Glad to hear the inaccurate heart rate is widespread, have any of you experienced it?

[Windows Central Question]

Glad to hear the inaccurate heart rate is widespread

I've had my band for several days, the only issues that has jumped out is the heart monitor. It doesn't change much, even during heavy exercise. I thought I might have a bum band, but it sounds like others are seeing the same thing.

 

[novaprime9]

Re: Glad to hear the inaccurate heart rate is widespread

Almost certainly not, since the GPS would be on for that (or at least should be...) and then it won't matter too much if your hand/arm is still moving. The band will know it's moving based on location.

 

[gadgetrants]

Re: Glad to hear the inaccurate heart rate is widespread

Almost certainly not, since the GPS would be on for that (or at least should be...) and then it won't matter too much if your hand/arm is still moving. The band will know it's moving based on location.

I have the exact same intuition. However, once we learned that the Band "uses your GPS-tracked walks/runs outside to calibrate the other sensors that estimate pace" I began to wonder how the so-called calibration algorithm works. Is it *always* collecting data and updating the calibration? Does it only use the first mile, or some other limited time/distance? Do you need to run around outside at different speeds, or can it accurately extrapolate from one pace to a wider range (which I think is mathematically quite difficult). Say you calibrate at a 9 min/mile -- after calibrating, will it estimate your pace during an 8 or a 12 min/mile (with GPS off) accurately?

I realize this probably sounds like a largely hypothetical exercise, but it's a meaningful one for me as I do a considerable amount of running indoors, and I imagine others may also (e.g. treadmill). What's critical here (and to my amazement) is that after calibrating, you *can* do indoor running and the Band *will* do a respectable job estimating pace even when GPS is off. Though you then have the "dead-arm" problem I mentioned earlier.

-Matt

 

[littlebib]

Re: Glad to hear the inaccurate heart rate is widespread

Say you calibrate at a 9 min/mile -- after calibrating, will it estimate your pace during an 8 or a 12 min/mile (with GPS off) accurately?

-Matt

From the experimenting that I've done, I *think* that it simply looks at your last outdoor run as the baseline for your stride length. When I run faster, I don't necessarily move my feet faster, but I take a longer stride. Since my last GPS run was an average of about 8:15, then when I'm on the treadmill, regardless of whether I'm running at a 9:00 pace or a 7:30 pace, since I still have the same number of steps per minute, the Band thinks I'm running 8:15.

 

[anon(8555314)]

Re: Glad to hear the inaccurate heart rate is widespread

The heart rate that shows on my band during a workout or run shows higher than the results when I look at the session later from the app. Today while walking to work I noticed a heart rate in the 130s, then later looked at it on the app and it showed a max of 129. I noticed the same thing on a recent cardio workout where I saw 190s on the band, then later on the app it showed a high of 177.

 

[AndyCalling]

Re: Glad to hear the inaccurate heart rate is widespread

Hmm. Perhaps this is why MS provide a Fitbit band with their premium phones rather than their own model. Still trying to make it work.

 

[gadgetrants]

Re: Glad to hear the inaccurate heart rate is widespread

From the experimenting that I've done, I *think* that it simply looks at your last outdoor run as the baseline for your stride length. When I run faster, I don't necessarily move my feet faster, but I take a longer stride. Since my last GPS run was an average of about 8:15, then when I'm on the treadmill, regardless of whether I'm running at a 9:00 pace or a 7:30 pace, since I still have the same number of steps per minute, the Band thinks I'm running 8:15.

Same thing here. When I run indoors it's spot on if I'm running at my normal outdoor pace, but when I speed up the estimate falls off pretty quickly. I'd definitely add this issue to the list of things on the next firmware wishlist.

-Matt

 

[willgill]

Re: Glad to hear the inaccurate heart rate is widespread

Has anyone seen mention of Microsoft Band allowing input from a heart rate chest strap?

Their are several Bluetooth 4 LE chest straps on the market. Wouldn't it be nice to have the option of using a strap if you need high accuracy HRM for training?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Tapatalk

 

[Madame_X]

Re: Glad to hear the inaccurate heart rate is widespread

Received my replacement band today and this one is tracking where I would expect it to be. When I view the real-time heart rate, it locks on and stays locked. My first one would sometimes take a very long time to lock my heart rate, and even when it did it would only stay locked for a few seconds at a time. That leads me to believe there was something wrong with it from the beginning.

Fingers crossed this one works better for me long term...

 

[DroidUser42]

Re: Glad to hear the inaccurate heart rate is widespread

Cool! Twofur fix! I wish I could be so lucky.

 

[gadgetrants]

Re: Glad to hear the inaccurate heart rate is widespread

That leads me to believe there was something wrong with it from the beginning.

Fingers crossed this one works better for me long term...

This leads me to wonder if you're looking at a newer production model (assumption 1), and if in fact they've made any design modifications since the first run (assumption 2).

​-Matt