Sweat and moisture causing heart rate reading to be wrong

[Kindofblue76]

I use an infrared sauna for 40 minutes after I use a rower for 20 minutes and bike for 20 minutes. This will get my heart rate to about 140 BPM, until I start sweating. If I use my sauna without working out first, my arm is dry and my heart rate typically maxes out at 160 BPM at 150 degrees. However, if I'm already sweating or my arm is wet, my bpm never gets about 135 BPM. I'm also a swimmer and that's the main reason I purchased the Ionic after just having purchased the Blaze a year ago. Once I stepped out of the sauna and dried off, i re-positioned my Ionic after having moved it to dry under the band and my heart rate immediately jumped to the expected 150+ BPM.

If moisture causes the heart rate feature to be incorrect, than that will erase most of the reasons I purchased the Ionic. Calories burned by day, workout, etc. No heart rate count when swimming. And a much lesser total of "active minutes" since I use my sauna and swimming to to top off my calorie burn for each workout. If this is the case, this a severe design flaw in a VERY expensive FitBit that is supposed to be designed to use in water.

[SunsetRunner]

@Kindofblue76 Water will impact the monitoring of heart rate on the Ionic, which is why during heavy sweating activities readings can be erratic. It is also why, when swimming, heart rate isn’t, by default, measured. There are ways to get an HR reading when swimming but the readings won’t be reliable.

Noting you also use a rower, y will also find that when rowing the readings will also be less than reliable. Sweat can cause problems but so can/will the action of your wrist flexing under load.

[flighthalo]

I can see the moisture around my sensor, watch malfunctioned, will not run update (which it had already installed a month ago), it is less than 90 days old and fitbit just stated they wont cover replacement because I dont know who the retailer was or can not prove it was an authorized retailer....they know when it was activated, they know it was new Jan 2018, they know I have bought several products the last 5 years....very disappointing. 

[Lufalulz]

You shouldn't be wearing the Ionic in a Sauna. It is imperative that you avoid exposing the device to high temperatures.

Nevertheless, if you decide to do that, keep in mind that, as @SunsetRunner mentioned, the heart rate tracking technology is based entirely on the beam of light that goes from the watch to your skin and reads the changes in pigmentation. Light, for obvious reasons, gets refracted when it goes from one medium to the other.

It's going to be inherently inaccurate under those conditions so I'd suggest getting a refund if the way that it works bothers you that much.

[WavyDavey]

Agree with above.

From the Ionic product page:

Environmental Requirements      Operating temperature: -4° to 113° F

[SunsetRunner]

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@flighthalo wrote:

 because I dont know who the retailer was or can not prove it was an authorized retailer.

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How can you not know where you bought a £250 watch from less than three months ago? 

[flighthalo]

It was a gift from my mom who past away in February.....I think she bought it on ebay or possibly Target, I haven't had time to review her credit card purchases from January as it just died yesterday (after an indoor bike ride).....I activated it January 26th 2018......it was brand new and unopened when I received it...really it should not make a difference as fitbit knows when a device is activated and has a record of my years of purchases and usage of their products the last 4-5 years. Considering the short term history of issues with the item I believe the least they could do is replace it. 

[Lufalulz]

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@SunsetRunner wrote:

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@flighthalo wrote:

 because I dont know who the retailer was or can not prove it was an authorized retailer.

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How can you not know where you bought a £250 watch from less than three months ago? 

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I had a haaard time making sense out of that statement and didn't even wanted to mention it.

Fitbit support usually never cares about details nor receipts when you got it as a gift. It happened recently with a friend's device and if they have a hard time trusting you or have to be extra careful (because, again, it's a $300 watch), they will most likely ask you to send it back.

Either you do know where it was purchased and it was not an authorized retailer or the customer support guy didn't know what he/she was doing and decided to $#$@3 on you.

[flighthalo]

I have had this Ionic less than 90 days. Worked just fine yesterday, wakes me up everyday, no issues....just spent another 30 minutes as it attempted to install an update/setup, it lights up again and looks like its is going to install, then it fails. I didn't do anything to this watch, I take very good care of it, took it off to take a shower yesterday and at some point in the next few hours it crashed....I assume that sweat while cycling indoors got into the device and now it is toast???.....this is my 4 or 5th Fitbit watch/tracker, it was in perfect new condition when I got it, no question about it....but maybe its just time to walk away from fitbit, since I changed my modem my scale would no longer sync (same model modem), and I have been over the process with fitbit numerous times...they continue to refer to me as "Tommy" (which I have told them to correct at least 5 times) and I assume this is due to the data breach/hacking of my account at some point in the last 18 months...so the scale doesn't work, the brand new watch died for no reason at all, fitbit said they would not replace it, and no matter how many times I talk with them and then have email correspondence they call me "Tommy"...I think at this point I will eat the $500 spent on these items and buy an I Watch or a Garmin, they are not as flashy but it appears they at least work. Fitbit will go bankrupt if they continue to put out poor products and then not take care of the customer when they fail within the first 3 months of use.