Make Heart Rate Data export in Excel/CSV format

[Gypsylou]

Please add the heart rate data to the reports that can be downloaded/exported.  The ones for the activity and sleep are perfect but since I have a pacemaker I really need to have one to print out for my cardiologist showing how often I rise above the set pace.

Thank you

Mod edit: Title

[MapleHill]

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nikbarnz wrote:

...Please fast track access to detailed heart rate data.  It would be interesting to know how  often heart rate data is stored online - is it every minute? every 10 seconds?...

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Based on the long time this thread has been active and the numerous quantity of messages, I wouldn't hold my breath for the "fast track" LOL.

In my experience how often heart rate data is stored "depends". 

For example, for me, during the 24 hour period beginning at 12:00am on May 24, the Fitbit site stored 7776 records in their servers, with a minimum sample interval of 5 seconds and a maximum of 3135 seconds (the 52 minutes in the morning when I took it off to charge it and shower).  Including that red herring, the average is 10.97 seconds.   (85295 total seconds-3135 dormant) / 7775= 10.56 adjusted average interval.  If you look at the data they are mostly 5, 10, and 15 second intervals.

However, I recently purchased a Garmin Vivosmart HR, and found that its 24-hour sampling frequency is so seldom as to be useless.  To get frequent sampling, you must begin a running activity to turn on the LEDs and begin measuring heart rate.  So I start an activity in the morning and let it run for 23 hours before taking it off to charge.  Having learned that about the Garmin, I tried the same thing with the Fitbit Charge HR. (Just press and hold the button to begin an activity.)  Doing that radically changes what gets stored.

For example, using that technique, during the 24 hour period beginning at 12:00am on June 10, the Fitbit site stored 33,209 records in their servers, with a minimum sample interval of 1 second and a maximum of 3885 seconds (when I took it off to charge it).  Including that red herring, the average is 2.6 seconds (2.5 seconds adjusted).  If you look at the data they are mostly 1 and 3 second intervals.  That's a lot of data stored every day!  Even a quarter that much without starting an activity is a lot of data!

So.... If you want to verify this for yourself, you can access your data using the API Explorer provided by Fitbit at dev.fitbit.com.  And there is at least one other person who posts in these forums who has written code to download your data.  I myself have written a Windows program to download HR data, and you can learn more by checking out my bio.  For myself, I have a daily scheduled task which automatically retrieves the previous day's data and creates an Excel spreadsheet.

Garmin does provide the easy ability to download a .TCX file of an activity that includes heart rate data.  And you can use Excel to read that file, which is basically an .XML file, which Excel understands.  So that's more than Fitbit does.  However Garmin does not provide personal access to their API to access the data directly.  So it would be very hard if not impossible to automate the process. 

Fitbit is much better in that regard, in my opiinion.  They really do provide access to your data, if you use the right tools to get it.  Which is not to say they should not be providing the ability to easily download your HR data, which is, afterall, available for download from the Fitbit servers.  Even though I've solved the issue for myself, I also add my vote to add the feature to the dashboard.

Cheers,

Ravi  

[khagerty]

This feature would be great. All the data is there - one of Fitbit's great features over plenty of other watches is that is does record so frequently! - but it's not very useful in the small graph. I'd love to be able to better monitor my activity HR & recovery period.

[Tomjapan]

I strongly agree with this feature.

I was disappointed to find we cannot export heart rate data because I would like to analyze my heart rate data by myself.

I believe in the medical significance of constant monitor of heart rate.

If this feature would show up, many user would analyze their own heart rate data and they might find some important findings, which would make this device much more valuable. 

[Istoreyuk]

I am staggered at the lack of data export ability. Especially as I find help stating how to do it and it is not possible. Being able to export the visuals would be a great idea. I bought the Surge in part to have a continuous record of heart and sleep data.... What use is the lack of export if I wish to give this data to my Dr. Have to say that I am wishing I went with another company. High price for inadequate facilities.

[a82raald]

And yet another disappointment. I had my fitbit charge replaced twice (last one for an HR, customer service is good at least...), just to discover that the HR data visualisation in the app is really poor (why not the real time in the x-axis??), you cannot connect it with anything, such as the Runtastic app, and you cannot export the data to work with it. I'm definitely going for another brand when this one breaks after a few moths.

[trillliana]

Please make this possible!

[Orca]

Fitbit claims that the data they log are always available and property of the owner of the fitbit watch. Where are my hart rate data? These are my data so provide them as export or download as you promised on your website !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Do it now!

[VishD]

Hi,

I would request for a better Heart Rate Charting option.

Reason for the ask: I work out in short burst and so my heart rate is never at the peak for a long time. Due to the 5 minute average data point presentation at the moment, my heart rate never shows the actual figure, which is something I am looking for.

Request: If you can take a heart rate every 30 seconds or 1 minute and chart it, the output would be very beneficial in getting the results I am looking for.

Problems that Fitbit might have to consider: If the storage on the device is not too high, Fitbit might have to ask the users to sync more often, so that the data is not lost.

Benefits: Fitbit might see a reduction in the number of queries or concerns related to Heart rate inaccuracy.

The reason to reach to the above conclusion: The fitbit device is good and fairly accurate considering that it s worn on the wrist and not the chest, but the data always seems off since it considers the average of 5 minutes and not something every minute or twice a minute.

