The Fitbit Devices Do Not Monitor the Heart Accurately

A national lawsuit has been proposed on Tuesday, due to the fact that the Fitbit devices do not monitor the heart accurately. This came as surprise and is a bit ironic since the motto of the device is that every beat counts.

The Fitbit Charge HR was announced in 2014 and is the improved version of Fitbit Force. The device was released in early January 2015. This device is the more advance version of the Charged, that was released in 2014. The device counts steps like the old one did, but the calorie counter and the heart-rate monitor are new features.

According to the people who sued, not only does the device measure the heart beats incorrectly, but for when the heart beats are elevated, the device measures much lower rates than it should. Until now, three people have claimed that their device does this and one of them is Teresa Black, from Colorado. She claims that during one of her workouts, the device didn’t record properly her heart rate, measuring 78 beats less than it should have per minute. She discovered the inaccuracy when she compared the heart rate measured by Fitbit with the one measured by her personal trainer. His read 160 bpm, while hers read only 82. The reason behind her lawsuit is that if she hadn’t compared her heart rate with that registered by her trainer, if she would have relied only on Fitbit, she could have endangered her health.

Another buyer of Fitbit that managed to discover that the device was inaccurate is Kate McLellan, from California. She said that after she compared the results with the ones offered by an exercising machine, she consulted with her doctor. Her doctor said that the device read heart beats wrong, going from 25 to even 75 bmp errors.

The third person who claims to have had the same issues is David Urban, from Wisconsin. He discovered the differences when he compared Fitbit’s results to those of a triathlon monitor. Fitbit measured with 25 bpm less than had to. This could become a big problem especially for the people with heart disease, like Urban, who can’t surpass 160 bpm.

The Fitbit representatives have responded to these claims and state that they will fight against these people who sued and will defend their product. They also said that Fitbit are the best wrist trackers currently on the market and deny the claims that the Fitbit devices do not monitor the heart accurately.

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