Dashboard HR and Activity tracker HR

[steverog]

Riding up a large hill near my home, my Dashboard HR sits around 112 bpm. On Track Your Exercise there is a more accurate reading of around 180bpm. I feel that the latter is more accurate as l am working hard. Why doesnt my Dashboard register the real HR?

[steverog]

OK . That worked well, not a single response.

Perhaps l need to rephrase my question.

My HR on my Dashboard stays around 120 bpm even whell i ride hills. I am working hard and breathless.

When i look on the Activity Tracker, my HR is around 180 bpm which is a more accurate reflection of my effort. Why doesnt isnt this reflected on my RHR? am l missing something ? (apart from my hair cause l shave my head)

[Chris1963]

Hi.

I'm still not clear what you are asking? Sorry, I've had two coffees but still not getting it!  Are you asking whether the average daily RHR reflects peak HR or average HR during an activity? 

[steverog]

Ok. During heavy exercise the HR on my dashboard moves up to maybe 120bpm
This when lm riding up a hill. If l open the Activity Tracker its 180bpm.
Why is this reflected on the RHR dashboard?

[Chris1963]

I just looked at the tile on my dashboard and all it shows is RHR in line graph format on a day to day basis. no peaks, just a single RHR number for that day?   

[steverog]

Ok Chris bear with me.

Depending how you configure the icons on your dashboard one of th icons is a little BLUE figure in a running position. This represents weekly exercise. If you open this it shows you a number things such as HR. During intense cycling mine goes up to 180. But if l just look at the HR icon on the dashboard it doesnt go past 120. So at the same time one registers 180, the other which is the RHR on the dashboard is no higher than 120bpm. At the same time the Little blue person (being politically correct) is showing a HR of 180 bpm. Dunno, that is probably as clear as mud?

[Chris1963]

Oh, you're using the Windows app not the dashboard via www.fitbit.com? Now I found the little blue person!

On the RHR chart I think what you are seeing is a profile of your average daily RHR. Ok thats fine. Are you then clicking on the daily list on the right ? What you then see is a track of that day and yes on mine it doesn't show a peak of say 180 when my activity says otherwise. 

I think what is happening is that RHR is only measured when you are deemed to be resting - ie inactive - if you are clearly exercising that is not included for the RHR algorithm. 

I take it with a pinch of salt anyway - my RHR take just after waking before getting out of bed (which is the best time to get it) is around 55. My Fitbit RHR has never been lower than 63 (cos I guess it included couch time etc) but when I look at the lowest HR recording during sleep it has dropped to 48.

So in a nutshell it is a different calculation - you can't include active time in a RHR algorithm as it would distort it too much.

Does that make sense? 

*Oh, I suspect the averaging is less frequent for RHR than an activity when it is every second - so it may also miss a peak anyway even if I am wrong about the sampling.

[Chris1963]

For some reason I cant paste the link but look at  https://help.fitbit.com/articles/en_US/Help_article/1565 where they attempt to explain how it is measured....

[RobertoME]

Hello @Chris1963 and welcome aboard to our Community @steverog. I was around in the community and I noticed your question about the difference between your exercise tile and the Heart rate tile. I'm agree with the explanation of @Chris1963, which by the way thank you for all the help.

Indeed, the heart rate on your exercise details is the BPM you achieved during your exercise. While you have connected your Surge it will shown in real time your BPM, otherwise it will only display your resting heart rate. For better details of your heart rate you need to access specifically to your exercise page or have a look on your web-based Dashboard that display your heart rate peaks for the day. Actually the link of the help article shared above, it will provide you more information about this.

Hope this helps and let me know if you need more help.

[steverog]

Cheers mate. I think l got it. Your response is what l suspected. So even
during exercise the Dashboard only measures RHR. The little blue person
does actual bpm. That makes sense looking at the numbers. Like you l take
it with a grain of salt. My RHR is trending up despite an increase in
activity.

[Chris1963]

I found my RHR goes up after long cycle rides although the long term term trend is down - although my HRR is good (185 to 105 in two minutes) I dont get back to the 60's for quite a few hours afterwards so I guess when I'm on the sofa I'm logging RHR when in fact I'm still in recovery. 

Thing is I guess nothing is going to be spot on, all estimates but if they show trends I'm ok with that. I use a chest strap during cycling as there is no way the optical monitor keeps up.

[CindyFitbit]

@steverog I'm glad to hear that all the info kindly provided by @RobertoME helped you!  @Chris1963 many thanks for sharing your experience here! 

I encourage both of you to join us at Discussions board, there you can be inspired, find some tips to get moving, eat well, manage weight, sleep better, live mindfully and more! Give it a look!