Versa 2 heart rate drops during exercise

[rachelmeaton]

Hi, I have had my versa 2 for a few weeks and noticed HR drops dramatically during HIIT exercise. I know my heart rate is in 100s but watch tells me it's in 40s! Have tried positioning tighter and looser, does same. Have tried to reset a few times but it is a hassle. Only does it during exercise which is when you need it! Never had this prob with versa and have to keep checking the watch otherwise my calories burnt are so low and I have to log exercise manually. Getting fed up of it

[LiliyaFitbit]

Hi @rachelmeaton, it's nice to see you again in our Community Forums. 

I appreciate your participation in the Forums and sharing your concern regarding the heart rate accuracy of your Versa 2 during HIIT exercise. I totally understand how you are feeling as you didn't experience this issue with your Versa. Thank you for your efforts to resolve this by doing a restart and positioning the watch tighter and looser. Since you noticed discrepancies in your heart-rate readings during exercise, the type of exercise or the position of the device may be the cause. I recommend confirming the complete tips to improve the accuracy of your heart rate reading in the following articles: How do I improve the accuracy of my heart-rate reading on my Fitbit device? and Are there other factors that can affect my heart-rate reading?

Let me know how it goes, I'll be around.

[rachelmeaton]

Still doing it after months. Tried everything over and over. Ridiculous that a fitness watch is so rubbish t measuring fitness activities. Doesn't seem I'm the only person with issues either-seems like a lot of people are having problems with versa 2 HR monitoring too high or inconsistent. To keep saying wipe the back, change the position etc. While I'm working out I dont want to be continually checking the HR and stopping to sort it out. Went from 129 to 39 today!!! The suggestion that we should buy a sport strap to stop sweat is unbelievable! It is meant to be made to cope with sweat! Why is this issue being ignored on a brand new watch. I never had any issue with HR on versa for 2 years. Can I get my money back and go back to my original versa as you have not resolved the issue?

[EddieB1]

Since wearing the watch higher up away from the wrist I am getting improved readouts.

[MrMarv]

@EddieB1 -

I've been reporting heart rate deficiencies in a few of the exercise apps many times for literally over a year, in both the Versa 2 and my previously used Charge 3 - especially the Treadmill app where I spend an hour at a time twice a day and can repeatably document the issue.

I haven't heard anyone owning up to it. All I get is how to wear the device when exercising. It's not like I am lifting weights or riding an elliptical where the wrists get flexed a lot - I walk with my hand to my side with no "wrist-flex" and still get huge swings.

I have a resting heart rate of 63

At 00:23 into the exercise I'm at 55 bpm

At 01:37 into the exercise I'm at 53 bpm

At 02:30 into the exercise I'm at 84 bpm - acceptable

At 07:51 into the exercise I'm at 151 bpm - totally unacceptable as I take Beta Blockers that will not allow my heart to beat that high even when exercising. If fact, my "Max HR is 120 because of those blockers. I stepped on the rails and manually took my heart rate reading when I saw that and got 92 bpm an expected value - with the device still reporting over 120 until 9:08 into the exercise and didn't hit below 100 until 11:21.

at 25:30 into the exercise I'm again below resting HR with a reported 62 bpm.

And I walk the same way as I normally walk, except maybe a little more "structured/formal" when walking at a measured pace on the treadmill. Old training is hard to break. even after 40-plus years. Think of Marines in parade formation, walking with arms swinging naturally, hands cupped with the pad of the thumb lightly pressed against the first knuckle of the index finger. I just seem to assume that posture naturally, especially when on the treadmill.

BTW the apple watch has been reported as having issues with heart rate values during exercise - and this is the device consistently rated as the best at heart rate detection at rest.

Good luck and welcome to the boards.

[MrMarv]

And just today - does anyone think that a 68-year old man with a viral damaged heart is going to be at 58 bpm at the end of an hour on the treadmill at nearly 3 mph? Not to mention all of the other dips.

