SCUBA diving with Charge HR 3

d_thomas02

Just upgraded to the Charge HR3 and I have a SCUBA diving trip coming up in late Feb.

I know it has water resistance rating of 50m (150 ft) and recreational diving usually bottoms at 33m (100 ft).

I found a discussion on the Fitbit site, Scuba Diving, but the conclusions was ambiguous.

Has anyone actually tried it with the HR3 or any other Fitbit with a similar rating?

d_thomas02

Notes from my SCUBA trip to Cozumel, Mexico, Feb. 2019.

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My Fitbit Charge HR 3 which is advertised as water resistant to 50 meters (150 ft) is not happy with me.

Did a shallow checkout dive Sunday, the day I arrived in Cosumel, with no issues. It recorded heatrate etc. I do wear a neoprene wrist brace over the tracker to protect it from knocks and transient high pressures from swimming. Then Monday did two dives; the first to 80 ft and the second at 40 ft, again it recorded heartrate etc. with no issues.

Some time over night the display died, but the tracker is still funtioning and syncing with my phone so OK, I can live without the display. Did four more dives on Tuesday. 90 ft, 40ft, and then a twilight dive at 80 ft and a 50 ft night dive. With the exception on the screen, the tracker did its job.

Then again some time over night, in the wee hours of morning, it decides to stop syncing with my phone. I can tell the tracker still has some life in it. Green laser that measures your pulse is active and when you press the touch sensitive "button" it gives the vibration response to show it registered the touch. But other that the seven steps I took some time in the early morning hours, its not giving me anything.

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Funny thing happened after the first leg of my flight back to the states on Saturday. Arrived in Atlanta, made it through customs and still had time to get something to eat before starting my second leg. Logged my meal and noticed I had additional calories due to exercise. What?!?

My Fitbit linked once I had turned airplane mode off. Linked and downloaded ALL the info it had accumulated over the last week as I had continued to wear it 24/7 during the rest of the diving. Display is still not functional as of this morning (made it back home before the snows started, yay!) but I can live with that until the roads clear.

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Another funny thing happened today (Tuesday). Went to the big box electronics store where I bought my Fitbit to see about a replacement. Guy I talked to said that a lot of the HR3s were having issues with the display going black just like mine had, but since I was past the return with no questions date (30 days? 60 days? I didn't ask) I'd have to deal with Fitbit's customer service directly.

So I call the number the guy had given me, expecting the hurry up and wait game to start, but was answered quickly. Went through the normal handshake routine; name, phone number, what's the issue, repeats it all back to me, yes, good, OK, does green light on bottom work, yes, does it vibrate when I hit the button, yes, Ok, let's try a hard reset. OK, plug it into the charger and hold the button until the smiley face appears, 10 seconds or so... OK, sure, why not....

WHOA!!! The smiley face came one, and now I can see the display,... wait, there's a couple of pixels in the upper left that look out of place, OK, do the hard reset again, OK, why not. Yup, smiley is back and...

Yup, that did it. Display looks like it should. No need for a replacement at all.

Weird. Guess the pressure of the water at 90 ft caused the touch/display screen to hiccup. Still not sure what the deal was with the sync issue for a week but doesn't look like it was caused by water leaking into it. All of our phones were acting up strangely requiring us to restart them almost daily to reset some issue. Who knows? Just glad the Fitbit is working apparantly no worse for the wear of seventeen dives as deep as 90ish ft.