Custom maxHR gone?

[Liliacea]

Oh great. I was wondering why I get such crazy calorie burns. Turns out I can't set a custom maxHR anymore. Fitbit insists it should be 174. Mind you, it's actually 210! 174 is totally crap. That's a slower run for me. So basically you removed another useful functionality and basically made the fitbit useless for me. Thanks a lot. Please get the custom HR back.

[MrMarv]

@Liliacea -

Apparently, FitBit thinks you are 46 years old instead of 10.

The internationally accepted Max Heart Rate is calculated as 220 - age.

All of the Heart Rate Zones, whether the AHA zone calculator or even what I call "The trendy Heart Rate Reserve for Athletes in Training", use the same Max Heart Rate calculation.

That being said, the inability to set a personal Max Heart Rate has been reported and FitBit personnel have stated they are working on it.

In the meantime, you could change your birth date in your profile to reflect 2010, unless they will kick that out for being a minor not under a family plan.

[LZeeW]

@Liliacea   Did you have your maxHR estimated from maximal exercise testing?  I am familiar with several age based formulas.  I am not aware of a formula that would give a 46 year old a maxHR of 210.

That said, the numbers that Fitbit uses are for creating the zones.  The calorie burn equations are proprietary, but I have never had any indication that Fitbit uses your heart rate zones to estimate calorie burn during exercise.

Finally, I have v3.28 of the Fitbit app.  When I tap on my profile picture > scroll down to Heart Settings > I have the option to set a custom max heart rate and custom zones.  Which version of the app do you have?  Why do you think you have crazy calorie burns?

[Liliacea]

yes, obviously I know what approximately my maxHR is. Otherwise I'd not set it at 210. I know it's unusual, but not quite that unusual as some might think. According to a large metastudy on maxHR, about 5% of all people have such a big deviation of that stupid equation, either higher or lower.

So basically I now get massive calorie burns which are just not there.

[Liliacea]

 At the moment the app does not accept my custom maxHR. This function constantly switches itself off. I suppose the high calorie count stems from me being in the peak zone for about 45 minutes. Ha, my HR peaked out at 164, which was during a faster song and mostly stayed below 150. That's comfy dancing for me. Or a long, very slow run. Nowhere would I expect 650 calories for this, being a small, light woman.

[LZeeW]

@Liliacea   Please browse this thread , which discusses a similar custom max heart rate issue and see if it applies to you.  To be honest, I didn't read the whole thread.  A moderator said that the problem was solved.  Fitbit needs to know if this function doesn't work properly.

I searched the Fitbit Help articles and the Fitbit Blog regarding the custom heart rate zones.  I am confident that they are for your individual training.  I do not believe that Fitbit uses those zones to calculate calorie burn for a given period of time.

My background is in physiology.  Part of me just thinks your abilities exceed Fitbit's algorithms.

[MrMarv]

@LZeeW and @Liliacea -

@KateFitbit stated "at this stage, the issue should be resolved" and marked the thread "Solved" at the release of iOS 3.27. A little pre-mature, as many posted that it wasn't.

One, I repeat one,  post states it has been resolved at release 3.28.

Be aware, that depending on your device, you may also have to deal with a new heart rate zone formula matching that of the Charge 4 that is now being rolled out to the Ionic and Versa series - though it appears that the rollout is somewhat stalled be cause of "issues".

[Liliacea]

Thanks guys. I'll head over to the other thread, but seeing how rubbish Fitbit's customer service is I kind of have the feeling that they don't monitor that thread anymore as they posted a 'problem solved' a while ago.