Fitbit Charge HR and Surge heart rate sensors retested in light of new class-action lawsuit, pass tests handily
Taking the Pulse of Fitbit's Contested Heart Rate Monitors — As Fitbit faces a lawsuit over the accuracy of its fitness trackers, Consumer Reports retests the devices in our lab
Context & Ripple Effects
The arc here runs from bad press to litigation to vindication. A [[a:826038|Re/code review in early 2015 found the Charge HR and Surge heart-rate sensors disappointing on accuracy]], and those complaints eventually hardened into a class-action lawsuit over monitor accuracy. Skin-irritation complaints around the same devices added to the sense of a hardware line launched before it was ready.
Consumer Reports' retest now hands Fitbit an independent counterweight: the same two contested devices pass its lab tests handily. That matters because Fitbit was already fighting on a second legal front, with Jawbone's back-to-back patent suits through mid-2015, so any credible evidence against the accuracy claims has direct courtroom value.
First-order effects
- Fitbit gains third-party lab evidence it can cite against the class action's central claim that its heart-rate monitors are inaccurate, while the plaintiffs' case loses its most-cited supporting data point.
Second-order effects
- The dispute pushes wearable accuracy claims toward formal adjudication rather than reviewer verdicts, raising the stakes of every future launch review for Fitbit and rivals whose sensor readings can now be subpoenaed as evidence.
Third-order effects
- If lawsuits keep targeting sensor accuracy, wearable makers will need standardized, independently verifiable accuracy testing before shipping health features — a shift from marketing specs to audited claims as the basis for consumer trust.
The trend: Fitness-wearable accuracy disputes are migrating from reviewer benchmarks into the courtroom, where independent lab retests are becoming the decisive evidence either side can wield.