Illogical resting hear rate algorithm?

[Muscatrunner]

I cannot understand how my resting heart rate is calculated. When I wake in the morning my Sense often gives an average resting bpm higher than any reading during the night! My calculation of the average might be 48 with a high of 54 yet Sense claims it is 56. What is going on?

[Gr4ndp4]

Hi, @Muscatrunner, welcome, you may find useful advice in this article How do I track heart rate with my Fitbit device? 

I hope this is helpful.

Cheers

[Muscatrunner]

Thanks for taking the time to reply. However none of the links cover this question.

[LZeeW]

@Muscatrunner   It's very hard to review a graph and estimate what your resting heart rate should be.  Your daily heart rate graph shows an average heart rate over a five minute interval, so the data is smoothed out.  Your sleeping heart rate graph show an average over a one minute interval, but it only represents part of your at rest data.  But your Fitbit actually collects beat to beat data (this is the basis for the irregular heart rhythm notifications).  Your resting heart rate is estimated from data that is collected from all periods throughout the day when you aren't moving and considered to be at rest.

I hope this helps.

[Voldemoo]

Thanks for this reply. I've spent the last 3 years yelling at my resting heart rate numbers for not being anywhere close to the nighttime graph numbers. Why doesn't Fitbit explain this officially??? My Huawei tracker very clearly states how they arrive at resting heart rate. Fitbit doesn't, and the disagreement between the two graphs makes it seem they can't get their story straight.

Again, thanks.

[t.parker]

@Voldemoo Fitbit mentioned somewhere (one of the help pages, can't recall now) that their resting HR is calculated with a proprietary algorithm. Whatever it is mind that resting HR is not the same as minimum/lowest HR. Resting HR is an average HR from times you make no significant movement. Fitbit claimed several times that they do it slightly differently (from competitors) and their algorithm takes into account daytime HR as well as nighttime. It will include nighttime when you're motionless but also will include daytime when you are sitting still when the watch detects very little motion. The problem is that despite we know what resting heart rate is we have no clear definition of what "resting" means so different companies take a different approach (Garmin includes only nighttime as "rest" is considered when you resting/sleeping and being 100% motionless, Fitbit takes daytime into account etc.). When I'm typing this comment, Fitbit may consider me "resting" while Garmin does not. This also explains why my Fitbit resting HR is a few beats higher than Garmin's (Fitbit will consider more moments of rest with higher HR than only during nighttime). It's all about what "rest" means. Fitbit is very secretive about its methodology so my explanation in a big part is just an educated guess (and experience with using the platform). One thing I'm sure about is that minimum HR is not the same as resting HR.

[Muscatrunner]

Many thanks to you all for your thoughts. I realise that the trends matter more than a 1-3 bpm difference to what I expected from the graph.