Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I apologize for the following novel, but some detail's required to explain a two-star rating on this. I wrote this in segments over the course of two days. I've been looking forward to the Surge for months. I hate chest-strap HR monitors, and this seemed perfect. That, and having a 24/7 means of tracking my heart rate, and thus having a more accurate picture of daily calorie burn, was a perfect solution for my needs. So, when my Surge arrived yesterday morning, I couldn't wait to try it out. The initial impression is great. Yeah, it looks a little clunky. But, it's very comfortable, easy to set up, works flawlessly with the Dashboard, and is highly responsive. The provided watch faces are underwhelming, but it's a fitness watch, not a fashion watch. So far, this is mostly great! ...Until I had two days' experience with the heart rate tracking. But it needs to said that this was actually also a pretty good first impression. I started wearing it shortly before heading to work, and it seemed to be doing quite well. I'm a paramedic, so had access to highly accurate devices with which to compare the Surge's readings to those from medical-grade equipment. It wasn't exact, but generally it was within 5 beats per minute. Really, pretty impressive for a wrist-based device. Throughout the rest of the day and night, I didn't notice any major issues. The Surge seemed to track my sleep well, and it determined a reasonable resting heart rate. It's really important to stress that I was actually very happy with the device at this point. Fast forward to actual exercise. I finally had a chance to use it during an intense workout. And here's where the entire experience completely falls apart. During a 12 minute warmup routine, while in workout mode, the Surge's readings became increasingly erratic and did not improve. This despite numerous attempts to adjust its positioning and tightness, as recommended by FitBit. The final calorie burn calculation was roughly 50% of what I expect from the same routine while using a Polar HR monitor with chest strap in the recent past. Shortly after that was a 30 minute, intense cardiovascular routine that involved full-body movement. I had cleaned the watch and my wrist, and when I put it back on, the non-workout reading was correlated with what I was manually obtaining through counting it myself. Workout starts, and within five minutes in the workout mode, the readings aren't even in the ballpark. To be clear, this is a routine I'm very familiar with, and my heart rate tends to stay above 130-140 (generally even in the 150-165) for a substantial portion. The Surge seemed to max out with a reading of roughly 141 or so. More often than not, it liked to hang out somewhere between 110-120 bpm during periods where I manually measured my actual rate at about 150 or greater. This, again, despite countless attempts to adjust positioning and tightness. It's also worth noting that the heart rate tracking outright cut out on several occasions until I adjusted again. After 30 minutes, the Surge estimated that workout's calorie burn at roughly 40% or so of what I'd expect it to be. I don't know what else to say about the experience. I'm not oblivious, I did try every conceivable means of adjusting the thing that FitBit recommended, to no avail. I am wondering if arm movement is actually screwing with it. It doesn't work well if it's too tight. And if it's sufficiently loose, then when you start any kind of rapid movement, especially while sweating, the Surge just isn't going to stay put. Its tendency is to slide closer to your wrist bone, where it's not supposed to be. All in all, my first crack at using the Surge as the fitness super watch it's supposed to be has been a bit underwhelming. Day 2: The normal, background heart rate monitoring still seems to be doing quite well. This is what makes the actual workout experience that much more frustrating. Today, I did the same 12 minute warmup routine (p90x3 Cold Start, if you're familiar), which involves some light cardiovascular warmup moves and some yoga-based stretching sequences. This time, however, I was also wearing my Polar HR monitor with chest strap. During relatively static periods, the two devices were fairly close. As soon I started moving my arms to any significant degree, problems began. The issue really seems to be the fact that for accurate readings, there's a threshold for how loose the band has to be. But when that happens, the movement of the device that occurs during reasonable arm movement destroys accuracy. The warmup was followed up by what I considered to be a much more mellow routine (pilates) as opposed to yesterday's intense cardiovascular workout (that one involved a great deal of jumping/running around and thus exaggerated arm movements). And while the end results were slightly closer after 30 minutes than I found yesterday (160 calorie burn on the Surge vs. 278 on the Polar), it's still so far off that it's a useless set of data. I still often noted the Surge reading significantly lower than the Polar, and it dropped off entirely a few times until I slid it further up my arm. When I tightened it slightly, the readings returned, but even less consistent than when it was more loose. This was just unbelievably frustrating. And as I rested right here in this chair, with both devices on, I noticed they became completely even again (in normal operation mode, as opposed to exercise). Taking a tip from another user review in a last-ditch effort to see some potential, I tried to tighten the band a little more and did a quick goofy 5-minute something that involves lots of running in place, jumping jacks, pushups, etc. The Surge immediately fell way behind. Back to resting, in normal mode, they're even again. Oy. I think my conclusion is this. (Also, Too Long, Didn't Read): For a day-to-day, 24/7 means of tracking your heart rate reasonably well, and thus providing better sense of daily calorie burn than steps alone, the optical sensor on the Surge (and I assume the Charge HR) is actually pretty good. But as a possible replacement for a chest strap heart rate system, it's a massive disappointment. It's just completely unreliable in an actual workout, for which I believe it was designed for. As such, I couldn't recommend the Surge as is, especially at this price. That said, the daily HR tracking is still important to me, and because of that and my fondness for the Dashboard software, I actually will probably consider a Charge HR. However, unless I've somehow missed something very important, this is not at all a good solution if you plan to track your exercise with any degree of accuracy.