Should the heart rate displayed on the Versa4 screen be immediately updated?

[Inadorel]

I have a Versa 4 which I use to track my heart rate during and in recovery from exercise to try to improve my general fitness (i.e. how quickly my heart returns to its resting rate).

I have noticed that immediately during exercise it is hardly shifting away from my resting rate even though I am sweating and a bit breathless, but then some indeterminate period later (anywhere between a minute and half an hour), the display catches up.  So in other words I can have a reading of 75 when I am out of breath and can feel my heart thumping, and a reading of 130 half an hour later when I am completely recovered.

Is this a normal feature of the device?  Does the heart rate displayed on the screen come straight from the sensor (in which case I would have thought it should be immediate), or is it doing a round trip to either the phone or a backend server somewhere (in which case I suppose that would be the delay).

[Jigger5]

I see many users reporting erroneous heart bpm readings.

I had a versa1 up until last week. It seemed to mostly read correctly. Now with Versa4, I can barely go above 95. Jogging uphill, same thing. Sometimes, it might got 120 only for a couple of seconds. I did 2x 8km walk yesterday and only got 20 active minutes.

[Guy_]

Hi @Inadorel @Jigger5 - as you and others have noticed the heart rate can be quite erratic during exercises, and can vary from the real heart rate in the ways reported.

Mine can read double at times but is more accurate at rest, for sleep.

Heart rate on the watch is in real time, as it can work without a phone.

It can also vary depending where on the watch you are looking (clock face, Today app or exercise). It may possibly work better when Bluetooth is off so it can concentrate on measuring only.

[Inadorel]

Thinking about it, you are obviously quite right because the rate shown (on the watch face which is what I glance at while exercising) shows regardless of whether the phone is in range or not.  I will try disabling Bluetooth completely and see whether it improves matters.

What I am seeing (and what makes the device pretty useless for what I bought it for) - is that immediately after exercise I can manually take my pulse and it is at 135, but the Versa is showing 80.  This means that I can't use it to monitor recovery times.

My experience as yours is that it works well enough when I am sitting at my desk or sleeping - it just seems to be the exercise that it doesn't record accurately in real time.  The very weird thing is that quite often the exercise is reflected on the watch face - only it happens retrospectively so that half an hour after I am sitting down resting again, the watch suddenly spikes and shows exercise like heart rates even though a manual check shows that I am at my resting rate.

[Guy_]

@Inadorel - the new HR sensor introduced on the Sense and Versa 3 or later has a mind of it's own at times for real time measurements which can be worrying / annoying but as the results and calculations on the Fitbit app are sampled over time some of the oddities won't be recorded.

[Guy_]

@Inadorel - here's a side by side comparison

Red HR bottom left, Versa 4 left /Garmin Venu 2 Plus right which matches equipement

 

[Inadorel]

That is exactly the sort of behaviour I am seeing.  I am starting to regret having bought the Versa 4.

[Guy_]

@Inadorel - if you just got it, Fitbit have a 45 day refund policy or possibly authorised dealers too, some stores provide 14 to 30 day refunds