Sense heart rate monitor is not accurate

[blenderbender]

I've been feeling the heart rate monitor is way off on my Sense and just proved it today pitting it against my Polar chest strap monitor. It's way off (low) over 15% on the way up and though the difference is less on the way down it's still significant. Is this usual and is it anything that can be addressed? I should have known, paying more for all the silly bells and whistles and the most important feature isn't even close to being accurate. Who gives a flying ____ about nighttime skin temperature.

Moderator edit: updated subject for clarity.

[Dldkfbeofnfbf]

Just had a training 🏋️ Session using sense and my average pulse was 98 😂 After that i had a shower with an average pulse of 115. this is, by the way, the expected value for „after burning“. My charge 4 always Hit the Right value under all conditions when i double checked the heart rate with other devices. I used it for years. And Charge HR was always reliable too. Therefore I will return it.

[rmms]

I just got my Sense a few days ago.  Right off the bat I noticed that my heart rate was showing 84 94 98 93 91, it was jumping all over the place.  I have been using an inspire 2, no telling how accurate that is, but I see a big difference between what my pulse is wearing the Sense verses the Inspire.   The Sense seems to show my pulse going from 72 to 112 when I'm really not doing anything but walking a few steps.   I bought it off Amazon and think I'll be getting a refund and sticking with my Inspire until it dies. 

[FabriceB]

Well, more than a year later, I can only say (as a new Fitbit Sense user) that the HR measurement on this device is still absolutely useless. While I observe that many users report too low values vs other more reliable/proven devices, my experience while running is that the Sense gives me in average a rate at least 20 beats higher than what it actually is...

[DaveDi]

I currently have a LifeFitness E1 elliptical which has a heart rate monitor with a chest strap. My old Ionic was always within 1-2 BPM, but my new Sense always reads 10-20 BPM lower. I've been doing intense aerobic workouts for more than 30 years with Polar monitors, as well as machine integrated monitors. I have a pretty good general sense of where my heart rate is, and the Sense is nowhere near accurate. When I'm huffing and puffing and the Sense is reading 100 BPM, there's no way that's right.

[PaulMe]

Was on a current model TechnoGym  cross trainer yesterday, and the Sense HR tracked within 1 or 2 beats/min of the HR monitoring on the cross trainer. I consider the Sense quite accurate for moderate workouts, but I guess there are units with varying accuracy.

[IgorR11]

I think yours is the only fitbit sense that has this margin, it was lucky hehe...

But you don't have to look far to find several complaints that started since the launch of fitbits top of the line. I consider fitbit sense the catastrophe of smartwatch's.

[PaulMe]

The Sense and also my former Ionic  tracked well with the HR on my Omron blood pressure monitor. Perhaps I am Just lucky. 😀

[matthiaskramer]

My Sense is inaccurate about 10-20% of the time during higher intensity exercise. It is extremely frustrating. Thinking about returning.

[Sweta12]

I swear my versa 2 reads better during exercise than the sense 😒

[ScottIowa]

My story starts with the HR working fine for several months. I got the Sense for Christmas and was really excited to get it. Then it started going wacky after heavy exercise. The rate climbed and stayed high even when resting. You could take it off and a few minutes later put it back on and it would still read way high. It took a soft reset  to get it back to normal. After several episodes of this a complaint to Fitbit got an instruction sheet that was useless. Then the next reply was soft reset which only works for a little while. The next reply was a factory reset and a promise they were working on a solution that would be included in a software  update and a firmware update. That was a month ago. Yesterday’s response when I said either give me my money back or replace it if you could not give a definite fix timeline was we closed your complaint so start over or check the community boards. I have seen nothing on these boards from Fitbit about the issue. It also seems that many of the threads on this subject are no longer visible. It may be they were just older and moved down the list. In any case as someone said it is frustrating. I have stopped wearing it as it irritating to see it when it goes off on its own. 

[Iris2680]

Yes I do agree and am also very disappointed with Sense. The MPVA is so hard to clock compared to versa lite and ionic. My country has a Challenge which rewards us 80 healthpoints if we reach 30 MPVA in a day. It is so easy to hit the target when I wear lite with my everyday activities. However with Sense I really had to jog 30 mins just to hit that level. Really useless watch and paying such high price compared to Versa Lite! 

[ScottIowa]

The latest as of this afternoon I had a chat that said they were still working on the issue and if they replaced mine with another it would have the same problem. Yet they are still selling the Sense. They told me to request a refund from where it was purchased or wait until it is fixed. And they will not give you any timeline  for the solution. Very disappointed and not what I expected from Fitbit. 

[IgorR11]

I've been reading about it for a year and no correction.

[MarkMM]

@IgorR11 The original complaint thread that got to be around 20 pages long, was started around September 2020. There have been complaints ever since the Sense and Versa 3 came out. 

[IgorR11]

I participated in it and they marked it as solved, but we all know that nothing has been solved!

[rmms]

And another thing.  The step counting on the Sense is flaky.  Yesterday I looked at it and it said I walked 5100 steps in .82 miles.  That can't be.  I wasn't doing any kind of activity with my arms or body that should have triggered extra step counting.   I rebooted it and this morning it says I took 1,377 steps and moved .11 miles.  What is going on?   I tried changing the App to dominate wrist even though I am wearing on non-dominant wrist  and that seems to help but on several occasions it still tracks that steps way more than it should.   I also reboot it when it appears to be flaky and that hasn't seemed to help.  

[matthiaskramer]

Since this post, my Sense device fails to accurately track my heart rate every single time I use it. This is not only inconvenient, but it’s dangerous! Think of how many people are riding bikes on busy trails and are distracted by having to constantly check to see if their defective devices are working. I think it is complete BS that Fitbit doesn’t do anything to rectify this problem. It’s only a matter of time before someone gets seriously injured because of this defect.

[matthiaskramer]

I just had yet another bike ride where the Sense worked maybe half the time. what the **ahem** is FitBit going to do about this?

[hawk.welder]

My versa2 does not report correct heart rate.

Took a stress test yesterday and had a peak HR of 151. 

Versa2 reported a peak of 109. I trust the cardiac center had the correct number.

Heart rate on my Versa2 is totally useless.

Maybe it is time to get an Apple watch?

[Rufous44]

Sad to say but any 10 dollars HR sensor nowadays is more accurate than Fitbit's