HR on surge inaccurate on left wrist but accurate on right wrisr

[Cassw93]

I've been having trouble with my Fitbit surge as I wear it on my non-dominant left wrist and when I excercise at high intensity such as hiking where I know my HR is high the reading is rather low, not really going above 115bpm.  So I borrowed my boyfriends Fitbit surge which for him is very accurate and wore his on my left wrist and mine on my right wrist.  His Fitbit was showing to be extremely innacurate in my left wrist as well showing a really low HR for the workout I was doing.  But my Fitbit surge in my right wrist was seemed to be quite accurate with a high HR whilst doing a high intensity hike.  

Has as anyone come across something like this? Where the HR isn't picked up on one of their wrists?

[WendyB]

Welcome to the forums!

---

@Cassw93 wrote:

  So I borrowed my boyfriends Fitbit surge which for him is very accurate and wore his on my left wrist and mine on my right wrist.  His Fitbit was showing to be extremely innacurate in my left wrist as well showing a really low HR for the workout I was doing. Did you change the weight height etc on his? Because if you didn't of course it was in accurate. These things are very important as it goes by Gender, weight etc

 But my Fitbit surge in my right wrist was seemed to be quite accurate with a high HR whilst doing a high intensity hike.  

Has as anyone come across something like this? Where the HR isn't picked up on one of their wrists?

---

See above

[Kenn66]

---

@WendyB wrote:

Welcome to the forums!

---

@Cassw93 wrote:

  So I borrowed my boyfriends Fitbit surge which for him is very accurate and wore his on my left wrist and mine on my right wrist.  His Fitbit was showing to be extremely innacurate in my left wrist as well showing a really low HR for the workout I was doing. Did you change the weight height etc on his? Because if you didn't of course it was in accurate. These things are very important as it goes by Gender, weight etc

 But my Fitbit surge in my right wrist was seemed to be quite accurate with a high HR whilst doing a high intensity hike.  

Has as anyone come across something like this? Where the HR isn't picked up on one of their wrists?

---

See above

---

Quite new to this but have noticed that 20 - 25 minutes into exercise my HR reading on the surge drops to around 70 - 80 PPM from 130 - 140 (50yr old & new to exercise), when I have completed the workout and recovering it will return to a more realistic reading, this is also on my none dominant wrist, will try on the dominant one and compare.

[WavyDavey]

Hi @Cassw93,

I'd have to guess as to why that would be. It could be a difference in skin density between the right and left arms, or possible that during intense activity that one wrist is moving more than the other, which might cause signal dropouts on the heart rate monitor.

Since it seems your Surge works better on your right wrist, I'd wear it there during the kind of exercise you describe. There are two settings in the app, one for which wrist, and one for which hand is dominant. You might try some experimenting with different settings to see if one works best for you. I found wearing left with left dominance to be the most accurate, but I know others do fine on other wrist/dominance settings.

[Cassw93]

Thanks for that, I'll give it a go 🙂

[Cassw93]

Yeah give it a go.  It was driving me crazy when I was exercising and it was just showing a reading that I know couldn't be correct.  But when worn on my right wrist the bpm was around where I probably would have expected. I hope it helps you!