Regards,

Vishal Desai

[VishD]

If Fitbit feels that adding so much data can impact the performance of the feature, I would request an option to download the entire data in a .CSV format, so that users can chart it using some other method.

[D-train56]

I purchase a Blaze for HR monitoring. Its my HR and my data your advertise that but I cant get at it. The graphs on my iPhone are a joke  and have obviouse bugs in the display. The display in the dashboard is unusable. You have requests for HR data export going back 1.5 years so I guess that you dont care what the paying public think.

My blaze will be returned tomorrow and the only thing that I can say is I wont be coming back.

[SMC.Woodale]

Would be great to have this feature - currently using Surge and find the HR info very valuable.

I would like to build a data picture over time and cannot do this from the dashboard.

If it's my data - can I have it please?

[tgc]

I'm with a lot of other folks - I'm looking for HR data (continuous). I did the export and found absolutely nothing of interest to me. The one thing I was looking for wasn't there (HR Data). When it comes to fitness/health, this is the data you need. I found at least one review that said the Basis Peak does this best and the Fitbit was right up there - apparently not from an export perspective. Maybe they meant it was available in the open API - where is the open API?

Here is how the Basis Peak does it:

The data will be sent to the email address associated with your Basis account. The data available is calories, perspiration (gsr), heart rate, skin temperature and steps in minute increments.

If I were doing it over again I think I'd go with the Peak - this doesn't seem that hard and the graph can't be drawn without the data so lets fulfill the slogan - "Its my data".

[Istoreyuk]

I also want to export HR data. I bought the Surge model for training but mainly to monitor HR. My doctor would love to have the scroll over graphs as they show what we need.... I was sent a message telling me of software that can export the data...I set it up...not an easy task,,,but then had the data in list form....vast amount of data which I could convert to graphs, but only by filtering out a lot of the data....took a long time. The scroll over daily graphs are brilliant, but vurrently not exportable. This would be a big marketing plus Fitbit....think on that. As a half measure I screen capture the daily graphs of most interest....

[tgc]

What was the software to export the data?

[SunsetRunner]

I too would like to know more about the sofware.

[Istoreyuk]

ParseHeartRate2016

[mnovotny82]

Exporting the heart rate data would sure be beneficial for me and my cardiologist.  I suffer from a auto immune disease that causes my heart rate to drop below 50 bpm and also at times rise up to 130-150 bpm without cause.  We have been using fitbit's phone app to look at the charts, but downloading them and being able to print them for appoitments would be a better solution.  It would sure beat wearing a more expensive medical device and the fitbit has proven to be very reliable at reporting my heart rate when compared to hospital Pulse/Ox finger readers and blood pressure monitors that also report heart rate. 

[MapleHill]

Johnsn3:

I saw your post expressing interest the the program Istoreyuk mentioned.  Your profile is apparently set to prevent receiving private messages so I can't send you one.  Maybe they will let me post my email address, phr@maplehillsoftware.com, so you can send me an email requesting a free beta copy of ParseHeartRate2016.

Regards,

Ravi

[mpittman]

You can shoot a screen shot of the graph on your phone. That saves it to
your photos as a .jpeg. Then you can send them to yourself via email and
assemble them into a weekly page in Word or Power Point. I have the same
need and that is how I solved the problem.

Mike

Moderator Edit: Removed personal information.

[wedgerley]

Fitbit, in its lack of wisdom, Auto-Scales the data. That means no two
graphs match up, unless the moon and the stars lineup perfectly.

[futnuh]

I really want access to my detailed HR data.  As a hockey player, I'm interested in calculating my shift length and recovery time - all of which is apparent in the HR data.

[kesser]

I really like (liked) the Basis Peak because it was so user friendly for data downloads.  I would still be using my Peak if they had not had to recall them (battery issues).  So now I am back to looking at Fitbits but to see they have still not found a way to let the user download the heart rate data is very disappointing.   Is there any effort to add this feature?  It is not clear why Fitbit has been so slow adding this option.

[vmeiswinkel]

This really is a MUST. Many of us specifically purchase this tracker for the Heart Rate functionality. Honestly, if I had known I wouldn't be able to get reports of the data, I would have gone with another tracker. I love all of the other functionality and that I can see at least line graphs, but as this is a health concern for many, Fitbit, we would LOVE if you would work on this! 

[KSCubsFan]

It's been 2 1/2 years since this was first suggested and over 500 people have voted for it, so it's long past time for Fitbit to respond and allow all Fitbit users, not just premium users, to be able to export heart rate data into Excel or csv.  We paid extra for the heart rate function, so it's ridiculous to be able to export all the rest of our data except heart rate.

[priyan]

I would love that too.

But another thing I would like would be to overlay the graphs for different trackers. ie: the data can be graphed for a week of sleep and a week of heartrate and I would love to be able to put both of them on the same graphs to compare. I could do that in two seconds if I could export the data but not on the app itself.

My main reason for getting the Fitbit in the first place was to track my weak heart. Then when I go to the doctor I hold the phone up to him, he gets his big glasses on, and I show him all of the data screen by screen and then explain what it means. Kind of annoying. I'd love to be able to show him my HR asleep clearly compared to my HR awake clearly, and I sleep at different times of the day so he can't just look at am vs pm.

Right now the data just shows the hours or days of what your HR was. So I flip back and forth from sleep to HR, sleep to HR..