Ionic heart rate

[Cris11]

I have had a blaze for a long time. I do the same aerobic classes 5 times a week and although it showed my heart rate peaking quite high it is nothing compared to my ionic. I am not doing anything different but it is peaking very very high so much so it’s spoiling my classes as it’s worrying me

[Cris11]

Yes I put a bit of water on my wrist before class and I still got the high spike sorry

[shipo]

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@Cris11 wrote:

Yes I put a bit of water on my wrist before class and I still got the high spike sorry

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Yup, just tried that trick today and got the spike as well.  Oh well, as the wise old sage once said, "Trust but verify."

Hopefully Fitbit can fix this issue soon.

[SunsetRunner]

So you're saying this is "normal?" The first is the Ionic (yes, made by Fitbit), while the second is the Surge (same company). Same run, a week apart. I never had to do anything to get my Surge to give a reasonable heart rate track. But both times I've used the Ionic, the heart rate track during first 1/2 mile is useless.

  

Will rolling back to production (aka getting rid of developer's) version fix this? Or is it just a wait and see game with Fitbit to acknowledge the issue and (hopefully) fix it?

[shipo]

@SunsetRunner, That depends upon what you call "normal".  Is it seemingly normal for the Ionic?  Yes, lots and lots of reports of that issue, I see it on probably three or four out of five runs.  Given most folks don't have the developer version I suspect rolling back will not  help.  From my perspective, the Fitbit folks need to fix this issue with a new release of firmware.

[SunsetRunner]

@shipo Got it. Thanks. Still have time to send it back, i guess.

[shipo]

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@SunsetRunner wrote:

@shipo Got it. Thanks. Still have time to send it back, i guess.

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I'm keeping mine, with the exception of that one glitch (which I expect they'll be able to fix via a firmware patch), I really like my Ionic.

[ghostzr]

It sucks this is not accurate . Is it hardware or software . Coz if it is hardware we better just return it since it’s not gonna work out on the long run and if all of us claim it is false design then they will have to do something . I feel Fitbit is trying to hard to compete  with apple and end up not doing the basic things properly. 

[edit001]

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@ghostzr wrote:

It sucks this is not accurate . Is it hardware or software .

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You will never get an answer for that question... and it's not just about Fitbit, it's about the industry as a whole.

To give you an example that you can easily check for yourself if you want to get into details: Garmin Fenix 3 GPS accuracy. It had major GPS tracking issues when it was launched, everyone was debating if it is software or hardware, they posted countless bad tracks, the thread was huge, at one point Garmin decided to delete the thread but it popped up again because people were very upset and the watch tracking was still very bad for a 600$ watch... everyone was hoping that an software patch can save it... there were patches of course, lots... but in the end, after 2+ years when the patches and the support kinda stopped everyone realized it  hardware (bad GPS antenna design). The funny thing is that in spite of it's flaws the watch sold very well... so well that it brought Fenix 3 HR on the market, almost identical design, same flawed GPS antenna... they only added an optical HR sensor that has it's fair share of problems but that's another story for another time.

Now, if you ask me the Ionic has a lot better at GPS tracking compared to Fenix 3 out of the box so I will say that with a few tweaks it has the potential to be good or quite very good in the end... thing is it's a new product and it needs time to mature... of course I could also be very wrong and find out after 2 years that the tracking we get right now it's the best that it can do.

[Venkats]

I assume both software and hardware failed. To do this day no one in support has acknowledged the issue. It is all wild theories and multiple contradicting statements floating around this forum. I returned mine because I absolutely positively think  that the issue cannot be corrected by software changes. That is just what I think. Others can disagree with my assessment but they didn't pay for my ionic and I did.

[edit001]

I put the wat

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@Venkats wrote:

I assume both software and hardware failed. To do this day no one in support has acknowledged the issue. It is all wild theories and multiple contradicting statements floating around this forum. I returned mine because I absolutely positively think  that the issue cannot be corrected by software changes. That is just what I think. Others can disagree with my assessment but they didn't pay for my ionic and I did.

