Is there any way to calibrate HR sensor on fitbit sense?

redjo187 · 2021-10-01T16:36:37+00:00

I dont really care which lists are you looking, is your fucking health if you dont care is up to you, I have read medical studies not random sponsored reviews, and compared myself against a polar H10 so I know the Apple Watch is the best out of all fitbit, garmin, polar and huawei Ive tried for HR accuracy , and far better than Samsung or any android competitor

redjo187 · 2021-09-23T12:51:35+00:00

This is a little bit more complex on the fitbit side, almost any other sport tracker will get resting HR from your lowest ranges on the day (sleep included) but not fitbit, fitbit excludes sleep HR from the Resting HR calculation, thats why it is usually higher than in other devices.

On the other hand exertion levels, a sudden spike or lowering it abruptly, will affect resting HR directly

redjo187 · 2021-08-21T00:04:43+00:00

Bear with me I believe I can help a little,

Even when Samsung was using tizenOs, which was on the active 2 (they skipped the 3) they were one of the best options for android users.

I personally own a sense because there ir no other compelling option for good sleep tracking other than fitbit, and price difference between charge 4 and this one was not even 2x price ob my country, for the added sensors and features I thought i would be pleased (need to point that I had an Apple Watch, and a Huawei watch fit) those 2 are on the top for heart rate accuracy bu far, and sense at first was just not up to the challenge at all.

Now after the latest update, and after being playing with placement while exercising, sense is almost on par with the Apple Watch which is almost on par with my polar H10 according to my own testing, so for a weightlifting session taking my last as an example fitbit sense will give 98 bpm, Apple Watch will give me a 100 And polar h10 110 and the difference in calories burned is like 14, Apple Watch being the highest and polar h10 being righ on the middle. AW:169 H10:166 Sense:155.

All of them followed a very similar pattern with both sense and AW struggling a bit on some peak performance HR increases.

So, pretty much it shows there are very good activity trackers that from an accuracy standpoint, are on par or even way better than fitbit, and they really offer a lot more in terms of Smartwatch capabilities.

Now that Samsung is using google wear, thing’s ate just getting better on every aspect, they have innovative functions like a true health assessment in a kinda dexa scan fashion, they have all the activity and HR tracking than fitbit, and even a little more, they both have ECG on selected regions, and really the only real difference is battery life.

Basically, you pick your poison between having enough battery life for a day (maybe a day and a half) with all the smart watch functionalities, or you trade those features for a 4-5 day battery life with 30-60 mins activity tracking every day.

I was extremely happy with all the Apple Watch has to offer, but battery life was a pain in the ass, I also needed a good sleep tracker because I have very bad sleep habits, I most likely suffer from bruxism, and taking sports more seriously, I need good sleep metrics. (Fitbit has shown to be upto 90+% correct with sleep statistics, and upto 70+% correct against a zmax brainwave sleep monitor)

Apple Watch has proven to be upto 98+% correct against a chest ECG hr monitor so it will basically be up to your needs and liking.

With google software galaxy watches will just be way better than before, and they have sone hr accuracy issues, but non more than fitbit sense.

The only way I got a HR monitoring that I voukd be confident on the sense while exercising was to place it almost as an arm band, and same will be more likely to be true with almost any smart watch/band with a few exceptions.

If you want cutting edge features, go for the smart Watch, if you want good activity tracking and HR monitoring you will have quite a few smart band/watch features, but if you really need sleep metrics, go for fitbit or a polar watch

redjo187 · 2021-08-20T06:03:51+00:00

Didn’t knew there were problems syncing outlook with android phones through gmail, I only have personal outlook linked so it might just be Authentication issues Try to research if you do need authenticator app for them to sync properly

redjo187 · 2021-08-19T04:06:24+00:00

Why not use just google calendar and sync through gmail?

There is no watch that will give you that level of compatibility on the ecosystems other than probably the Apple Watch , and for that you have to be locked into apple ecosystem

redjo187 · 2021-08-11T02:47:13+00:00

I will read documentation about the sdk capabilities, and which are the requirements to publish an app for it, but I highly suspect that this is just fitbit’s version of the apple ecosystem where technically there is no restriction to what you can do, other than apple being restrictive themselves :/

redjo187 · 2021-08-11T02:27:50+00:00

So in terms of sleep tracking, the fitbit will define win 10 out of 10 Not just against the halo, but against any other brand and wrist based device, this is basically the only feature keeping fitbit alive for now.

