Accuracy of Fitbit with hr monitors

shedding60
shedding60 Posts: 73 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Does anyone use one of the fitbits with the built in Hr monitor? Im curious to know how accurate they are. I currently have a fitbit flex and also use a polar hr monitor when I work out, but I hate that damn chest strap and would like to get rid of it if I can. I've read some techy reviews but I'd really like some real world reviews.

Any experiences would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Replies

  • KiwiAlexP
    KiwiAlexP Posts: 186 Member
    I check mine periodically against another app and yesterday manually took my pulse but can only check resting - it seems to be all good within a few beats.
  • KimmyJaneTD
    KimmyJaneTD Posts: 43 Member
    I base my calorie intake off my fitbit hr. It's been perfect. Still losing 2lbs/week. No need to guess mfp excerise calories. HR monitor picks up every thing as far as I can tell
  • 6502programmer
    6502programmer Posts: 515 Member
    It depends. HRM Is not a panacea for calorie burn measurement. It will probably be better than estimating based on activity, but it's only really in its element for walking, running, elliptical, cycling, or any other "steady state" cardio. If you're trying to measure burn for most sports, or weightlifting, or swimming, it won't work well, and you're better off estimating your burn instead.

    I love mine, and have found it quite accurate and feel it instrumental in my weight loss.
  • Christine_72
    Christine_72 Posts: 16,049 Member
    KimmyJaneTD wrote: »
    I base my calorie intake off my fitbit hr. It's been perfect. Still losing 2lbs/week. No need to guess mfp excerise calories. HR monitor picks up every thing as far as I can tell

    Do you eat ALL of your exercise calories back?
  • VykkDraygoVPR
    VykkDraygoVPR Posts: 465 Member
    I've been testing my Blaze for the past couple of weeks. The overall calories seem to be exagerrated, but the actual exercise burns seem accurate enough. My problem is that it overestimates my active minutes. On active days, it's telling me to eat about 3k calories. I lose weight at that rate, but not at the projected 2 lbs per week.

    That said, working out three times last week, eating 2k calories each day, I lost 1.5 lbs. Doing the math, that puts the exercise burns pretty close to the Fitbit numbers for the logged exercises.


    Anyway, the chest strap will be more accurate, but I find the Fitbit to be adequate. It's also nice to be able to run my phone silent and still get notifications, and the silent alarm wakes me up much less grumpy.
  • Dvdgzz
    Dvdgzz Posts: 437 Member
    Since I do a lot of cardio on a stationary bike my HR monitor is way off from real calorie expenditure. 2k calorie difference. Seems to be very accurate when I walk/jog instead.
  • shrcpr
    shrcpr Posts: 885 Member
    My Fitbit tracks very closely to my HRM with chest strap. I wore both for a while to check. I'm losing as expected so calorie burn seems fairly accurate.
  • mom2natalie
    mom2natalie Posts: 51 Member
    Mine seems very accurate as well. The charge hr is definitely adequate for me.
  • lemonychild
    lemonychild Posts: 654 Member
    it's mostly accurate, when keeping a steady HR (i.e. walking) the rest - high intensity workouts its questionable
  • minniestar55
    minniestar55 Posts: 350 Member
    Mine is fairly accurate when I compare it with chest strap monitor. I find the calories I get for cardio are more realistic using it than the calories I see friends post on MFP from the database here. For example, I might earn 259-ish from hour long bootcamp which includes HIIT circuit & some steady cardio...but I see MFP posts of 460 for 30 mins elliptical or similar. So all in all I love my FitBit HR & it's a very useful tool...I eat back less than half the calories.
  • shedding60
    shedding60 Posts: 73 Member
    Thank you all! I feel alot better about replacing my flex now.
  • Pawsforme
    Pawsforme Posts: 645 Member
    I've had my Charge HR since August and have found the TDEE information it gives to be fairly accurate. If anything I believe it slightly under estimates my TDEE. I've never bothered to check the heart rate function, so I can't really comment on that.

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