Reset resting heart rate

[WilliamHamilton]

I am aware that the watch calculates resting heart rate with some proprietary algorithm, including (not requiring) your HR while sleeping.  I am not asking what the algorithm is (since FitBit won't divulge it for some reason) but what is known to work, to correct FitBit's calculation when it wanders off.   I have tried restarting the watch several times and that does not work.

My displayed RHR is higher than my HR at rest, and even walking around, which by definition is incorrect regardless of how you calculate it. 

The software uses a history of measurements and distinguishes between sleeping heart rate and resting, at a minimum. I suspect that the calculation retains one or more calculated parameters as a short-cut, updating the parameter daily based on that day's measurements.  The challenge with iterative feedback functions (recursive) is that they tend to cyclical values over time (like a sine wave) or can race off to an extreme.  Behaviors that I've observed or seen referred to in forum questions.

So simply clearing or resetting those parameters would be a fix or workaround for the incorrect resting heart rate.  The question is "how".  Is there a procedure that is known to work?  Is it tied to your fitbit account in any way (ie, disconnect from the phone). Stored by the watch itself in volatile memory (let the battery fall to zero). Would a factory reset be the only option?

[JohnnyRow]

Don't be thinking as factory reset would accomplish what you want.  Once you sync, data is on the main Fitbit database in the cloud, unaffected by anything you do to the watch.

[WilliamHamilton · Accepted solution]

Do you know that a temporary recursive parameter (assuming it exists) is stored with cloud data, or just assuming?  Because I'm pretty skeptical.

[simonsays84]

I'm having trouble with the RHR too. I think the calculation has changed somewhere the last couple of months. 

The biggest trouble I experience is that between days the RHR can only be lowered with 2 bpm per day. 

I consume alcohol once a week, which spikes my RHR to 67/68 while sleeping. The following days my sleeping heart rate in the morning drops back to 48, but Fitbit keeps reporting high RHR. Every day it drops just 2 bpm back to RHR 58 and after drinks it spikes to 68. This cycle continues on and on and makes my RHR data completely useless.

Fitbit won't respond (the Twitter DM chatbot is a nightmare), keeps pointing to there FAQ's.

[Sundman-Yoshida]

I have exactly the same problem and I'm contemplating switching to a Garmin or possibly Whoop because the RHR data is important to me to manage overtraining and / or sleep.

IE. Today I'm sitting here working, with 51bpm, been doing this for a few hours sometimes getting up to get a coffee or similiar. But according to fitbits brilliant algorithm I have 65RHR. Completely useless datapoint. 

[WilliamHamilton]

Drinking alcohol does raise our HR, particularly the sleeping heart rate. I take Simon's observation as a confirmation that the RHR algorithm heavily weighs the highest recent sleeping and/or resting heart rate.  So much so, it appears, that subsequent actual drops in RHR are not well reflected by the algorithm.

I marked the above as "best answer" because there is no answer.  The calculation is going to be skewed by recent spikes, and resetting the device and/or the cloud data every few days - if that worked - is not a practical option.