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

[Kierownik]

Yeah youtube videos right. 

Real life tests verified it all for me.

The problem that gear has is that it's quite heavy (I had s3 frontier) and when you're running it bounces a bit, even if you're wearing it really tight, and it's recognising some of those bounces as heart beats. With gear s3 I had some of the highest heart rates while running ever. 

Also its inability to check your heart rate unless you're absolutely still proves it's bad accuracy. All day heart rate monitoring on gear only works when you're not moving, you start walking or even breathing and it goes **ahem** up. 

So no, gear s3 doesn't have accurate heart rate monitor. But at least it's a massively better smart watch and I miss the thing.

[Denodan]

With the sport when excising now takes hr monitoring all the time now and can evrn set it to take hr readings consitantly.

My verified  readings shows it does a great job with the old fashion tried tested and proven accurate readings.

Cannot beat the old fashion method for accuratcy.

[MattJ71]

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@Kierownikwrote:

This shows exactly how bad Ionic's heart rate monitor is.

I took it for a Interval Workout along with a TT Running Cardio watch a couple of weeks ago just to see how Ionic performs in comparison to a proper running watch.

Firstly the avg pace Ionic- 5:37/KM, TT-5.09/KM. That is quite a big difference.

Distance Ionic-6.37km, TT-6.81km. Again, massive difference.

Elevation gain is a mess on ionic. 

But the biggest mess is the Heart Rate. It's just horrible. Look at the graphs from both devices.

First the Ionic where my heart rate seems to be all over the place. Second the TT where you can see my heart rate (grey line) pretty much matches each interval.

So this only shows how bad and inaccurate Ionic's heart rate monitor is. This result's in false burnt calories count too.

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Well, this pretty much settles it then.  Since heart rate is the absolute foundation of calorie burn, everything else collapses.  I can absolutely attest to the fact that I can be in a 1000 calories "daily deficit" and not lose weight.

[Nettuno]

It is "my opinion" that Fitbit is not suitable for fitness and can not be compared to professional sports systems like Garmin, Polar, Suunto etc ... so let's surrender to the fact that it is objectively limited to inaccurate sensors ... l 'the only intelligent consideration that could be made on this Ionic, would be to make it compatible with cardio bands but attention, always for its limits, will never be reliable for the calculation of calorie consumption.
So let's keep this beautiful watch with all its synchronization and heart rate problems, hoping that at least they will make it compatible.

[YFG]

Throw in the fact that the summary data after a workout does not match the data shown when you save the workout. My big question is what does it say about the QC process if a company that lets a device and software this erratic get to the marketplace.

[Nightfallstill]

The first thing I noticed about the Ionic was the inaccurate HR, but I was willing to give it a bit of time to see if there was a bug fix. What has caused me to send it back for a refund is the glaring dishonesty of fitbit in altering the data in the app. I'm 52 and I pay attention to my HR when I run. I was getting readings of 190-205 while running, but those numbers are changed to 158-166 in the app. There is no way for fitbit to know how far off the numbers are with anything like accuracy, and they've lost a customer with this nonsense.

[jmarks2]

I gave the same problem too. Sometimes it says my heart rate is 122 when I check two other sources, my heart rate is 67? Other times I get no reading at all. The heart rate monitor is the main reason I purchased the ionic!

[jmarks2]

Furthermore, I had a Fitbit Charge 2 before the Ionic. On a trail that I know is 4.2 miles, the charge 2 tracked it at 4.1, not too bad but the Ionic tracks it at 3.75. This inaccuracy is unacceptable and completely changes your distance readings over time. What do The makes of Fitbit have to say?

[imeson79]

I Totally agree... did a 7.33 km run today. and both my Garmin Fenix 5x and Apple Watch Series 2 registered my heart rate at 166 bpm after a high intensity run. However the Ionic was recording the heart rate at 112bpm. 

This is a big difference of 50.. this is HIGHLY Unacceptable. 

