Charge 3 heart rate information too high

[ahasenko]

My Charge 3 is consistently showing my heart rate much higher than it actually is. When rested and sitting down it typically show my heart rate in the 75-85 range. Yet when I manually check my heart rate with a stopwatch at my wrist, use a blood pressure monitor or an iPhone  HR app,

they all show my heart rate to be 47-52 range.

I have tried the advice on how to wear the watch for best result (loosely worn, 2 fingers width above wrist) and also tried resetting the watch... it doesn't help. It always shows 20 to 30 bpm too high.

Is there a fix for this? Do I need to return it for a replacement?

Thanks.

Moderator edit: subject for clarity

[Mocho]

Dave137, fyi you can get apps for the apple device to monitor your sleep (they already have the required sensors). 

[YTPan]

I bought Fitbit Charge 3 in early June 2020. Enjoy for almost 2 months then ... the heart rate started going south. I noticed the problem when checking my sleep score ... can't get a consistent heart rate reading. So I tried all the suggested steps but none is working. One day I went to check my Resting Heart Rate, and you know what I see ... My heart rate for whole day, either sleeping or sitting at rest are always above 130. Funny thing was my heart rate was between 145 - 175 while I was sleeping. No wonder the fitbit tracker could not get a consistent heart rate reading. Another funny thing is ... Wow! I had burnt the calories for more than 5000 and even 6000 calories without doing anything ... Very Amazing!!! Plan to contact the seller to have exchange or return it all ... Very disappointed user/buyer!

[Mocho]

Sounds like you just got a defective product. Mass produced, so not surprising. However  my unit is not accurate most of the time when on the move. It is useless for my biking trips or any other sport when moving around a lot. Chest strap is the ticket for exercising.

I am moving away from all these devices that make you give up all your data online in exchange for using purchased device. Fitbit and others make more money off the data than selling the devices, No more free lunch for these data purveyors unless I can CONTROL the data. 
Anyone know of a tracker that does NOT make me use the Internet to store and view my data? All I want is to store it locally, don’t care about badges or what others are doing.

[EddieT2]

Had the same problem, tried the fixes no good. I wondered whether any scratches on the back was affecting the count.  Couldn't see any but decided to polish up the back - It worked fitbit is now registering heartbeat correctly and solved my battery drain.

I used liquid BRASSO as the cleaning agent (T-Cut will do as well as any metal polish or car products to clean up headlight lenses). Took about 6 minutes of polishing and now works fine.  Also polished the front as the screen was getting hard to read in sunlight.

[YTPan]

Thanks. However, I had returned the merchandise that I bought from Amazon, and I had to pay the restocking fee per Amazon

[gwk1]

I don’t think this is a problem with the Fitbit reading the heart beats per minute correctly but rather how the software calculates the average.  I consistently look at my readings every morning on waking.  Often my Fitbit shows my heart rate during the night as a graph, and it tells me my average was way above even the peak rate I achieved at rest, so clearly it’s wrong and is calculating the true data incorrectly.  Surely that an issue Fitbit can and should fix?