Issues with My Heart Rate on Elliptical

[Mollyllaves]

My watch usually does an awesome job reading my heart rate. On the treadmill or in the road, this watch is amazing. For some reason though, the elliptical messes my watch up enough that it can't read my heart rate accurately again until after I've restarted it. Even now, as I'm lifting weights I manually calculated my heart rate at 135 but my watch is reading 98. Two days ago with the same activity, only with running instead of the elliptical, my heart rate while lifting was accurately read at 135 when I checked. As someone with a history of heart health concerns this is a HUGE issue. I have my watch set to warn me when my heart rate gets over a certain point but I can't trust that it is reading accurately anymore with some exercises and that is both dangerous and problematic. 

[Guy_]

Hi @Mollyllaves - if you look in the forums the watches after the Versa 2 have this problem with heart rate.

Some report under reading and others over reading heart rate during exercise or movements, mine reads double at times.

However if you are still the sleep measurements and RHR can be accurate.

[Fraser47]

If you want accurate data for genuine health concerns, you need to get an actual HR monitor. Fitbit is not sufficiently accurate or reliable and is more of a toy than heart rate monitor. I know it can feel disheartening to have spent money on something that doesn't do what it says it will do, and I sympathize with your frustration. 

[Fraser47]

My guess is that almost nobody who purchased this device did so to measure their heart rate when they are perfectly still.