Issues with Strava and Fitbit syncing heartrate

[SunsetRunner]

Hi everyone. I got myself a Fitbit Charge 2 for Christmas. It's been good in some ways but there are definitely some problems that are affecting my enjoyment and making me question its uses. 

Strava syncing - what I want is for a ride upload to Strava from my Garmin Edge 520 (which syncs to Strava), to appear as activities on the Fitbit App (Android) and Fitbit Dashboard on my PC. This is not happening. I had an online chat with someone who suggested I remove the connection and re-add it. This has been done. I rode this morning about 7 hours ago and no data has shown up on Fitbit. It has never sync'd successfully. 

Heartrate - when I wear the Fitbit Charge 2 while on the bike, it seems to either not read my heart rate at all, or it is very low. i.e. This morning I was pushing it on the bike. My heart rate strap (for comparison) said 170 bpm and the Fitbit was reading about 100 which for me renders the function useless.

Other gripes are that it reads a very high number of steps and floors while I am out riding my bike, even though I have told it I am riding. This seems like a mistake as I can't see why you would want riding to count towards steps and floors?! 

Any advice would be gratefully received. Sorry for the brain dump! 

Moderator Edit: Updated Subject For Clarity.

[RobertoME]

Hello @SunsetRunner, welcome to our Fitbit Community! Nice to hear you got a Charge 2 for Christmas.

Regarding your first concern, I would recommend to give it another try to reconnect your accounts from scratch. I had the same issue when I connected Strava and it took three attempts until I finally get my data shared across the integration.

1. Log in to your fitbit.com dashboard
2. Click the gear icon on the top right corner
3. Click "Settings"
4. Click "Applications" on the left side
5. Click "Revoke Access" under the "Fitbit + Strava" app
6. Go to https://strava.fitbit.com/ and click "Connect" and follow the rest of the prompts to finish reconnecting your Fitbit and Strava accounts

Now about your heart rate, keep in mind exercises recorded in Strava will be synced to Fitbit as manually logged activities, but will not include GPS or heart rate data from Strava.

If your feel your heart rate is not accurate, perhaps playing whit its potion might help to improve the readings. Occasionally the tracker can have difficulty finding a signal, typically due to the tracker's fit. For example, wearing your band tightly may constrict blood flow in your wrist and affect the signal. We also recommend experimenting with how high you place the tracker on your wrist. When you're not exercising, wearing the tracker just above the wrist bone--as you would a watch--typically works fine. However, moving the tracker up a couple inches can be helpful during high-intensity exercises.

In your last concern I understand what you mean, however even when you are selecting cycling from your exercise shortcuts on your tracker, this function will be still enable and your tracker will keep reading these data. There are suggestions to remove this information from your Dashboard, which perhaps might be of your interest to join to this request. For more details review this suggestion: Option to remove steps earned when cycling.

Hope these tips be of your help and let me know how it goes with Strava.