Ionic Swimming

[Jimmacf]

I am having trouble getting my ionic to track my heart rate while swimming. So far 3 swims, only once has it tracked my heart rate.

Also counts laps correct but gets the distance out a little, it corrects this on the dashboard but not in thr iPhone App. 

I like fitbit products a lot so I am happy to work with the Ionic and figure the way to get the most out of it.

[SunsetRunner]

Are you wearing it tighter during your swim? The water can interfere with the heart rate LEDs.

[N8teGee]

The heart rate sensor is disabled during swimming activities. I believe it's to do with accuracy issues with the water interfering with the reading. 

[Jimmacf · Accepted solution]

I answered my own question on this.

If you start swim tracking automatically then it tracks your heart rate. Track manually and the heart rate sensor seems to be disabled.

[SunsetRunner]

Yeah, I can concur with this. Just been swimming for the first time with my Ionic. The LED's flash, but no Heart Rate is taken (on manual swim exercise initiation). 

I do wonder then how accurate the calorie burn is at the end when you review your exercise without using the HR to detect at LEAST an average BPM. 

[SunsetRunner]

I just checked. I am given the average heart rate but no graph. I started swimming by telling Ionic I was swimming.

Strange that "automatic" shows the graph, this is a bug I would assume.

So to start swimming automatically I swim for 15 mins and it magically picks it up  from when I started?

Thx.

[Jimmacf]

Hi

You just start swimming and the tracker does the rest, you can adjust the settings to make it track after 10 minutes swimming and gets your data from the start. I notice that it doesn't give a very accurate time, +1 minute, so I wear my cheapo waterproof stopwatch if I want a time to the nearest second. 

[Jimmacf]

I've found that the calorie number is totally different with and without the HR monitor. On automatic which tracks HR I'm getting ave hear rate of 149 and 442 calories, on manual stop/start the ave HR doesn't show up and I get 300 calories. Using automatic doesn't give an accurate time though. Hopefully Fitbit can fix the manual start stop softwear to allow HR tracking.

[mlindgren]

It seems really odd that if you let it automatically recognize swimming, then you get heart rate data, but if you manually start a swimming workout, you don't. It would be nice if Fitbit just allowed users to enable HRM for swimming, with a warning that the data may be less accurate.

[Rhonda222]

When I swim I am having two issues. The Gps does not come up on screen to connect. I have it turned on in settings. Also calorie count seems very low. Any help with the GPS would be great?

[SunsetRunner]

The calorie count being low is due to the heartrate tracking being turned off (please read other posts before asking this, already a solved problem). The GPS question you can forget, why would you need GPS tracking when you're swimming? Fitbit Ionic tracks swimming in a pool, it recognizes when you push off the wall. GPS when you're swimming seems kind of pointless when you're just going from one side to another

[KeelyG]

Not everyone swims in a pool. I ocean swim and would love the GPS to show my distance. One reason why I got the Iconic.

[SunsetRunner]

I get that, but exactly the swimming option that is on the ionic already is
specified to a pool. What you're looking for is an open water option
instead, not an addition to the swimming option that already exists (which
is targeted for pool swimming not open water!). And the lengths on that is
recorded with motion not gps

[CLWocean]

 I just used ionic swimming for the first time and it was very disappointing. It does not seem to measure heart rate while swimming. Have others had this problem? Did I do something wrong?

It also got my distance wrong despite knowing I was in a 25 yard pool. Does it measure distance by strokes? It seems that it didn't count laps done kicking or breaststroke.  I have not yet tried open water swimming with it.

I like the fancy graphics, but I bought it for heart rate and distance while swimming in open water. I'm afraid the product may be a bust. 

[CLWocean]

I bought for distance tracking while swimming in open water.  If it can't track distance in a pool I'm worried it won't track distance in open water.

[bbarrera]

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@CLWocean wrote:

I bought for distance tracking while swimming in open water.  If it can't track distance in a pool I'm worried it won't track distance in open water.

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@CLWocean the Ionic doesn't support open water swimming. No GPS or HR while tracking swimming. If you let SmartTrack auto-detect that you are swimming, you'll get HR but it isn't very accurate which is the reason its disabled in Swim exercise mode.

[KeelyG]

In exercise shorts cuts - Swim- there is a button to turn the GPS tracker on - 'to map you routes and show real time stats like pace and distance'. To me that indicates it should work for open water swimming. Why have it at all then? Very misleading when you purchase the product.

[Rhonda222]

Yes. It is misleading. Not sure why you can’t turn on GPS when swimming but you can for running, walking, etc.?
Fitbit needs to fix this issue.

[SunsetRunner]

I'm sorry but that's not an issue that can be fixed, because it's neither a
problem nor an issue. The gps is not what's tracking everything you do,
it's barely used. Except for when you want to see the route you where
walking or running. Why would you ever use that in a pool? To see that
you're going in straight lines over an over? Fitbit does not need to fix it
when it wasnt designed to do it. Maybe you should ask for an open water
solution instead

[Rhonda222]

Not always in the pool...would be nice to have in open water. I am done arguing with you. Good luck....