Your Fitbit fitness tracker might be lying to you
1–10 of 46 posts
Re: Your Fitbit fitness tracker might be lying to you
#2(The HN title has "might be" where the page currently has "is".)
> However Teresa Black, along with two other claimants, is arguing that her Fitbit reported a heart-rate of 82 bpm while her personal trainer recorded this at 160 bpm.
I find it somewhat hard to believe that you can be this oblivious as to your own heart rate, especially at high levels.
[Edit for personal anecdata] Also "approaching the maximum recommended heart rate for her age [...] may well have exceeded it, thereby jeopardizing her health and safety" seems a bit far-fetched - I'm not a small fellow by any means and I struggle to get my heart rate up to my max (~180bpm), much less over it[1]. My highest recent was avg.173bpm, max.184bpm for an illness-recovery 10km.
[1] Unless the Garmin HRM is having one of its moments where e.g. it claims I'm sustaining 250bpm for 4 hours.
Re: Your Fitbit fitness tracker might be lying to you
#3Optical HR monitors aren't that accurate. They are only useful if your analysing trends over time. People that buy these fitness trackers and expect medical level accuracy are either misled by deceiving marketing or not doing enough research.
Re: Your Fitbit fitness tracker might be lying to you
#4(The HN title has "might be" where the page currently has "is".) > However Teresa Black, along with two other claimants, is arguing that her Fitbit reported a heart-rate of 82 bpm while her personal trainer recorded this at 160 bpm. I find it somewhat hard to believe that you can be this oblivious as to your own heart rate, especially at high levels. [Edit for personal anecdata] Also "approaching the maximum recommen…
Agreed. If you're even just moderately healthy, you can't push your heartrate up until it spirals out of control and you sustain physical damage. What a silly notion. Still, the heart rate being off so drastically does justify at least a complaint - otherwise I could make a wristband that generates random garbage values in the range 70-180 and say it measures heart rate.
Re: Your Fitbit fitness tracker might be lying to you
#5Optical HR monitors aren't that accurate. They are only useful if your analysing trends over time. People that buy these fitness trackers and expect medical level accuracy are either misled by deceiving marketing or not doing enough research.
They can be accurate - In a static test I did the other day, the Charge HR reported the same* as the Garmin HRM, Withings Scales, and a finger pulse oximeter. It was within 5-10bpm of the Garmin on a 25 minute run after I'd adjusted the position according to their advice for exercise.
* they were all within 5bpm
Re: Your Fitbit fitness tracker might be lying to you
#6(The HN title has "might be" where the page currently has "is".) > However Teresa Black, along with two other claimants, is arguing that her Fitbit reported a heart-rate of 82 bpm while her personal trainer recorded this at 160 bpm. I find it somewhat hard to believe that you can be this oblivious as to your own heart rate, especially at high levels. [Edit for personal anecdata] Also "approaching the maximum recommen…
Agreed. If you're even just moderately healthy, you can't push your heartrate up until it spirals out of control and you sustain physical damage. What a silly notion. Still, the heart rate being off so drastically does justify at least a complaint - otherwise I could make a wristband that generates random garbage values in the range 70-180 and say it measures heart rate.
> a wristband that generates random garbage values
Oddly, the only HRM I've never (knowingly) had any spurious readings from was my Polar S625X (a decade ago.) Which may be because (IIRC) it had a much lower sample rate than the current Garmin.
Re: Your Fitbit fitness tracker might be lying to you
#7(The HN title has "might be" where the page currently has "is".) > However Teresa Black, along with two other claimants, is arguing that her Fitbit reported a heart-rate of 82 bpm while her personal trainer recorded this at 160 bpm. I find it somewhat hard to believe that you can be this oblivious as to your own heart rate, especially at high levels. [Edit for personal anecdata] Also "approaching the maximum recommen…
> Also "approaching the maximum recommended heart rate for her age [...] may well have exceeded it, thereby jeopardizing her health and safety" seems a bit far-fetched - I'm not a small fellow by any means and I struggle to get my heart rate up to my max (~180bpm), much less over it[1].
Hmm. I'm pretty overweight and can easily go over 180bpm if I'm not watching myself on the treadmill - 5 minutes at 10-11kph will do it.
Re: Your Fitbit fitness tracker might be lying to you
#8Optical HR monitors aren't that accurate. They are only useful if your analysing trends over time. People that buy these fitness trackers and expect medical level accuracy are either misled by deceiving marketing or not doing enough research.
They can be accurate - In a static test I did the other day, the Charge HR reported the same* as the Garmin HRM, Withings Scales, and a finger pulse oximeter. It was within 5-10bpm of the Garmin on a 25 minute run after I'd adjusted the position according to their advice for exercise. * they were all within 5bpm
They are mostly accurate. I use a Garmin Forerunner 235 and the average heart rate seems to be mostly accurate. I don't really pay attention to the absolute values though. It's only interesting to see how they change as I my fitness improves.
Re: Your Fitbit fitness tracker might be lying to you
#9(The HN title has "might be" where the page currently has "is".) > However Teresa Black, along with two other claimants, is arguing that her Fitbit reported a heart-rate of 82 bpm while her personal trainer recorded this at 160 bpm. I find it somewhat hard to believe that you can be this oblivious as to your own heart rate, especially at high levels. [Edit for personal anecdata] Also "approaching the maximum recommen…
I came here to say something similar. I truly find it hard to believe that people can't tell the difference between 82 and 160. Especially if you've been working with a trainer who would teach you to listen to your body!
Re: Your Fitbit fitness tracker might be lying to you
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
They can be accurate - In a static test I did the other day, the Charge HR reported the same* as the Garmin HRM, Withings Scales, and a finger pulse oximeter. It was within 5-10bpm of the Garmin on a 25 minute run after I'd adjusted the position according to their advice for exercise. * they were all within 5bpm
They are mostly accurate. I use a Garmin Forerunner 235 and the average heart rate seems to be mostly accurate. I don't really pay attention to the absolute values though. It's only interesting to see how they change as I my fitness improves.
And this is an important lesson the plaintiff's trainer should have stressed. The actual numbers aren't (quite) as important how quick they rise and fall as you push and rest.