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Just to be clear from the start : I am not saying that the watch is perfect or that it runs flawless but in my case I did not had any GPS issues so far, while walking and biking and I did it on heavy clouds day, walked on areas with lots of trees and heavy foliage above my head and it did good (not very good, fantastic or spectacular)... like I would expect from a watch in 2017... except Garmins that love to use the same strange inefficient antenna design in 2017 but that's another story for another time.

In the end I think you did the best thing possible given your feelings about it (returning the watch). These days, no matter the sport fitness brand name all new watch releases come with lots of shortcomings, bugs, missing features, instability, quirks so when you about to buy a fresh new model you need to be aware that it takes time and lots of updates till it becomes what it should be in the first place a full featured, stable, bug free product.

No matter what brand and model your future watch will be, make sure that's on sale for at least 8-10 months so the software guys had enough time to iron out the bugs/issues.

Good luck !

[ghostzr]

GPS is somewhat accurate. Heart rate is still spiking high. I think if this is still ridiculous I will need a strapper to test my fitness from time to time. Can't really figure out where to 'position' the watch to get 'accurate' hear rate reading.

[stemplar]

I do not know, but I use the Galaxy Wear S for a tenth of the same values.During sports and in rest. Fenix 3 and Vivoactive Hr also measured similar values. Like the Ionic.

[edit001]

try to get past 130 bpm and see if the measurements are still in the same ballpark among the devices you use... In my case (with my skin color, my watch positioning 4 fingers from the wrist bone) the Ionic displayed 140-145bpm and the Fenix 3 HR was in the 167-170 zone... and my heart was definitely in the 170bpm zone. I've waited a few minutes (took the lag into consideration) and the Ionic never got to 170bpm... I hope it gets better with time...

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@stemplar wrote:

I do not know, but I use the Galaxy Wear S for a tenth of the same values.During sports and in rest. Fenix 3 and Vivoactive Hr also measured similar values. Like the Ionic.

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[mrsethtaylor]

I have the same issue, two different Surges over the last 3 year, same workouts, about 20-30 bpm higher. Strangest thing ever. Non workout heart rate is accurate, everything else is exactly as expected. I tried experimenting with different tensions on the band etc, holds consistent regardless.

[JGobeil]

I put the Ionic just above the wrist bone and 1 hole tighter than normal when doing exercise and it seems to work well for me.  I don't need the water trick. On an Elleptical machine, the Ionic shows HR values that are never more than 1 hb from what is shown on the machine, mostly right on or 1 hb more.

For all day use, I wear it so that there is room for 1 finger between my arm and the band.  1 hole tighter when exercising.

Worn that way, HR measures seem to be correct when swimming.  I have no way to check the accuracy but the graph corresponds well to my swim workout and to how I feel during the workout.  Of course, I don't use the Swim exercise - it works well with Workout.

[Annemichelle]

My ionic is the same, heart rate spikes at the start of my run then begins to match my strap reading (albeit with a little slower response).

my max heart rate reading in the exercise log is always higher than in the heart rate log - approx 15 bpm difference 😞 

I've asked Fitbit to look into this.

[FIS2014]

Hi, just had the same experience with the Ionic,  heart rate went up to 208 then recovered to 88, also have been rowing today and spiked at 176 after 30 secs, was a warm-up, worried me as i didn't feel out of breath etc, 

[Blackperl]

My ionic hear rate is very accurate for me I never seen high spike when looking into all heart beat history even running on the treadmill my heart rate peak is 174 which is the same as treadmill machine, so I can say my ionic heart rate always spot on with treadmill machine.

My Ionic firmware is  27.31.1.16 (Thailand), this is the 3rd day I've used ionic. So I'm curious that the problem you all faced is about software or hardware version