HR measurement. Comparing Versa and Charge HR. Compensation?

[jw41]

I have commented earlier on the faulty measurement of HR by my Versa. Recently I wore the Versa on my left wrist and a Charge HR on my right wrist. I walked at a good pace for an hour and checked the HR displays periodically. The Versa showed HR as high as 170 and mostly over 110 while the simultaneous reading on the Charge HR was never over 70.

So clearly something is very wrong. Recently I saw a post here where someone returned their Versa for a replacement and the replacement actually produced reasonable HR numbers. So it seems that Fitbit may have fixed the (hardware?) problem. But they have not fixed it for all of us earlier adopters of Versa. I am very disappointed with Fitbit's behavior in this matter. I feel that those of us who bought Versas earlier are entitled to some compensation.

What do you think? What compensation would you suggest?

[Marrrmaduke]

@jw41 I am sorry to hear about your problems with Versa. If you have tried everything it is to try, you should reach out to Customer Support to guide you through the next steps.

[jw41]

Marrrmaduke      I see that you own a Versa. When did you buy it? Does it do HR ok? My point is that I am pretty sure that many Versas have a hardware problem. That is not something that customer service can fix. I have spent many hours interacting with customer service with no result.

I would like Fitbit to acknowledge the hardware problem and compensate those of us whose Versas are faulty.

[Marrrmaduke]

@jw41 I bought mine as soon as it was released so basically in April I believe. Actually I got it on preorder. 😄 There's one thing to remember when drawing conclusions here. This forum is not a representative sample of Versa users. Majority of people here come to seek help. Happy people rarely post. So I am not convinced majority of versa have issues. Actually if you think how many Versa were sold (I believe over a million only between April and June 2018) and how many users here report issues...

[jw41]

*Your logic escapes me. If I am the only unhappy Versa owner, I could care
less if there are a million happy owners. I am unhappy. Fitbit should make
me happy. BTW you did not say whether you Versa works properly.*

[Marrrmaduke]

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@jw41 wrote:

My point is that I am pretty sure that many Versas have a hardware problem.

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I was referring to the above statement of yours. I am sorry that my logic escaped you but I was just trying to point out that:

• you're drawing the conclusions based on skewed set of data (user-experience coming from this forum and not a broader population of fitbit users)
• stating "many" means nothing. How much is many? 10? 100? 1000? Where is your data coming from that you want to run statistics on it?

I do not want to be inflammatory, but you're demanding compensation based on poor math. My advice would be to troubleshoot, and if the item is faulty, ask for a replacement. Lastly, to answer your question - yes, my Versa works properly. Good luck with yours.

[lenny4d]

@jw41  HR measurement on the Versa has some issues, sometimes it may work, a minute later not. It is very evident if you record with the Versa on one arm(wrist) and another tracker like Charge HR or Charge 2 on the other (I do that too, CH2), do an exercise and compare the HR graphs for the exercise as recorded by the Versa and the same by the other tracker.  For normal day use it is not a big problem, but for exercising according to heart-rate zone's is obviously a different matter.

There are LOT of threads on the HR measurement in the newer fitbit trackers. I still have to see one thread that shows a side-by-side comparison of the Versa against a CH2 and/or electrode HR measurement that shows a near 1-1 match. But take CH2 against electrode and it is 1-1. One of the most bizarre things is that on the Versa I regularly get a HR >> max HR. Seriously! I stopped laughing.

I am not aware of any direct HW issues etc, fitbit hasn't changed the physical sensor and the rest is firmware. So I think that theory (and thus compensation) you can forget. I do recommend that you check the back of your Versa, especially where the HR sensor is, for scratches and make sure it is clean (use alcohol wipes).

[Marrrmaduke]

@lenny4d Hope you survived the first hump day after the long weekend. 😄 Remember how I told you I did not see the differences that you obviously had seen between Versa and Charge 2? So, I decided to replicate your experiment while working out today (cross-country skiing machine, avg 7 km/h speed, 7 km distance, visual HR monitoring each 15 seconds on both trackers, screenshots of full recordings attached). Takeaways:

• when visually monitored, both trackers displayed literally the same or very similar HR (+-1 bpm)
• Versa did way better with my tendency to sweat a lot. Had to briefly wipe it only once whereas Ch2 required numerous wipes throughout the session. It is important as CH2 tends to drop HR recording when there's a puddle of sweat under its sensor. One can see a brief drops in HR in a few places on the charts just because of that
• both trackers produced extremely similar bpm curves, the same average 162 bpm and very close max bpm of 180 and 179 for Versa and CH2, respectively
• also, before exercise bpm was similar as well

I am attaching HR recordings and a few pics of displays taken during and before workout (sorry for the poor quality!)

Charge 2 Pic 1Charge 2 Pic 2Charge 2 Pic 3Charge 2 Pic 4Versa Pic 1Versa Pic 2Versa Pic 3Versa Pic 4Before the workoutCharge 2 @ 15 min 21 secVersa @ 15 min 18 sec