Accuracy of Fitbit charge hr heart rate monitor

[RoastieToastieReastie]

Just wondering how people find the accuracy of the heart rate monitor on this? I'm not convinced how accurate mine is. Sometimes I do a workout and I get a high maximum for cardio (yesterday maximum was 175) but then today I did body pump and felt my heart beating faster than normal and that I was working hard yet the reading was 76 when it felt like it would be higher.

I do workout DVDs about 5 times a week and consider myself fit-ish. According to Fitbit my resting heart rate is about 55-60. Maybe I just need to work harder to get a high heart rate! [clueless] but it feels like it should sometimes be higher than it is.

Mine has been pretty accurate. I was surprised by how low my resting HR seemed (54-56 a lot of the time) but when I was at the docs and they did it it was spot on (doc was also fascinated by this). I've got about 9 months of data now and mine consistently rises to 59-61 just before my period then falls again which also seems to make sense. Scarily when I had full blown flu the day I slept 19 hours it was in the fat burning zone for 50 minutes which also makes sense given I had a fever of over 39 and was very 'feverish' and restless when asleep!

I also thought I could feel my heart beating faster at times (sometimes in an evening watching TV randomly) but when I've checked on the Fitbit it's been at it's normal level so you might find that what you 'feel' isn't actually a higher rate.

I've tested mine a few times against my pulse (nerd) and I find it's scarily accurate.

Very interesting. I was doing body pump earlier (I haven't done it for three months due to injury and was using very light weights because of recovering from said injury but still felt like I was working hard) and looked at my heart rate and it said 67 and I couldn't believe it was so low when I was supposedly working out. Later on in another track it was 120 so maybe I felt like I was working harder than I was.

Have a look at the stats for the whole workout under the exercise bit - that will give you your average for the whole session and estimated calories burned etc. Are you setting the exercise tracker (press and hold the button on the fitbit) and stopping it at the end. Although it will manual detect a workout after a bit, doing that will let you see how quickly your heart rate picks up at the start.

My HR takes a while to rise if I just do weights but if i start with 10 minutes cardio it picks up fast - mine drops quite quickly between activities and sets (actually a good sign I believe) but if I'm putting in effort rises again on the next set. I can definitely see a difference depending on what weights/equipment I'm using too.

Well, here's the breakdown and it's a really low heart rate for a work out. I've cut t almost all weights for three months because of injury and finding with very light weights with pump I'm going a shaky during reps because I'm not used to it but I guess that should wear off quickly and hopefully I can work harder and increase the heart rate. I certainly felt like I was working harder than my heart rate suggested but maybe I'm thinking I'm working hard but actually not pushing myself enough.

If you want to really test if it's accurate during your workout stop whilst exercising and count your wrist pulse over 20 seconds then X by 3. Look at your fit bit and see if the figures match up. Do this at resting rate too to make sure it is accurate at rest. Then let us know the result!

I think I may well do that and let you know.

They have been tested with HR straps across the chest and fair pretty badly unfortunately.

I did a lot of research at Xmas and decided not to bother as both research and sports shops were saying chest strap accurate, fitbuts are a fad. As I already had a chest strap I left it.

If you search there is quite a bit online

Interesting (and annoying) ivy. I've got a chest strap monitor but it stopped working but I may see if it's just batteries then do a workout with both on and see what happens. It's a bad thing that this concept excites me so much isn't it