Heart Rate Monitoring

[kss]

I love my fitbit flex but I would love to see and upgrade to include heart rate monitoring. I currently use a separate heart rate watch when working out to get a better accuracy for calories burned because when I do the insanity workout for 45 minutes the flex only says 6 minutes active but I know I am working very hard for the entire 45 minutes. Will this ever be an option?

Moderator Edit: Updated label

[bullseye]

I would like to see a heart rate monitor.

[AnnB]

That is the number one question I get when explaining the fitbit to people.  They all want to know if it has a heartrate monitor.

[cindylaurel]

I just got my first Fitbit Flex and absolutely love it, but do think it would be improved by a heartrate monitor, which would also, I think, enable my second suggestion, which is to increase the threshold for "high activity". Right now, it counts my walking from point A to point B as high activity, something I wouldn't count. 

[bluemax89]

Agreed, please add a heart rate monitor.  Hopefully one that doesn't require a chest strap.  Heart rate could then be converted into burned calories I'm guessing?

[flahudson]

I feel that a heart rate monitor is key. Not really seeing the accuracy with workouts and is that not the point? I work hard logging everything but I feel that for the price of this thing it should be a little more then what it is. 

[SteveDave]

The heart rate monitor seems like a no brainer. I want to know my resting heart rate, see which activities get my heart pumping faster/longer, and even use it as a stress monitor during important meetings and negotiations.  

The Force does constantly remind me to stay active and compete with friends, so I'll still use it, but it's basically just a glorified (inaccurate) pedometer.

[gettingfit]

I also would like to see a heart rate monitor added to this product.  However, I think it is a good start to get motivated and active.  I hope this is the begining of really good products coming our way.  A heart rate monitor would go a long way.  So far I have not found a heart rate monitor that will sink nicely via blue tooth with my phone and I really love this feature.

[Fit-Rico-Bit]

I also hope they add the heart rate monitor feature on future products,and gps capability would be nice. .  Im not talking about something huge like other products have, just something when I log on online that it'll show me how far I ran, calorie count,  and where I ran.  I think that would save fitbit from being bulky and conserve energy.

[carebear]

With as advanced as these devices are, why can't they also track heart rate?  Especially for people who like to track their HR during cardio workouts.  

[mmrgood]

I agree - heart rate should be the next feature added.  I manually enter mine, but I would like it to be auto sensed when I where my Polar HR monitor. 

[cdlagrow]

I would like to see Fitbit have direct support for a heart rate monitor through their app instead of relying on third party apps to track my heart rate during workouts. A heart rate monitor actually made by Fitbit would be pretty awesome as well.

[weymiensn]

I think having a Fitbit device track our heart rates would be a bit difficult with their designs, because to do so they need be tight fitting around a body part where it is easy to monitor it (chest, wrists, ...). The only devices that would be suitable are the Fitbit Flex and the Fitbit Force, but I would personally dislike a tight fitting Fitbit device, because I wear it all the time and I rather not have something tight around my body for a long extended period of time.

However, I do agree with mmrgood. Fitbit could create connectivity services with heart rate monitors on the market so that we can easily enter this data.

I first thought since Endomondo tracks my heart rate during workouts, that data would be intigrated into Fitbit. Alas, it is not so. Perhaps something to think about?

Those are my thoughts on this matter.

[PheonixRizing]

I agree this is a feature that the Fitbit is sorely lacking. For myself I would only wear the heart rate monitor during workouts that the Fitbit doesn't track properly. I think this idea should be a consideration for the next gen. I would totally get it, so far I am very please with my force.

[JanetC]

Any chance heart rate monitor could actually be incorporated into my Fitbit Force?  It would really make sense.

[Julie]

I agree that would be great and water proof.  I am swimming and doing scuba and would love to know how much I am burning.

[Soulburn]

Only reason i didn't buy the force yet. build-in heart rate monitor shoulda been first priority. whichever smart phone has it first will win.

[clintchase]

at first recieving my flex, that it was a feature, but it is not, i think it would more accuratley monitor calories burned, becuase, ive tried and i would run a mile, wait a half hour, then do my daily 30 min crossfit exercise and see that the mile burned significantly more calories...but i was left on the floor breathless after my crossfit routine. 

[Starkman78]

I initially felt the same way. Overall, I think that the Fitbit is lacking in a lot of features that are important to the really serious exerciser. To that end, I returned to my long unused Endomondo account. Linking Endomondo with Fitbit was easy. This morning, I logged my workout using Endomondo, it synced to Fitbit automatically, and I was much happier with the record. Endomondo has a more sophisticated calculation system and it is pre-loaded with a much greater variety of exercise types (besides just walking, running, swimming, and cycling) so it gives a more accurate step count, calorie burn, and HR tracking is an option. I did CrossFit this morning (I'm a CF-L1 trainer and CFE trainer) and when I checked my Fitbit dashboard, it credited the entire workout as "very active" as opposed to the few measly minutes I would get previously. I think the Fitbit was designed to monitor a general overview of your entire lifestyle but elite exercisers naturally want more activity features. I think Endomondo fills that gap. Just something to consider.

[cdlagrow]

Currently, we do have the ability to import workouts through third party apps that track heartrate. The problem is that the only information that is transferred to my Fitbit dashboard is the number of calories and the number of active minutes (which is even skewed. For example, I do Crossfit and I log my workouts through Digifit. I have to start my workout in Digifit as soon as we start stretching out and warming up and I do not end it until I'm done cooling down. The app then transfers the data to Fitbit as if I was "active" for over 60 minutes. There were plenty of times throughout that hour where I was maybe standing around while a coach was talking and was not active at all. 

Point is, if Fitbit had their own heartrate integration through the app and dashboard, issues like this could be resolved and more extensive heart rate data could be seen such as the spikes in workouts and how much time was spent in each heartrate zone.

One last thing that I would like incorporated is to have the active minutes from a third party workout to be reflected on my Force. As of now, when I workout using Digifit, my workout immediately transfers to my Fitibit dashboard. My active minutes will show (for sake of an example) 68 minutes, but my Force will only show 3. My Fitbit app on my iPhone will even show 68 minutes of activity. There should be some way of this data also transferring to my Force as well. The same may apply to calories but I have not really paid attention to that yet.

[Truth]

This would also have a great effect on other features, as it should be able to better calculate "avtive minutes" rather than entering them in manually, and also would give a much more accurate calories burned indication. Considering it's a wristband seems like a normal addition to what it already does.

[Sarah4]

I'm disappointed that my Fitbit Force doesn't have a heart rate monitor. It was bought for me as a present  - I wouldn't have bought it myself as it doesn't have this feature. Disappointed. 😞 

[dsires522]

Question is will it ever have a Heart rate monitor?

[detodosmoles]

Please create a wrist device that has all the features a Fitbit Force with continuous heart rate monitoring, like a MIO Alpha.

http://www.amazon.com/Alpha-Strapless-Continuous-Heart-Monitor/dp/B00BJ6HLDI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=...

[Eric_Abbott]

...or at least record the lowest heart rate during a sleep period.

[Apacapacas]

I'd like to see heart rate and blood oxygenation.  Since both are tracked on a pulse oximeter, it seems to be they'd be easy to incorporate into a Fitbit device along with step counting, activity recording,  and sleep tracking.