HR Inspire can't be accurate

[Najet1978]

So, I just got this new HR Inspire a few days ago.  In the past, I averaged about 10-18k steps a day and burned an average of 1800-2300 calories.  Since I started wearing this thing, it's gotten stuck in activity mode where its recording, thinks I am running and nothing I could do would turn it off.  It's now now doing that anymore, but it has me burning an average of 4000 calories a day.  If that was true, I'd be a stick and I'm almost 20 pounds overweight.  Why did the heart rate feature on this fitbit double my calories burned? I am seriously considering returning it.  I don't spend $100.00 on products that don't work. 

[Julia_G]

Hi, @Najet1978 , you mention that your Inspire HR was previously stuck in activity mode. Does it seem to be working normally now (aside from extra calorie burn)?

Whenever your Fitbit is not behaving as expected the first troubleshooting step is to give it a restart.  Instructions here.  You are usually advised to try the restart procedure 3 times, as a single restart does not always work.

However, what many people do not realise is that for most people (except fairly serious athletes) the majority of the calories counted by the Fitbit are actually counted by the app, based on your profile settings, rather than the device itself.

So if your calorie count seems to be very high, it is a good idea to check your profile settings -- sex, age, height and weight.  Also make sure your units are correct.  I thought my Fitbit was giving me a very high calorie count and it turned out I had entered my weight in pounds and the Fitbit was calculating in kgs.  It does make a difference!

Your basic calorie burn will be calculated from your profile settings.  Fitbit uses a very standard calculation based on the profile settings, and you can check your personal burn by googling BMR calorie calculation and entering your sex, age, height and weight.

Fitbit adds to that what it detects from steps it counts and heart rate.  Once you have checked your BMR calculation, you can consider whether it seems to be significantly over counting your steps, or whether it seems to be reading your HR extremely high.

If you can let us know what you discover from this, I am sure someone can help further.

Welcome to the forums!