Re: Glad to hear the inaccurate heart rate is widespread
I've been experimenting with the placement of my Band on its HR accuracy. I was pretty disappointed with how poorly it tracked with my strap when on the treadmill. It seems to do reasonably well on the bike and during weight lifting. I was baffled with its issues on the treadmill.
This past Saturday, I decided to follow the advice of others and try wearing mine further up my arm--toward my elbow. My Band was about my index fingers width above my wrist bone. That's as far up my arm as I could push my large Band. I did the treadmill for 15 mins or so. It was within 3-5 bpm for most of the time. I was pumped about this success. But at around 12 mins, when I quickly ramped up intensity by pushing the incline to 10 degrees, it struggled. It never really caught up until I moved on to weights.
In the shot below, you can see my HR gradually ramp up as I ramped up intensity. It was nearly dead on with my strap and with the manual pulse I occasionally took. The 155 mark was the last point the strap and Band were in synch during the treadmill.
And below is a shot of the treadmill, with HR from my strap, just before I ramped up the incline. It's dead on with Band.
-pic would be here if upload wasn't failing with 500 error on server--
I read an article, on Fitbit's site of all places, that mention we have more blood flow in our arm than our wrist. It suggested experimenting with placement on the arm, particularly during exercise, to improve accuracy.
Help Site - Heart rate FAQs
My question: why am I not getting this sort of info from the Band team? Ridiculous and irritating.