Fitbit app's heart rate monitoring system seems broken after v4.29 update

It seems Fitbit can’t catch a break lately. Hot on the heels of user frustrations over missing trendlines and botched food stats, the latest Fitbit app update has landed — and not in a good way. Versions 4.29 and 4.30 of the app are here, and with them comes a chorus of angry users reporting that their heart rate data has simply vanished into thin air. From Inspire 3 to Versa 4 and Sense 2, wearers are watching their heart rate graphs disappear, historical records evaporate, and daily tracking stop dead in its tracks.

The trouble begins with the heart of the Fitbit experience — its app. Users updating to the latest versions report everything from missing daily heart rate graphs to a complete erasure of years of historical heart rate data. And just when you thought it couldn’t get worse, some folks claim they can no longer track time spent in heart rate zones. While Fitbit devices themselves seem to be capturing the heart rate in real time, the app just isn’t playing along, showing blank screens or messages urging users to “wear your device to get heart rate data,” even though they clearly are.

If this sounds familiar, it’s because Fitbit has been riding a wave of controversies lately. Issues like calorie estimation bugs, syncing failures with the Pixel Watch, and even the loss of the ability to edit workout activities have left the once-loyal Fitbit community quite frustrated.

Unsurprisingly, users seeking help from Fitbit support are hitting a wall. Customer service appears to be stuck in a loop of generic troubleshooting suggestions — restart this, reinstall that — with little to no acknowledgment of the underlying problem. And while there’s hope that the newly released v4.30 update might resolve some of these issues, early reports suggest that the troubles aren’t entirely in the rearview mirror.

This rocky software rollout doesn’t come at a great time for Fitbit. With recent updates already upsetting users and competitors like Garmin and Apple stepping up their game, it’s critical for Fitbit to get back on track. The launch of a kid-friendly smartwatch and expanded family-focused features might grab headlines, but if Fitbit’s bread-and-butter features aren’t reliable, it risks alienating its most dedicated users.

For now, if you’re a Fitbit user dealing with vanishing heart rate data or syncing woes, your best bet is to update to the latest app version and hope for the best. But patience may be the only thing Fitbit users need to track until the company gets its act together.