Fitbit-Support?

There are only answers that advice to restart.... no really solution!

Regards,

Mark

[Denodan]

Seems there are more people happy with them than not, so most must be performing pretty well. The only complaints are the minority. If it was so bad then fitbit would be bankrupt by now and everyone would be claiming refunds prompting fitbit to do something.

Since they are not then most maybe ok. My HR is pretty much in line with the old fashion method of taking pulse and timing it. Its within 3 bpm, even just after exercising.

[Windman]

@Denodan Sure, if you are but moving and take your time you get accurate readings with any plus watch. The Ionic however is sold as an exercise watch. Most people like you, probably do not use it for mapping of pulse zones or adjusting the intensity of their trading like I and manny other users do. Wrist meassurement of pulse is not accurate for such applications. In dynamic situations with large changes of load I expetc the Ionic to be accurate like manny other wrist pulse meters within 10 bpm, but it may be even 50 or 80 bpm of. That is to bad.It seems that it picks up cadence. The magnitude of the problem depends on how you wear the Ionic. But it is always there. F.ex. walking down a steep road in slow pace my real puls may stay the same or go down, whereas the Ionic may show an increase in plus of 20 bpm which is pure nonsense.


Sendt fra min Samsung Galaxy-smarttelefon.

[erikkai]

I don’t have that problem in Spin, Yoga, weight lifting, my elliptical training or walking. The Ionic is extremely accurate. Albeit, I must wear it correctly and ready it for the type of exercise.

Also try turning it off daily then restarting it. Every computer needs to restarted given the memory cache fills up.

I love my Ionic and found it to be as accurate as my heart rate monitor. Let me know if you need tips on how to wear it.

Sent from my iPhone

[fluxx]

My Charge 2 also was much more accurate than the Ionic. I also never saw that many complains in forums about the HR sensor of the Charge 2. My best guess is that they concentrated on the SPO2 sensors which take up so much space they couldn't implement 2 LEDs like on the Charge 2.

The Charge 2 had 2 LEDs and 1 sensor, the Ionic has 3 sensors but only one LED. The Ionic can't get as much light into the skin which leads to much more misreadings. This is totally in line with my observation that the Ionic is loosing the hr more often and then is starting to guess instead of really measuring. The Versa has the same setup but another layout, so it would be interesting to hear how the Versa is performing from someone who had problems with the Ionic.

[YFG]

Good points. I’m guessing Fitbit is now much more focused on the Versa than the Ionic. Those of us with first generation Ionics should be offered some sort of generous trade-in offer. Only if they get it fixed.

[Mark2018]

Hi,

did somebody check the sampling rate of the heart rate sensor for Ionic, Versa or Charge 2?

I can imagin that thus could be the big problem with not accurate heart rate.

I think it's clear what I mean.

Value divided with 100 is different as Value divided with 10000.

Especially when you run or rest. 😉

Is there a developer or programmer here? Maybe you have more details?

Or a Mod can provide details to clarify.

Thanks.

Regards,

Mark

[Nightfallstill]

If you look up Versa HR on the forum, you'll see that it isn't any better. Not buying one of those...

[SantiR]

Hello everyone! Thanks for your continuous participation on this thread regarding the heart rate accuracy.

If you haven't done so already, please update your Ionics to its latest OS version (version 2.1). It was just released. Please note that this is a progressive roll out so if you haven't received the update; should arrive this coming days. Check more details and instructions here. 

Please let me know if the accuracy improves with this update. Also, if you haven't already, check this heart rate accuracy article. Check the wrist placement recommendations there; it impacts on heart rate. You can also perform a restart on Ionic.

Keep me posted! 

[Rosyrosy]

Yess ... I finally solved ...
Sold for € 200 and bought a Polar
The next time I decide to buy a Fitbit, I prefer to draw a Watch on my wrist

[Mark2018]

---

@Rosyrosy wrote:

Yess ... I finally solved ...
Sold for € 200 and bought a Polar
The next time I decide to buy a Fitbit, I prefer to draw a Watch on my wrist

---

Which Polar? Same function as Ionic has?

[Nettuno]

@Rosyrosy wrote:

Yess ... I finally solved ...
Sold for € 200 and bought a Polar
The next time I decide to buy a Fitbit, I prefer to draw a Watch on my wrist

---

Well, anything is better than Fitbit! .. I also changed it with a Polar model A370 I find it light, complete and accurate.
Excellent reading with 2 LEDs with a rare error margin would say from 1 to 4 bpm caused by the delay of the pulse / blood pressure to the arm, but recognizes a cardio belt (or cardio gym equipment) for more accurate readings or extreme sports. Battery life 3 days, continuous synchronization, excellent message reception, sleep control and cardiac h24 / 7 ... Simple but functional.

[fluxx]

I finally went for a Vivoactive 3 after so much hassle with the Ionic. It is SUCH a much more pleasing user experience, I can write a book about it. Everything works out the box, and continues to work. Updates take minutes not hours. HR is much much better (3 leds and one sensor). GPS works. Battery life is the same but display is constantly on, which is very useful because you don't have to raise your hand to wake up the display. I was surprised that even the app is better (display of data is more useful), because before I heard that Garmin is lacking in this area. Music control works flawless. Notifications come in everytime. 

Only thing Fitbit already does better are apps, but I consider myself a tech geek and even I don't really want many apps on my wrist. What both are missing are mic and speaker. With continuous improvements on the digital assistant side, this will become an issue - I expect Google to release its own watches in autumn which will put a heavy emphasis on this. But Google Fit is still a joke, so if you're into fitness, the Garmin should last 1-2 years easily. 

Very sad to leave Fitbit universe, but they really lost me with the Ionic.