New update and heart rate

[FredFornicola]

Since my update yesterday my spinning workout is showing me in the 180's after only 5 minutes in to my workout. Manual check has me at 120-122. It then bounces between 155-172 then goes to flat line no read. I'm not moving my arm. I'm not changing my cadence or resistance. 

Now 15 minutes in to my session I'm registering 116-120 and manual has me at 138-140. 

I've had ionic for 6 months. Been taking manual pulse readings for over 35 years and been exercising for 45 years so I feel relatively confident something isn't right.

21 minutes in the HR seems to be pretty close now to manual reading. Nothing has changed positionally on my wrist nor arm movement.

At this point I see no benefit to wearing this during stationary work.

[FredFornicola]

A screenshot related to the above post from today's workout.

[FredFornicola]

Today I am using the spinning option again in the exercise section. HR reading is bounding up around 167 and then dropping off completely. Manual reading is around 130-132. After 15 minutes I switched to the biking option and my HR immediately dropped in to the high 140s. Manual reading still in the low 130s. There too HR was dropping off randomly and I never moved my arm... not even to change options. After 5 minutes I got out of the exercise and with the watch in it's normal mode it's reading my HR pretty darn close to my manual reading.

Why?????

[AddyRazz]

Funny enough, I just noticed this while exercising at about 10 minutes into quite hard running my heartbeat was still at 62, I would have to be Superman!!

[SunsetRunner]

This is normal. This is how HR reading works. Optical HR can get inaccurate due to various reasons and in case of Ionic it can be really annoying. There is no solution to that. No update will fix HR reading problems. The only fix is to allow to pair external HR monitors like competitors do but Fitbit won't do that. HR readings in my Suunto can get also erratic ( wearing Ionic and Suunto side by side they are erraric different way but nevertheless they are ). Not as much as with Ionic but reliability is the same to me - none. But at least I can pair my PolarH10 chest strap ( takes 5 seconds ) and fix the HR input during workout. This is feature that Fitbit devices lack. It magically solved the problem for me ( plus I can see realtime HR from chest strap on my watch ). Wrist HR is fine for maybe walking or staying at rest. Apart from that I can pair cycling computers and other sensors.

@Fitbit - make possible to pair external HR monitors! Keeping your ecosystem closed like you do now does more harm than helps.

[FredFornicola]

It pains me to say it, but the Ionic is providing me nothing when it comes to my stationary cycling. I've used it every day this week and keep having the same insanely erratic readings. This is today's recording. Stopped reading entirely several times then catapulted up when it reconnected. I keep hoping it's going to work properly and maybe get some support from the Fitbit crew.