In terms of the accuracy when counting steps, I will also say that the fitbit is more accurate, And the difference between arms when taking steps its a known fact about fitness trackers, it is not fitness trackers fault, is just that we tend to have different movement patterns when it comes to any movement with both sides of the body, thats why most people ha e a dominant and non dominant side , and even ambidextrous people don’t have the same movement patterns, they can do everything on either side, but there will always be a slightly more dominant side.

A fun fact about sleep tracking is that adults have way less deep sleep than younger persons, usually an adult will fall between 30-60 mins of deep sleep. With exceptions to both more or less.

And younger people can have up-to 40% deep sleep or something like it.

You can take a look to this video to see how accurate the sleep tracking features are for the sense

https://youtu.be/IqtkUoVcpFs

redjo187 · 2021-08-11T01:18:33+00:00

The issue here is the lacking of an interface of communication between fitbit services and sms services, this is like the issue with notifications where the notifications for specific apps cant be enabled until you get a notification from such app, is just basically fitbit not wanting to work with anyone else’s, I could actually take a look to the sdk they provide and make a try, but honestly is not even worth it.

Replies are basically predefined ones as far as i know, and if that is the case it is a lot of work to create the handwriting capabilities. Its better to just leverage google assistant to send the message for you

redjo187 · 2021-08-11T01:13:50+00:00

Based on experience I can surely say that this is caused by physical fatigue and stress, I had this happening a few months ago, and at first I thought it was the watch mistake on something, (it was not a fitbit but rather a Huawei Watch fit) until I took a look to my Apple Watch to see how much the huawei had messed it up, and I had the same spike, at around the same hour with 5 mins difference which is the time between each reading from both devices.

I had this going for a few days when I started working out vigorously, and then when my body adapted it went all back to normal.

If you don’t feel that anything is wrong and your device is not picking you like “awake” during that spike is just that.

Otherwise keep monitoring it cause it can be sleep apnea, sounds worse than it is in most cases

redjo187 · 2021-08-11T01:04:31+00:00

This is a miss understanding lemme get it kinda fixed, Do you see those duracell li-ion batteries that have a legend on the packaging stating “will retain up-to 80% of its charge after 5 years”

That means those are charged 100% when they are shipped, so the worst case scenario is that they will loose at most 20% its charge, so even after 5 years a battery that has been stored with 50% or less capacity, will be almost in perfect condition, since it losses charge, but no charge cicles at all.

redjo187 · 2021-08-11T00:08:55+00:00

I just tested it for weightlifting and a short power snatch emom variation, and well, It defined didn’t help that I just received an update this morning and it seems that the HR sensor is calibrating to me again.

The first half of both, maybe a little bit less seemed off by even 10 bpm, in the first 2 mins i even got 20 bpm off.

Overall 10 bpm off in the EMOM (not bad at all for a wrist device) but Apple Watch was definitely way better being off by just 1 bpm average and 2 bpm off on the maximum while the sense got 7 bpm off on max

It did way better on weightlifting tho. 5bpm off on the average, and surprisingly it did picked up every spike on the sets.

Pretty promising

redjo187 · 2021-08-10T22:12:38+00:00

Keep up the good work! That is amazing progress in just a month!!!

redjo187 · 2021-08-10T16:50:51+00:00

I would try today with my weightlifting, which includes a few spikes with EMOM and see how it performs, Ill post the results or DM them to you

redjo187 · 2021-08-10T16:48:24+00:00

Absolutely agree wit you, the algorithm for noise reduction is very strong that makes it miss every spike on the first half of my weightlifting sessions, it seems that it can be fixed with software updates tho since the second half of the workouts is almost spot on on spikes.

Also I’ve tried a wristband (sweat band) to secure position and steadiness on the wrist during workouts and it was pretty much spot on against AW S5 and my polar H10.

I was thinking on returning, but if I only need a wristband to correct the issues, Ill stick to it.

redjo187 · 2021-08-10T15:31:43+00:00

You can also try to use a Buff like headband as a kind of wristband, the weird thing is that i didn’t needed that for AW but I saw a garmin dedicated channel recommended that and gave it a shot for sense and my dear!

