Ionic Heart Rate Problems

[BillSarasota]

I have been using the Ionic for 3-4 weeks now and have noticed inaccurate heart rate readings for the first 5-10 minutes of a run. It has both been way too high and quite low for workouts of consistent speed over time. I've hit 197bpm at 10:00 per mile and had it settle down to 135 after a few minutes, and this morning's 5k (7:05 per mile) started at 217bpm and leveled off between 170-175bpm. With the Blaze, my highest recorded heart rate was 196 and I never saw the spikes at the beginning of a run, and I used the Blaze for 18 months. Is it possible that this device is defective or that the software needs some tweaking? I track peak and average heart rates associated with my training and I was hoping for the same accuracy level from the Ionic. Any thoughts? Thank you.

[akenny34]

okay so if I am taking a hiit Bootcamp I have to stop in the middle of my workout for it to read my heart rate??? I did a boot camp and my fitbit said I burned 280 calories (which is extremely low) and my heart rate was a 95bpm?? When I called support they told me the same thing again reset it. I am now resetting my fitbit 4 times a day! Any suggestions I bought this to track calories but I find that its off by 200-300 a day!

[lqo]

I have found that the heart rates are extremely inaccurate which leads to
inaccurate calories burned. Today during spin, I did not put my Ionic in
an exercise mode.. My heart rate was like 85.. I put it in exercise mode to
pinning, and it went up immediately to like 146. I watched it go up.
Ridiculous. I"m very disappointed in Fitbit right now. I would recommend
a polar heart monitor for accurate heart rate and calories. I feel your
pain!

[NguyenKhuu]

My new Iconic has the same issue. It was working fine for about first 4 weeks, then HRM suddenly stopped. After resetting and reinstallation, the HRM started functioning again , but is running way out, extremely incorrect. HR inaccuracy causes many other problems like incorrect calories counts, no showing detailed sleep stage...

Very disappointed with this expensive fitbit Iconic.

@Fitbit, please find the root cause  and fix it asap. 

[lqo]

AGREE 100%

[asurber]

My problem is that everytime I walk up steeps hills my Ionic quits reading my HR, I can walk around all day and it's fine but once my HR rises to probably 145 or so I get the dreaded lines when no HR is detected, this only happens when I walk. At the gym it works pretty good at over 160. On my walk I even tried wearing my golf glove that does not allow me to bend my wrist and keeps the Ionic up higher on my arm, same thing. I have seen that this and similar problems have existed since the inception of the Ionic and other HR sensing watches,  a suggestion I would have is that when you exercise have the option of using a chest strap. when someone enters the exercise mode a question should be asked such as: Chest strap? If the user has a compatible chest strap he would push yes and it would disable the wrist sensor while in exercise mode. I would really like this data and if the technology isn't advanced enough to support full time wrist HR, why wouldn't Fitbit incorporate a "workaround" until the technology improves. I spent the money on this thinking that I could get an accurate measurement of my HR during all phases of exercise. This would be one of the best ways to track your progress as to what HR it requires to do a certain exercise over time.

Alan

[RoodRunner]

Your HR profile is exactly what I've been seeing since I switched from a Charge 2 to a Versa: the first mile of most runs show a HR spike to around 180, then eventually throttling back to the more familiar 120-130 bpm. This is with fairly steady effort, and not something my Charge 2 detected. Wrist location or irregular movements seem unlikely explanations, since these do not change noticeably over the course of an 8-10 mile run.

[RoodRunner]

Yup. Same kind of HR profile (initial spike for first 5-15 minutes) running with my Versa; with my Charge 2 the HR just rose steadily and then stayed near a familiar number for the rest of a run.