[EddieB1]

I thought I had sorted this out with positioning higher up my arm while cycling (which was not the most convenient place but it seemed to help). Two things to report at this point. 1) generally I seem to be getting excellent tracking when around the home or walking 2) cycling continues to be an issue.

I have still been getting multiple occurences of this:

You can see HR gradually ramping as I warm up and then it just plummets to what would be almost normal for sitting on the sofa or resting. Then it gradually ramps up again. The remainder of this ride it appeared sensible

I recently accepted and successfully upgraded the firmware. Only one bike ride so far on this update but it's not encouraging. Now a different sort of issue

The HR recorded for most the ride was looking like a walk not a cycle i.e. too low to be believed  (but I was cycling the whole time at an average pace)

Suddenly about 5-10 mins before the end of the ride, it kicked in with what looked like half sensible readings, although based on experience of the route and effort level still seemed a little on the low side to me.

In both cases the shift was relatively sudden, like a cliff edge on the graph. Normally shifts in the reported HR are smooth/gradual, I assume because of some kind of smoothing/averaging function to cater for some inaccuracy/noise in the inputs. I notice this if I put in a big effort then the HR rises slowly, not suddenly, so there is lag in it's response. So these sudden shifts suggest to me something different is going on to normal in terms of the software's interpretation of signal/inputs.

Next few cycles, I am going to start wearing my polar/HR strap at the same time and see how like for like they compare.

I don't need it to be 100% accurate, but it needs to be consistently in the ball park for me to find it useful. These drop outs and clearly wrong readings, sometimes for protracted periods, are making the device untrustworthy and unuseful in my view. 

[McLinds01]

Mine has been such a mess since I bought it 6 months ago.  In this time I had 1 solid month where it tracked the heart rate accurately, and the rest of the time it's been crap.  As others have said, during intense exercise it just completely bottoms out and either stops reading the heart rate completely (gives the 2 -- lines) or drops unbelievably low.  The other day I wore my husband's Samsung Active to compare, the Samsung showed my heart rate at 180 (which I'd say was accurate, it was really high) and my Versa showed it at 105.

Today I did the firmware today and hoped in vain it would work better.  It did not.  It usually takes a solid 8mins before it ramps up properly, then it had about 15mins where it seemed to work well, and then all of a sudden it started bouncing the heartrate up and down from 160 to 105 every minute or so for the remainder of the workout.  To be clear, the 160 was correct, but it would only hold for a few seconds before completely dropping.  I don't understand why this is such an issue.  I've dealt with customer support more times that I care to deal with, they've already replaced it once and the new one is no better.  I've worn it higher, lower, tighter, looser, different straps...makes zero difference.  I'm about done with this thing.

[MrMarv]

After a little over two weeks, and the first two days with my Versa alongside it, my Apple Watch Series 6 has shown only one weird spike at the first seconds of a rowing machine session.

With two one-hour treadmill sessions a day for a total of 24 sessions I only had a reported maximum bpm for the session over 100 bpm seven times, topping out at 112. for the first week, I was manually checking my heart rate against the Series 6 at least six times each session and still check it a couple times now. Never was the variance more than 2 bpm which is probably because I am averaging over 15 seconds and the watch is realtime.

With my taking Beta Blockers my cardiologist states that I shouldn't expect to go over 110 except rarely and, in fact, doesn't want me to. And definitely not the 140 - 156 range my Versa 2 often reported - it is just impossible as Beta Blockers block the effects of the hormone epinephrine, also known as adrenaline.

During the parallel testing, the Versa 2 was consistently 8 to 15 bpm higher than actual and often as much as 24 bpm higher. Rarely was is the same as my manual check or the pulse-oximeter I use.

For all of you still with the Versa I can only hope that the latest firmware update helps.

And yes, the Versa 2 is not a medical device. Neither is my Apple Watch. But as a fitness device, my Versa 2 was a failure.

[EddieB1]

Always living in hope of a magical firmware update. Seems there are many issues with it. What I am less clear on is how many believe it is fine. I am wondering what grounds for a refund are because it doesn't do what it says on the tin. Strapless HR is one of the main things I bought it for. Shrug.