Why can't we have external heart rate chest strap compatibility? If you have something that isn't doing something correctly, then you have something seriously wrong

[imeson79]

im thinking cause fitbit has only one little green LED light it might have trouble reading it. whilst others all have 2 or more

[Withecr]

Yes. It’s very inaccurate when running or walking. Kind of defeats the purpose of using device for tracking calories and heart rate. I’ve tried every tip. Wear it loose, wear it tight, above the wrist bone. It doesn’t matter. It’s alway high by  20 -30 bpm. It registers higher bpm than I am capable of achieving as a 63 yo man. 

[Nightfallstill]

Get the Vivoactive 3. It's not as pretty, the app is clunky, but the data is accurate. Good luck!

[Jonxbii]

Attached is a screenshot of my very common problem. In the screenshot you can see my heartrates of a quite easy and steady treadmill run for 30 minutes. At the start of training the heart rate goes crazy for the first minutes showing values like 150 bpm! In reality my heart rate was probably around 100 bpm. I have highlighted these crazy values in the screenshot.  After about five minutes, the hear rate seems to drop to correct level and stays correct for the rest of the training. 

I have seen this happening soooo many times at the start of the training. Fitbit please explain why it behaves like this when I start the training? I believe the 24/7 heartrate works a lot better without these crazy spikes in heartrate. I have been seeing this issue since November 2017, so please fix this already!!!

Crazy heartrates at the start of training

[jmarks2]

To add to what you are saying, when your activity is over and you look at your average heart rate for the activity, it is skewed by the erroneously high readings. Therefore you can’t rely on the data. Fitbit - I hope you are reading and listening.

[jmarks2]

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@Jonxbiiwrote:

Attached is a screenshot of my very common problem. In the screenshot you can see my heartrates of a quite easy and steady treadmill run for 30 minutes. At the start of training the heart rate goes crazy for the first minutes showing values like 150 bpm! In reality my heart rate was probably around 100 bpm. I have highlighted these crazy values in the screenshot.  After about five minutes, the hear rate seems to drop to correct level and stays correct for the rest of the training. 

I have seen this happening soooo many times at the start of the training. Fitbit please explain why it behaves like this when I start the training? I believe the 24/7 heartrate works a lot better without these crazy spikes in heartrate. I have been seeing this issue since November 2017, so please fix this already!!!

Crazy heartrates at the start of training

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To add to what you are saying, when your activity is over and you look at your average heart rate for the activity, it is skewed by the erroneously high readings. Therefore you can’t rely on the data. Fitbit - I hope you are reading and listening.

[Nettuno]

 Ahahah .. if Fitbit was interested in something of fitness would put the compatibility with cardio bands ... I do not think 1 poor LED (easily unstable) can be reliable .. this is a bit 'presumptuous! 
Just see the comments of the new update, they only care about the synchrony or the music or how beautiful it is ... no one who talks about cardiac statistics and caloric consumption as it happens in the blogs of more professional products

[Denodan]

Have you guys ever checked your hr by the accurate old fashion method of fingers on the pulse? And stop the guessing what your hr should be?

[SunsetRunner]

@Denodan yes, many times, unfortunately, Ionic was always way off. Ionic can't handle reading higher heart rates. It doesn't do badly when it comes to resting but during exercising, it has its problems and readings are totally useless. This way burnt calories are not just estimated but entirely guessed.

[Jonxbii]

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@Denodanwrote:

Have you guys ever checked your hr by the accurate old fashion method of fingers on the pulse? And stop the guessing what your hr should be?

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At the start of training when I am exercising at low intensity and not even heavily breathing, the heart rate shows 150 bpm?! No need to start measuring the heart rate old fashion way. I have been running and doing sports for a looong time and can estimate quite well what my heart rate is. 

And I can tell that the heart rate gets more accurate after about five minutes. I think it is just some kind of algorithm of the heart rate tracking which goes wrong at the start of the training. 

[mrsethtaylor]

Didn't bother, I know my heart rate isn't 230-240bpm (best I can ever push it to is 205 and I feel like dying when I've done that). When I get a reading from my fitbit saying 1/3 of my run was over 200 I know its incorrect.

My previous fitbits were much better, believable numbers, calorie burns that matched my weight and calorie tracking. I would just go back to the surge but I like having the starbucks card on my watch and a couple of other apps.