Heart rate zones alert feature

[kingtut1975]

 Many fitness enthusiasts and individuals of whom base their workouts on target heart rate zones would really appreciate a heart rate alert feature implemented into the new Fitbit Ionic as well -if possible ALL Fitbit watches. This feature would allow a Fitbit user to manually set their Fitbit watch to alert the user once their targeted maximum and minimum heart rate has been achieved while performing a workout. Â The watch would vibrate on the user's wrist alerting the user when their selected heart rate has been accomplished or met allowing the user to more cater their workouts to stay within a selected threshold. Â Implementing this feature will also serve well as a safety feature which can alert the user when their calculated heartrate is dangerously high or above the maximum threshold that they set enabling the user to adjust their workout accordingly. Â Some Fitbit users I can imagine and many other individuals have cardiovascular/heart related issues which prevent them engaging in a workout that is too intense therefore a heart rate alert feature implemented into the new Fitbit Ionic would make the watch more marketable to the present customer base, a broader audience of fitness enthusiasts, and desirable to a whole new market of individuals of whom have cardiovascular/heart issues and will really appreciate a heartrate alert feature implemented into their fitness/activity trackers. Overall, implementing this feature will likely increase popularity of the watch, increase revenue, and appeal to a wider range of individuals that are taking steps to improve their health through daily workouts but are limited to what they can do due to cardiovascular/heart concerns. Â Implementing this feature can likely be as simple as have software engineering add it to a software/firmware update which will allow it to perform identical to the silent/vibrating alarm feature already included in most Fitbit watches anyhow.

Moderator edit: updated subject for clarity, format & labels.

[gravax]

Any chance Fitbit could get sued if somebody goes into cardiac arrest for exercizing with a fitbit and not getting warned that they are going too high?

Just thinking that some pressure may help...

[Admasj1]

Customizable heart rate maximum notification on Blaze when set maximum heart rate is reached. This is very desired if you are trying to stay at a preferred performance heart rate without unknowingly going over. This setting wouldn't have to enabled at all times. You can enable this for the duration of any exercise activity. Limiting this to only exercise activity duration should only be used if this negatively impacts the battery life if left on at all times. Please take this request with some priority as this would only require a software update to implement. I would be more than happy to Beta/QA test this as well.

[marsal64]

Hmm, I need HR zones too. Why Fitbit had not added them?

[Hl7engineer]

Just another example of frivolous law suits, imho. There are other companies providing HR zone and max heart rate alerts.....the key term bring alerts and not warnings such as a medical device provides. Also medical devices go through a certification as a medical device type product which a simple exercise tracker does not. That said, the case will get tossed out because Fitbit is clearly not a medical device and does not hold medical certification that would portray the Fitbit device to be a medical device product. That doesn't mean that an activity tracker has no useful purpose if it does provide HR alerts for workout zones and/or max heart rate. As long as it used as a tracker and not as a medical device.

I did a head to head Fitbit Blaze vs Mio Alpha/iCardio. I have used the Alpha and iCardio app for several years finding it mostly accurate during vigorous exercise, to a level one would reasonable expect from tracker type product. The iCardio app provides zone and max heart rate alerts. The results in my tests were both trackers, Blaze and Alpha, must be worn on the inside of the wrist, where the skin is thinner. That alone increases accuracy. Also they both need to be worn fairly snug. Doing those two things resulted almost identical average HR and maximum HR. Calorie burn was also almost identical. Zone percentages were almost identical as well. Frankly, I don't think it could get any closer wearing two different systems on different wrists. As far as overall accuracy, "no" neither are as good as a certified medical device which counts every beat, real time. Trackers take an average reading, every one second in exercise mode and an average reading once every 5 seconds in tracking mode, but this is still useful data both during workouts and during daily activities. Let's just not confuse or try to compare a fitness tracker to a medical device product. I find the max heart rate alert useful and let's me know to easy off. Some folks like to manage workouts in strict zones, so I understand zone alerts would help guide their workouts. For myself, I often found myself working in the border of two different zones so began getting an alert every few seconds. I turned off the voice zone alerts finding them distracting or anoying. I found the Mio Fuse has the best zone alert method. The Fuse has an LED that changes colors to signify what zone you are in during a workout. This was better than voice or vibration alerts.

Moderator edit: Removed email signature.

[TheFlamingOnion]

I still would prefer a vibration alert verses having to look or hear for an alert.  

