Versa Lite Heart Sensor Not Detecting Through Tattoos

[TLS79]

My Fitbit versa is not detecting my heart rate because of the tattoos I have on my arms/wrist!!! What is happening and how can I fix this. I have to wear my Fitbit on my dominant arm because of the tattoos on my non dominant arm. They recommend you wear it on your non dominant for tracking everything but I can’t because I have tattoos! This is absolutely ridiculous!

[LZeeW]

Hello @TLS79 and welcome to the Help forums.  The heart rate works by sending that green light into the upper layers of the skin.  It gets reflected back to the two sensors, the tiny rectangles on both side of the green light.  It is looking for pulsations in very tiny blood vessels in the top layers of the skin.  That is where tattoo ink is deposited.  Your heart rate isn't detected because the ink blocks the path to the blood vessels or the ink absorbs all the light.

You can wear your Fitbit on either your dominant or non dominant arm.  You just need to have the correct setting in the app.  Tap on your profile picture > Versa Lite > change the setting to dominant, if that is where you need to wear your Fitbit.

Sorry, not ridiculous.  Just physics.

[TLS79]

Yes, ridiculous. No other watch is affected by that. My Apple Watch works just fine with tattoos, my Fitbit charge worked just fine with it so if it were really “physics” like you say, then none of the watches would work with them but thanks for trying!