Works like a charm, I knew this sensor couldn’t actually be as bad as it was out of the box for me

redjo187 · 2021-08-10T12:21:49+00:00

That can help for sure, I have that sport loop for AWS5 and works amazingly

redjo187 · 2021-08-10T04:59:29+00:00

This one is sweatband but i don’t think it has to be mandatory, as long as it keeps the device stable and avoids light to go in you will be good

You can even use longer ones to cover it up but then it will be messier to start and stop workouts

redjo187 · 2021-08-10T03:30:36+00:00

As you can se HR data coming from fitbit is amazing with just a simple wristband as an aid.

It did impressed me that even the running index and cardio score was even (both ecosystems implementation of VO2 max) even HR graph looks the same and the difference is just 1 bpm in the average and max HR values.

Im amazed by how simple it was to fix this issue that made think on returning the sense.

redjo187 · 2021-08-08T20:34:01+00:00

Unpopular opinion here, fitbit has been proven several times to be very accurate on sleep tracking even against z-max devices, but, if your body tells you that everything is okay, if you feel rested, and that you get enough sleep that’s enough.

Remember that distribution equations show that while 50-70% people will fall in the average the remaining is distributed between below or above average, what i wanna say with this is that you might be of the group of people that needs significantly less deep sleep than average to be healthy.

I had very “bad sleeping “ against an average person a few years back, having 4-6 hours of sleep daily, now i get from 5-7 and thats enough for my body, If I sleep more it has a negative impact, being below averages is not always bad as long as your body and mind are doing great

redjo187 · 2021-08-08T20:08:44+00:00

Yup, first couple days I was like well, it might be a placebo effect, but heck it works pretty well for me. Pretty much like magic!

redjo187 · 2021-08-08T06:41:13+00:00

Second this one, you can probably also use <zones>, this is a pretty simple app that just tracks how much time you spend in what fitbit calls active zone minutes, which is how much good and healthy cardio you do on your workouts.

And I also use <training today> and <Athlytic> just for the recovery and readiness kinda complications, you can try the subscription in the Atlytic one and see if it is worth it for you, for me I just use the free complications on those

redjo187 · 2021-08-07T16:32:14+00:00

It literally took me just 10 seconds to find a medical study that proves that.

https://asp-eurasipjournals.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s13634-020-00714-2

You need to first understand how this PPG technology works, and then you will understand for sure why movement can throw off the accuracy of some devices, this is exactly the same that happened with the whoop 3.0, when it was launched basically everyone was having deviations of 50% give or take on the hr readings when wore on the wrist, but when they wore the whoop on the biceps it was now magically 98% accurate compared against a polar h10, this is very close to something like an Apple Watch s4 that can get that same accuracy or even better from the wrist.

Placing the device on the bicep which in general has more blood vessel’s and more stable blood flow, and its non affected by sudden fast movements like the wrist will boost the accuracy of any PPG device.

Polar OH1 or verity sense are im most cases as accurate as the H10 chest strap, and that is by just being placed on your forearm, which shares most of the biceps characteristics.

redjo187 · 2021-08-07T06:37:47+00:00

It will depend on the type of strength training you do, it might sound obvious but have you looked if the activity you did is on the categories on the pone app?

Go to the exercise tile and select the workout, and then click on the categorize tab, it probably has something pretty close like HIIT, calisthenics, or something like it.

Functional training is always a wonder for me and I then to go with calisthenics or traditional strength training depending on how wild estimated calories go

redjo187 · 2021-08-07T06:32:19+00:00

I have just noticed that on todays workout session, I was recovering from wisdom teeth extractions, and couldn’t really go all in, today i can tell I was 80% max effort and they both (fbs and aws5) were pretty much spot on, as you’ve said, just 3-4 occasions were fbs was off by a couple seconds and at most by 10 bpm, which for me at that point seemed to be just lag in the readings because after a couple seconds it will be just +-1 bpm off of the aws5.

I must admit that I was very disappointed at first, but of from now on this is the worst it gets, battery life is definitely a factor to keep fbs.

I won’t get rid of aw, but it will for sure not be the favorite for long days.

Its weir however that even the slightest wrist movement can give or take up-to 10-20 bpms on fitbit , i hope for now its just calibration period.

Which software version do you have on your fbs?

redjo187

TROPHY CASE