[Radiator]

Yes! Please add this functionality! It would be a killer feature in the Charge and Surge's market segment.

[AngelaMa]

Fitbit trackers are not intended to provide medical or scientific data

[Fezsan]

Angela

Thank you for you feedback, but in fact my Fitbit saved my life twice and these stories I shared directly with your head office


Cheers
Fez

[hamstermania]

I would love this feature, but they aren't responding anymore, so I think the answer is 'NO'.

What would be a good alternative to the fitbit Surge HR that has heart monitoring alarms?

Is there any way to fake/hack this? with an external mobile application or something?

[Hl7engineer]

The Mio Fuse has the best HR alert system that I have seen. Problem is the Fuse is not accurate on just about everything else you want to track or at least the one I had. Plus my dog found it a tasty treat. Something in the materials dogs love. The Mio Alpha is very accurate linked to the iCardio app. The iCardio app has HR alerts for both HR zones and max HR...This is a nice solution. But only does workouts and not all day tracking.

[CalinP]

Very disappointed in Fitbit functionality

when, but when..... will you implement this? its not a priority and highly requested function?, is the phone not able to offer this function?

Heart rate alarm is a basic function, anybody who purchases a heart rate monitor expects this!. it's insane that other cheeper options offer this function.
i have bought this product (actually 3 units) more than a year ago and i still have not seen any progress in this. My dad had a heart bypass and i was so frustrated when we received the watch and it would not offer this function.

It's sad to see superficial and minor updates on the cell app and watch, but nothing done in this highly requested feature. I wonder who assigns priorities for development inside Fitbit.

[Narrabeen2101]

I too would like HR alarms, a max and a min to set a training zone. Also would like to see a fit it response. Lots of ideas here but no appreciable action anywhere

[Froog]

  This would be such a cool feature. 

 I exercise regularly, but also suffer from menieres disease -- so need to monitor my heartrate

 and avoid high-stress conditions -- else --  severe vertigo ..  

Please , please, please,   consider adding this feature soon !! 

[Clbelliveau]

I too agree. I oils love to have this feature added!

[Potato_fritta]

+1 vote please!

[amdeflu]

Please add this feature!

[Borisjohnson]

Really starting to wonder why I bought a FitBit; every feature I've googled was asked for years ago and there's been no response, no feedback and no feature.

What should I replace my Fitbit Surge with?

[DWStone]

Good point. Why buy another Fit Bit

I think Fitbit knows their heart monitoring is substandard! My experience with surge is not good. When I start to exercise and squeeze the watch up my arm per instructions my heart rate goes from 89 to 140 in two minutes. Totally not possible. Using the machine heart monitor said it was 103 which I would believe.

Heart alerts will eliminate their poor design they have not intention of improving.

Fitbit is fashion not function performance as seen by their lack of willingness to ever address our concerns.

Sent from my iPhone

[Dave333]

+1 Definitely an essential feature for millions potential customer with many chronic diseases such as Myalgic Encephalomyelitis and Severe Autoimmunity where P.O.T.S(Tachycardia Syndrome) requires close HR monitoring 24/7 ...Many Thanks

[Couttsie]

Yes please. Trying to run aerobic only (part of MAF training) would love an alarm on charge hr that would tell me when out of zone. It would need to be custom zone as well though.

[bennyk]

+ 1 for this feature...vital for MAF training ....please Fitbit!

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[PatBangkok]

Vibration might throw off the heart rate sensor. Add it as an option on the Cue should be really simple. I'm really pissed my buddy using Garmin is telling me to switch camps because of this missing feature on my relatively pricey Blaze. Can it be in the next app version?

[cappacoo]

Please add an alert that indicates when a person's heart rate moves in and out of different zones.

I purchased the Blaze watch for the heart rate feature.  I want to start training using the MAF aerobic method, championed by Dr. Maffetone and Mark Sisson of the Primal Blueprint.  To do this method successfully, one needs to stay under 180 - your age.  This is rather low, which makes it easy to stray over that number of heart beats and not realize.  Until this feature is added, I can not use the watch for the purposes I had intended.

Thanks!

[DWStone]

Fit bit has no interest us who want to monitor our heart rate. I'm saving my money to get a garmin. I've given up on Fitbit as you can see with the blaze. Sad

Sent from my iPhone

[LarryMiller]

I would also like the Heart rate zone alarms