No heart rate tracking during work outs

[Leannek18]

During my spinning work out my heart rate stops registering every single time. i have to take the watch off in the middle of class, shake it and then put in back on. What a lovely $145 product!!!

[JuanFitbit]

@Leannek18 , Nice to see you here. Thank you for your message and feedback. 

It seems, that either your tracker moves during your activity, so that it's not possible to track your heart rate or a bit of sweat is underneath the Charge 4, so that the heart rate cannot be detected. 

Try wearing your Charge 4 a bit tighter or higher on your wirst during your activity

See you around. 

[Leannek18]

I've done all of that and hasn't helped. 

[Hornet99]

I have a very similar issue with my fitbit charge 4 and it's accuracy in measuring my heart rate during activities. I do a lot of cycling and I'll say that usually the HR monitoring seems good when outdoors, but when I do an indoor session the HR monitoring is terrible. It will not track my HR correctly at all; there I am panting away and my charge 4 says my HR is about 80bpm, then suddenly it drops even further and then suddenly rises again, all during a constant level of effort. 

I've tried adjusting the position on my wrist, does nothing. I've tried the reset (as recommended in previous articles here) and that works for all of 10 seconds and then sometimes not at all. I've cleaned the charge 4 and my wrist and still no change.... 

I've rebooted it and this doesn't work and I'd really like to do a full on Factory reset it see if that works or reinstall the OS, but there doesn't seem to be a way to do this. 

[Leannek18]

i definitely have the same issue. There are times during workouts (mostly spinning) where my heart feels like its beating out of my chest and i look at the watch at is says 115bpm. or i'm sitting on the couch half asleep and it says 165bpm..

[Hornet99]

I usually only have the issue with indoor cycling, where it freezes at a really low rate whilst I can feel my heart thumping in my chest. Occasionally does it at other times, but as I'm not paying attention I can't be sure it's not doing it..... 

[JuanFitbit]

@Leannek18 @Hornet99 , Nice to see you back and thank you for sharing more of your information. 

In your cases the next step is to chat with us or give us a so that our team can have a closer look at this. 

Click here to get connected. 

See you around. 

[Leannek18]

great im sure they will be of 0 help as usual

[Hornet99]

Hi JuanFitbit, what is the additional support that can be offered here? I've tried every solution after scouring the Internet for this issue, most of the solutions were from on here. None of these make a significant difference, in that the accuracy/reliability of the HR is patchy.

I just did an hours turbo training and looking at the HR trace dropping from 140bpm to 63bpm in the middle of a constant effort section is pretty poor. As well the HR trace is pretty much up and down across the session for no reason....

Short of fitbit sending me a new unit I don't see what contacting is going to give me and aren't I in contact now?! 

[Leannek18]

they won't do anything. They want me to send it back to the warehouse for testing. I explained to the agent that the last fitbit i sent back was lost by Fed Ex and the only way to attempt to get any $ for it, would be Fitbit to file a lost claim, which they refuse to do. That was $140 thrown out the window, so i definitely am not risking sending this one back too. So since i won't do that. They refuse to help me or even understand my side of the situation. they got their money from me when i purchased the product and they could care less about their customers. 

[Hornet99]

I'm a bit disappointed really, I've been wearing a Fitbit for 5 years. Started off with a humble Alta HR and moved to the charge 4 a year ago. I'd really like to have another fitbit and stay within their "ecosystem", but I think I'll have to look elsewhere if I want more reliability and accuracy with tracking my activities.

To be fair to fitbit when my first charge 4 broke (strap attachment point) they did replace it quickly and simply...... 

[Leannek18]

you're lucky the strap attachment only broke once. i've had 3 that broke.. the last one is the one that got lost in the mail. My current one is super glued together because i refuse to spend another $140 on a product that was barely 6 months old. 

[Hornet99]

Hmmmm, not brilliant. Sorry that you've not had a brilliant experience. I've generally been happy with fitbit, but now I'm getting more serious about my sporting activities I want to be more confident of what I'm seeing....

.....if you want really good in depth reviews of devices (alternatives even....) try DC Rainmaker. No affiliation, but I like his reviews.