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

[SunsetRunner]

No it’s not suitable for sporting, it’ll guess your heart rate rather than measure it. It’s not just slightly out either! I’ve nanaged to get a full refund now due to it being miss-advertised and misssold.... 

[mrsethtaylor]

Alternativly, some way of having an advanced setting where one can turn down the calorie burn a bit would be good.  I use my calorie burn to manage my food intake and logging an extra couple hundred calories of food to adjust the number is terrible way to do things.  

Typical tempo run for me should be 13 maybe 14 calories per minute.  This was very close with my other fitbits but the ionic shows 15 and even 16. An hour run can be 100 or more calories off. Over time this makes a huge difference. 

[Denodan]

Bull**ahem**. Dont know what you guys are doing, but I find hr is not that bad. I have no jssues.

The only time your hr is out and that includes any optical hr is if your taking it to the limit with your activites.

You guys must have a bad batch and at times wear  both samsung gear sport and ionic together and dobt find the ionic wildly out and in acceptable range.

The only thing i notice is the hr graph is not smooth like my samsung gear sport, but compairing both the ionic is not to bad and seems only confined to you guys here.

[0hwell]

I started wearing my Ionic on the inside of my wrist and have found HR to be much more accurate that way. 

[hysend]

I had just about booked into see my doctor in order see a cardio specialist as my pulse was showing 190s when I start jogging. I thought I must have a heart condition. Today I decided to use my old Fitbit Surge and turn off the Ionic, I get the pulse rate I am expecting. I will try Ionic with a tighter fit on the strap and see if that is a problem.

[MattJ71]

We shouldn't have to worry about adjusting the strap, wearing it higher or lower, worrying about water and sweat.  Some people are even saying that if you want to "push it to the limit", the Ionic is not for you!

Fitbit made its business as a sports tracker!  This is what they are for... from regular people that want to stay fit, all the way to athletes!

I have no issue with the HR being off a little bit, higher or lower, but a consistently higher heart rate causes a higher calorie burn....  which can cause people to eat more than they should, which will have the opposite effect.... people will get fat!

What's the point in logging calories and comparing it to the calorie burn if the calorie burn is inaccurate?  I have been in a 500/day calorie deficit for weeks... and I gained 11 lbs!  When I had my Blaze, it would result in a steady weight loss... like clockwork.

I went from 184 lbs and 8% bodyfat to 195 lbs and 12% in a few weeks...  So much for trusting the calorie burn.  It all has to do with the inaccurate heart rate.

[Piskins]

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[SunsetRunner]

I found a suitable fix

reboot before running corrects the accuracy issue I had. It’s on par with chest straps as long as I reboot the watch.

gl

[Denodan]

You guys are a joke. None of these watched can ever provide accurate calorie count as there are just to many veriables and weight is the biggest factor that is always different throught the day. You guys are dreaming if you think any watch is accurate. Also fitbit had never made a watch for serious althletes which is why serious runners go for somethinh like the Garmin fenix or something in this line and never fitbit as it does not have enough data for the seroius althlete like garmin has.

Fitbit is only made for the average person who is active but not serious.

But to ever think a watch can do accurate calorie count your dreaming.

Its only a rough guide.

[shipo]

@Denodan, nice attitude.

The fact is, I am a serious runner, a very near elite age-grouper to be precise, and I use an Ionic.  Like it or don't, believe it or not.

[MattJ71]

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@Denodanwrote:

You guys are a joke. None of these watched can ever provide accurate calorie count as there are just to many veriables and weight is the biggest factor that is always different throught the day. You guys are dreaming if you think any watch is accurate. Also fitbit had never made a watch for serious althletes which is why serious runners go for somethinh like the Garmin fenix or something in this line and never fitbit as it does not have enough data for the seroius althlete like garmin has.

Fitbit is only made for the average person who is active but not serious.

But to ever think a watch can do accurate calorie count your dreaming.

Its only a rough guide.

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I'm not sure that your statement is entirely correct.  The Fitbit "algorithm" takes in various data points and estimates calorie burn.  For example, I use a Fitbit scale, so every morning my weight and BF is updated.  Fitbit knows my age, weight, height, gender, heart rate, activity level, sleep, etc.  If anyone can estimate an accurate calorie count, it should be Fitbit.

The fact the I think the heart rate is inaccurate is the biggest flaw in the algorithm.  If they can fix that, it will be a much better estimate.

[Denodan]

Then you bought the wrong watch as most serious runner go for garmin as they make their watches for the serious runner. Not fitbit.

[Plodder24]

I want to like my Ionic as I like Fitbit as a brand and have been a customer of their 'ecosystem' for several years (scales and watches) but I'm disappointed with my Ionic.  It's a £300 watch and my expectations are high but I've had several issues with GPS acquisition/data and 'Emergency Room' heart rate readings.  Tonight, no GPS acquisition whatsoever despite a reboot and me standing around for over 5 mins, then when I give up and go for a run anyway a heart rate is recorded, in places, so high that I feel encouraged to make my last will and testament.  My old Surge was unattractive and relatively simple but it did the important things well, with reliable GPS data and heart rate readings.  I have an old Garmin Forerunner in a drawer somewhere so I may have to dig it out because my £300 smartwatch isn't, apparently, so smart... 

[fitblit]

My ionic regularly spikes to over 200 bpm readings when I'm lifting. I measure my pulse manually and count around 100 - 110 bpm. The ionic is way off!

I'd like to see a response from fitbit. Is there an issue here, or are we all just wearing our watches wrong...

[67fit]

This is a great example of a fitbit Ioniq problem that occurs with arm/wrist movement...even brisk walking with arms swinging. Wearing it on the inside of the wrist does help, but not foolproof. Also clean the optical sensor regularly. The watch is glitchy...live with it or get something else. I hope Fitbit works on this...the last firmware update did not cure this and might have made the issue worse.

[Fitworks11]

we seem to be experiencing a similar problem.  What's the resolution?

[Kierownik]

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.

[Denodan]

Get either the apple watch or Sansung gear 3/ sport. Much better

[Kierownik]

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@Denodanwrote:

Get either the apple watch or Sansung gear 3/ sport. Much better

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Yeah, I had gear 3 and when it comes to heart rate accuracy while running it's as bad if not worse than Ionic. One of the reasons why I changed to fitbit, but more and more often regretting that decision anyway.

[Denodan]

Been shown on you tube by some the apple watch and samsung gear are among the more accurate hr sensors. And both compared to cgesr straps and evrn more accurate mesuments to show are pretty good. Even shown in running works well.

If you push any of these watches they all pretty much become inaccurate at the optical sensor cannot keep up.

The best way to measure how well they do is the old fashion method. Taking paulse for 15 secs then times it by 4.

Find my gear with 3 beats per minute of the old fashion method. Even tried this with moderate cycling and with 4 bmp doing it the old fashion way.