Exercise tracking in app - no heart rate data

[robynarthur]

Hi!

I just upgraded to the Charge 2 (from a One) and am trying out the different exercise tracking options.

I'm used to tracking a run from the fitbit app on my iphone.

My question is regarding the heart rate tracking.  If I track my run from the Charge 2 I see my heart rate data in real time during the run (on the Charge 2 screen) and a summary afterwards in the fitbit app.  But if I track a run from the app I don't see any heart rate data - during the run or in the summary afterwards.  I assume the Charge 2 is tracking heart rate during the run regardless, so why doesn't it show me that data in the app as part of the exercise summary?

As I run without my glasses, I find it easier to see my run stats in large font on my phone than on the small Charge 2 screen.  But does this mean I can't record heart rate data for my run unless I track the run from the Charge 2?

Thanks for any help!

Robyn

[Wade995]

I’m one of the original posters. Bought an Apple Watch then and never
looked back. Works flawlessly in every way and great with Strava.

[i-love-running]

Oh hey this thread is still active lol! It's probably just not an area of focus for fitbit. The way I see it, their product is aimed at people starting out: doing walks and beginner runs. Once you get serious about running, I guess it's time to move on.

[robin373]

Any solutions to this problem?

I like to monitor my heart rate. If I start a workout thru my charge 2 watch, I get heart rate graph. If I start it on the phone app, no heart rate graph.  Fit bit is supposed to make things easier not more complicated.

[Lemone]

I have lost track how long this thread has been going - 18months + - at first there were promises of a fix. That was apparently all to impress google who were about to buy Fitbit... since then nothing has changed and the only solution is to start your exercise on both the tracker and the app at the same time.

I’m not sure anybody reviews these posts for customer care anymore and suspect this will remain unresolved for some time...

Sent from my iPhone

[robin373]

thanks.  not suprised. 

[SunsetRunner]

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@a_m_b wrote:

When starting an activity from the phone app, the heart rate data are not associated with the activity.

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I've been experiencing the same thing. Interestingly, a run or walk shows no heart rate data recorded - but if I use intervals, it does record heart rates. So I just set the intervals to be the minutes I usually take to run a kilometre, eg 5'50" and 10" - then when the interval beeps I can glance at my watch and see if I've hit 1km. 

This and other issues (such as the HRV being absurdly low and the VO2max absurdly high, both issues reported by many people) make me not want to upgrade to the latest models, though. If I paid $200 for something with 10 functions that only half work, I'm not going to pay $500 for something with 20 functions.

@Lemone wrote:
That was apparently all to impress google who were about to buy Fitbit... 

Unfortunately, history shows that when a smaller company is acquired by a larger, the smaller company's performance does not improve. For business performance, it's best to remain independent. This is something I keep in mind with my own business.

Moderator edit: merged reply

[LVinLA]

@robynarthur @Lemone @robin373 @i-love-running Well, I started another thread to try again to bring attention to this issue, posing it as a "new feature" 😉https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Feature-Suggestions/Make-a-Fitbit-for-hiking-realtime-track-maps-ele...  I may be in the minority, but I'm still holding out hope that this will get fixed eventually. Please check it out & cast your vote, if you haven't already given up & switched to Garmin or AppleWatch 😃

@SunsetRunner, Back when Fitbit was a small company, they were much better at customer service & more responsive to fixing problems. In 2015 there was an issue with the mobile app crashing while logging hikes/runs/walks, & they fixed that one very quickly. Then there was the problem with activities over 30 minutes not syncing, that went on for about a year - they collected input from complaining users to debug & fix this one, providing feedback along the way. Seems that as Fitbit has grown, acquired smaller companies to augment their engineering talent, and expanded their product line & customer base, they've lost their focus on keeping their long-term loyal customers satisfied. I'm an engineer not a business person, but it seems to me that a shake up in management could do wonders to improve quality assurance as well as customer service 😃

[i-love-running]

@LVinLA Thanks for the ping, I cast the vote still, although I've kind of given up on this - it has been more than a year and I think it's fairly safe to say they are not going to fix this. I stopped using my FitBit some time ago, it's lying around somewhere in the house since the only value it provides is step count and this is not super relevant to me now that I exercise much more consistently then when I was at the start of my journey. I didn't get a chance to shop for the new tracker yet. Leaning towards Garmin since I've been using them for other stuff but I need to read up on the watch a bit, I heard their sleep tracking is still quite poor. 

[mopsie2002]

I just recently started tracking with GPS and noticed this occurring too. All my auto-detected exercise activities show my heart rate, but my GPS tracked activities do not. Why in the world would they *remove* functionality?!

[SunriseRun56432]

Its crazy how many posts were removed from this thread. The mods here are extremely busy removing posts that illustrate problems with their product. Wish they were as adept at answering questions and resolving problems as they are at censorship of paying customers.