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My understanding from reading some posts is the heart rate monitor is turned off automatically while in a swim exercise session. I'd like it on. Thanks.
Like many other swimmers, I was very disappointed that the heart rate was not monitored during my swim. The sole purpose of the purchase was for this reason. I think the promotions are a Little disingenuous as it suggests fitness tracking for swimming, which it kind of does.
I would like the option to turn on the heart rate monitor section while swimming. Slightly inaccurate is better than nothing at all. I hope that Fitbit will take all of this feedback under advisement.
I, too, agree that even if it is not accurate, we should get the option to record HR when manually starting swims.
At this moment, if I let it auto-detect and tighten the watch, it will record the swim with HR, and it's a good marker. It would be great to be able to turn it on and off.
Yay, I managed to finally get it to auto-detect swimming, with heart rate and lengths! I did have to swim front crawl first to get it going though, but then did a mixture of front crawl, breast stroke and back stroke and seemed pretty accurate with time spent and length count. Just seems ridiculous that the HR doesn't work on manual selection.
Upvoting this... I am in the same boat as everyone else here who feels like Fitbit really needs to fix this!! We need HR while swimming without having to do “workarounds” to make it happen.
It is misleading selling charge 3 with a swim function when it does not track heartbeat.. it tracks swim lengths and keeps time.. But that’s not much better than a 1980s Casio.. I bought this thinking my heart rate would be monitored during a swim. Plus if I do the strap up tight. set excercise to run(while swimming)
and check my heart rate at the end of each lenghth, so wrist out of water.. it tracks heart rate well enough for me to know and feel I’m in cardio zone.. Still super disappointed. Fitbit didn’t give sufficient info in charge 3 marketing about swim functionality..
Not sure I understand the purpose of turning off the heart rate tracking while swimming. This is a fitness and activity tracker that advertises "24/7 heart rate monitoring" - so do it.
I need the heart rate monitor to track me when I swim. Fitbit needs to make a plan. I bought the Versa -they said u can swim with it. ☝🏻 Would any reasonable person think that it would not track your heart rate ?
I add my vote to having HR while swimming (as well as laps/times summary in phone app).
My Versa had been showing a HR summary display on the phone app for swimming using auto-recognize but, as noted very recently in a couple of other forums, is no longer displayed.
Its fine to have a stated caveat that HR measurement inaccuracies while swimming are common and expected. Perhaps with additional data it’ll be better understood what those inaccuracies are, what should be expected, and how better measurements might eventually be made.
I, too, called Fitbit yesterday because of the same claim where auto swim no longer displays the heart rate info. This is very disappointing. I changed from Charge 2 to Charge 3 because I wanted to see where my heart rate is during my swim routine. Even though it may not be completely accurate, it was nice to see the HR data. It seemed reasonably close for what I swim (higher with butterfly, lower with breast stroke, etc). Overall I was satisfied.
Now witbout it, I see no value for having this device. I do not worry about the calories, the distance (I already know), and the time duration (I also know it). Those numbers are usually inaccurate anyway. The calorie calculation is so poorly done. The distance varies each time even though I swim the same number of laps. I always look at time when I start and when I get out of the pool. Time is usually 3 to 5 minutes off. Despite all the faulty data, I was still okay with it because it gave the heart rate info. So, now what? Fitbit, please give it back..
I especially waited for and bought the charge 3 to track my HR while swimming. Such a disappointment that it doesn’t do that. And that I had to find that out after buying it and using it (in the pool). Why make a tracker water resistant when it doesn’t do the most important thing?
The swim algorithm is clearly very primitive. I am a beginning swimmer & it took me a while to realize that it was calculating my swim distance based on the pool length it assumed (25 m), which was nowhere near the length of the pool I was swimming in. It seems the algorithm should at least be smart enough to alert me that I should check my settings. Because there is no way someone of my height/weight should be able to swim the distance calculated in the time I was swimming. I just wish Fitbit wouldn't advertise software & hardware features and not deliver as advertised. I need to see my heart rate when I swim and Fitbit needs to know that to accurately know my resting heart rate. Very frustrating.
We're always striving to enhance Fitbit products and services, and appreciate all of the input we receive from our customers. We do not currently have plans to release this feature. You can learn more about how Fitbit decides what suggestions get releasedin our FAQs. For now, we will leave this suggestion open for votes (and closed to comments) so that we can continue to track community demand over time.
Thanks for taking the time to share your feedback with us and we will let you know if anything changes.
Hi @bgwg, thanks for taking the time to share why you would like to see this option on your Fitbit. This feature suggestion already exists, so I’ve moved your posthere. Learn more about how Fitbit decides what suggestions get released in ourFAQs. I hope to see you around.
Very disappointing to hear that Fitbit has not made any progress to develop the software that will enable heart rate monitoring during swim mode.
Ive reached out to customer service 4 times in the last 18 months and was told that their engineers haven't even looked into this issue yet. This puts Fitbit at a huge disadvantage in this competitive market.
Please please allow me to choose whether or not I see heart rate data from my swim on the charge 3! Even if it is potentially inaccurate as long as I know that it would be a really helpful option. Please
Hi @Macaj, thanks for taking the time to share why you would like to see this option with Fitbit. This feature suggestion already exists, so I’ve moved your post here. While we don’t currently have plans to release this feature, we always appreciate the passion and creativity that comes out of this Community. Since we know this idea is important to many of you, we have left voting open to continue tracking interest and will post another update if anything changes. To learn more about how Fitbit decides which suggestions get developed, visit our FAQs.
At the moment with the swim data there is no heart rate only totals of meters, lengths, calories, active time and average 100m time for a more accurate calorie burn the heart rate must be considered surly has some lengths will be faster hence higher heart rate and some slower for recovery
Hi @geoffsVersa2, thanks for taking the time to share why you would like to see this option with Fitbit. This feature suggestion already exists, so I’ve moved your post here. While we don’t currently have plans to release this feature, we always appreciate the passion and creativity that comes out of this Community. Since we know this idea is important to many of you, we have left voting open to continue tracking interest and will post another update if anything changes. To learn more about how Fitbit decides which suggestions get developed, visit our FAQs.
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