[EddieB1]

I know it's not a medical device, but it must make you concerned when you see it reporting high 

[EddieB1]

For those interested I have a few findings to report based on a few experiments. It's not rigorous science but has a basis in some repeated observations.

1. Over several experiments on an indoor spinning bike I've used my polar heart rate strap and receiver alongside fitbit versa 2. I'm pleased to report they correlate very well. The main issue is the lag. The polar is an almost instantaneous reaction to a change in HR where the versa 2 clearly has a moving average function in play; at a rough estimate I would say the moving average is at least 10 seconds, maybe a bit more. So when you're ramping up effort the versa 2 shows lower than reality. When backing off it is showing higher. Any sudden moves in HR are not going to be reflected quickly, I've not had a "silly" reading yet - just the lag. I can live with this.

2. All the times I've been having "spikes" and stupid readings which are too low, have been on a bike outside. I tend to dress light on the bike and it's winter right now, so temperature could well be a factor. I am wondering if very low readings are caused by being too cold and circulation not reaching the outside of the skin fully. As I understand it the sensor works by bouncing light off your skin and detecting the flow of the blood underneath the surface. When you are cold, vaso-constriction will naturally prevent blood flow to the outer skin to preserve body heat.

In both cases it's the same versa 2 watch, on the same arm in the same position etc.... So a fair like for like comparison.

I'd be interested to know if others can correlate bad readings with cold weather situations.

[ConfidenceMajor]

I am having this same exact issue! I even had a replacement sent to me but I am having the same issues. Has there been any resolution to this?

[Lauren55]

I haven't even had my watch a year and have the same exact problem! I reported it to fitbit and it took about 8 weeks for customer service to stop going in circles with me about how to wear the watch correctly and send me a replacement! When I got the replacement I was so relieved that it was accurately tracking my heart rate and it was a HUGE difference. But after only a week my watch picked up the firmware update and boom it started inaccurately tracking my heart rate during exercise again. So I reported it again and keep getting robotic canned replies how to correctly wear the fitbit watch and how temperature affects the reading. The photos I attached are the same exact HIIT workout on the treadmill. The one where its mostly in peak is my replacement device and the other is before I got it replaced. My replacement only worked for a week and now its back to giving me totally off readings. What is the point of even wearing it when my heart rate and calories are absolutely not accurate, I am starting to lose faith in Fitbit...

[EddieB1]

Thanks for the info. It seems to be such hard work to cut through the support process. They must be aware of an issue. I have had multiple surveys regards use of the forums. One of the questions was, what was your visit to the forums about. Heart rate monitoring was I am sure on there originally, and the last time I responded it was no.longer there. I emailed them about this but no reply. I do wonder that a lot of their customers may well be lifestyle users who trust the gadget and who have no reference point for accuracy. Fitbit likely avoid a huge number of complaints this way. People who are complaining are those who know their HR in different contexts and/or have a comparison to an alternative measurement mechanism. That's likely to be a small percentage of the whole market.

[icepoeta]

I contacted Fitbit about this in November because of my Barre classes the advice was you move to much (during a workout...) then this second time in March they told me they'e exhausted options but since I'm out of warranty (which ended late November...) I need to just buy a new one. This is the epitome of poor customer service. Contacting my credit card to work through it since they extended the warranty but don't know if I will ever purchase another fitbit (loyal customer for over 7 years) 

[C_Lan]

I gave up on contacting Fitbit about this issue.   I've tried wrist placement, looser, tighter, different bands and still get the same readings.  Playing racquetball I know my HR goes up steadily and levels off above 147bpm after maybe 5 minutes.  The fitbit actually reads my HR dropping and holding steady for anywhere between 12 and 20 minutes and then finally reads correctly. 

I'm tired of the helpline repeating the same steps over and over and over again each time I contact them with data/graphs.  The only way to get attention to fix this is to give rating reviews and have them take a hit where it counts....where potential customers can see it,