ChargeHR Heart Rate Data Export?

[marvin1337]

I'm currently working on my bachelor thesis as physical therapist at the MedicalSchool Hamburg, Germany. I'm working on my Bachelorthesis which is supposed to be: 
"A comparative study: Validity of Heart Rate Data measured by optoelectronic sensors and dermal electrodes."

I just bought a fitbit chargeHR and figured out i have a massive problem getting the heart rate data out of those files. After a workout i can download a *tcx file wich - using the ChargeHR - does not contain any GPS data (which is not my problem) but when i try to read the file to get my heart rate data it won't open probably and if i get it to open somehow it's usually empty or it only contains some text etc. without any heart rate data. At this point i can already see the data i need on the Dashboard as a graph showing which heart rate was measured in different times.

Do you know if there is ANY way to extract the heart rate data from fitbit in following (or simillar) style? maybe as *csv or even *xls since i have to analyse it using SPSS or Excel?

00:01:00	82
00:01:01	81
00:01:02	81
00:01:03	81
00:01:04	80
00:01:05	80
00:01:06	81
00:01:07	81
00:01:08	80
00:01:09	80
00:01:10	80
00:01:11	81
00:01:12	81
00:01:13	82
00:01:14	83
00:01:15	85
00:01:16	86
00:01:17	89
00:01:18	92
00:01:19	93
00:01:20	92
00:01:21	91
00:01:22	91

The way i write to you you might have figured out i'm not a native speaker, but I would really appreshiate if you could answer me! 

with kind regards,

Felix Staack

[JeremiahFitbit · Accepted solution]

You can use the Fitbit API to get the second-level heart rate data. See the Get Intraday Time Series endpoint documentation. Your app will need intraday access, which you can get for university-backed research. How to get intraday access

If you don't feel comfortable programming, you could use a product like Fitabase.

[marvin1337]

Thank you very much for your answer! I just wrote a contact mail to fitbase.com
When talking about product "like" Fitbase - do you implicate there might be another solution? I must confess i reall don't feel confortable programming 🙂

[JeremiahFitbit]

There are probably other products out there. I recommend Fitabase because many researchers have used it and its lead developer is active on this forum.

[marvin1337]

thank you! 🙂 
Do you know if it's possible to export the HR in 1sek or 5sek intervalls? As far as I can see this on Fitabase they do provide minute-data export?

[JeremiahFitbit]

The Fitbit API has heart rate available at the second level, though there may not be a measurement every second. I think Fitabase has it at the second level, but I'm not certain.

[marvin1337]

ok, so i'll hope for the best! 
But i still have one question left...when i finished a training-session in "trainingmode" and open it in my dashboard, there is a export as *txc option. When i download the *txc dokument it's alwasy empty - how can that be? Regards, Felix

[JeremiahFitbit]

TCX is a GPS data format. It's possible to fake trackpoints to export only heart rate in a TCX file, but Fitbit does not yet support this.

[marvin1337]

If I start the training session on my smartphone GPS is enabled - can I somehow sync the session with the chargehr? That way the file would be able to contain GPS data and therefore also the heartrate if exported?

[JeremiahFitbit]

Yes, if you do a Mobile Run GPS exercise, you will get heart rate data tied to the frequency of the GPS location (irregular time series).

[marvin1337]

okay thank you for your help. 

[mrmatt]

I also need this data for a personal project. I emailed api@fitbit.com many days ago but have not had a reply. The fitbit twitter support account says I need to post here to chase this up, can someone sort out my access please!

[JeremiahFitbit]

@mrmatt: I don't see a request from the email address on your Fitbit account. Please email api@fitbit.com again with your app's client id.

[mrmatt]

Thanks for sorting access out. I'm up and going analysing my HR data in excel.

[aarondcoleman]

@JeremiahFitbit Yes, Fitabase is pulling and exporting this at the second(s) level, but also 1, 5, and 15 minute rollups as well. For research inquiries shoot us an email, "hello" at fitabase.com

--Aaron

[RayBuckland]

The marketing material for my Charge HR keeps telling me that the data collected is MY data.

However, I cannot export the heart rate data without resorting to a 3rd party app, or developing my own solution using the FitBit API.

Please add heart rate data export to the Dashboard options.

[JeremiahFitbit]

@RayBuckland: This is the API support forum. Please make feature requests in the Feature Request forum.

[TDA]

@JeremiahFitbit That's a bit silly to record a run on a trendmill from the Fitbit app in GPS mode, just to get access to the heart rate data when exporting it in TCX format (and meaningless static location data).

Couldn't we simply export the heart rate data of our workouts?

There are several options here:

- [OK] if no location information, inject dummy data for the location in the TCX file

- [BEST] export as HRM like some competitors do (by Polar, but the format is open)

- [SO-SO] export as CSV (easy to implement)

[Rich_Laue]

What im haveing problems understanding is that you can just as easily record your your treadmill run using the treadmill mode and have the same access to your heart rate.

Second point i have a script in google sheets that uses the Fitbit API and today i got notifacation of the new commands to access my heartrate and dump.it into a sheet.

[TDA]

What treadmill mode?