Heart Rate Question

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thephonedude
thephonedude Posts: 13 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
I could use some help here please.. I have a Fitbit Charge HR AND a "run of the mill" chest strap heart rate monitor. My treadmill (Sole F63) supports direct input from the chest strap. While working out this morning I noticed a discrepancy on what the Fitbit was reporting for heart rate (avg of about 120 BPM) and what the treadmill display was reporting from the chest strap (avg of about 130 BPM). Im assuming that the chest strap is going to be the truer reading but just looking for confirmation and possibly an explanation on the differences?

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  • Superdave24
    Superdave24 Posts: 158 Member
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    I would tend to lean towards the chest strap being more reliable. I had the same question when looking into the FitBit. I came across an article that sampled a bunch of HR monitors. The final conclusion was that the chest strap was more reliable. I use a chest strap (Zephyr) and its connected to my Endomondo app on my phone. It works awesome. Good luck.
  • brianpperkins
    brianpperkins Posts: 6,124 Member
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    http://www.cnet.com/news/how-accurate-are-wristband-heart-rate-monitors/
  • Gus1908
    Gus1908 Posts: 1 Member
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    how can I use the Zephyr with MyFitnessPal?
  • dbucknerpeoplenet
    dbucknerpeoplenet Posts: 1 Member
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    Ever get an answer?
  • RoxieDawn
    RoxieDawn Posts: 15,488 Member
    edited June 2016
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    I have a F63 and this is incorrect. This heart rate doe not really do anything but put you in a zone while exercising and is way off base.

    Even the wrist HR is going to be inaccurate.

    Walking and running strides are not calibarated on either device. Your true V02 max is not taken into consideration on either device.

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/Azdak/view/the-real-facts-about-hrms-and-calories-what-you-need-to-know-before-purchasing-an-hrm-or-using-one-21472

    You can decide if you believe the F63 does more accuracy or not. I have tested this using the F63 strap and also Sole E25 elliptical and using Garmin and Polar HRM's.

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/Azdak/view/hrms-cannot-count-calories-during-strength-training-17698
  • autumnblade75
    autumnblade75 Posts: 1,660 Member
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    My Sole F80 chest strap sometimes sends data to the treadmill when I'm not even wearing it. My Fitbit records a handy graph I can look at later. The heart rate data from the treadmill's chest strap is only available during "RealTime" which is not particularly efficient for saving to look at later. What you want the data for is going to be relevant to your preferences in data collection methods. I had an experiment set up, whereby I was going to write down my heart rate during portions of my workout, to compare to Fitbit's graph, later - but before I could record a single data point, I accidentally brushed the pencil off the tiny ledge and sent it flying... and then I decided that the data I was collecting via Fitbit was probably good enough for me.
  • MeanderingMammal
    MeanderingMammal Posts: 7,866 Member
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    RoxieDawn wrote: »
    I have a F63 and this is incorrect. This heart rate doe not really do anything but put you in a zone while exercising and is way off base.

    Notwithstanding that this is a zombie thread, the question related to HR measurement, rather than calorie guessimation based on HR and/ or step counts.

    Whilst a chest strap HRM is recording based on electrical activity in the heart, and an optical HR measure is measuring movement of blood through the body, the increased accuracy of a strap is of limited value to most people. Material points relate more to sampling frequency, and indeed what one can do with the data after the fact.

    The ability to compare an HR trace with a GPS trace, and potentially a camera feed makes something that records the data far more useful than the near real time display from the machine.

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