10-08-2017 06:45
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10-08-2017 06:45
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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.
Answered! Go to the Best Answer.

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10-10-2017 07:50
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10-10-2017 07:50
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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.
10-08-2017 08:44
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SunsetRunner
10-08-2017 08:44
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Are you wearing it tighter during your swim? The water can interfere with the heart rate LEDs.
10-08-2017 09:15
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10-08-2017 09:15
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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.
10-10-2017 07:50
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10-10-2017 07:50
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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.
10-10-2017 11:33
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SunsetRunner
10-10-2017 11:33
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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.

10-10-2017 13:27
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SunsetRunner
10-10-2017 13:27
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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.
10-10-2017 23:46
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10-10-2017 23:46
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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.
10-10-2017 23:50
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10-10-2017 23:50
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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.
10-17-2017 15:16
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10-17-2017 15:16
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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.
12-23-2017 11:05
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12-23-2017 11:05
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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?

01-02-2018 07:13 - edited 01-02-2018 07:14
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SunsetRunner
01-02-2018 07:13 - edited 01-02-2018 07:14
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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

01-02-2018 18:41
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01-02-2018 18:41
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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.
01-04-2018 10:56
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SunsetRunner
01-04-2018 10:56
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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
01-09-2018 12:30
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01-09-2018 12:30
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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.
01-09-2018 12:33
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01-09-2018 12:33
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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.
01-09-2018 14:58
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01-09-2018 14:58
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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.
@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.
Aria, Fitbit MobileTrack on iOS. Previous: Flex, Force, Surge, Blaze
01-15-2018 16:18 - edited 01-15-2018 16:19
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01-15-2018 16:18 - edited 01-15-2018 16:19
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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.
01-16-2018 05:42
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01-16-2018 05:42
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Fitbit needs to fix this issue.
01-16-2018 05:54
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SunsetRunner
01-16-2018 05:54
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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

01-16-2018 05:58
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01-16-2018 05:58
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