Intermittent Faulty heart rate in Vivoactive HR

1st The Fitbit Blaze just came out March of 2016, If you meant the Fitbit Surge then alright.
2nd If you are doing any exercise that deals with muscle flexion (i.e weights(....none of the OHRM are going to give any accurate data. The only way you are going to get accurate data is to use a chest strap. Whatever info whatever Fitbit you had was giving you for those types of exercises you did, it was wrong, Trust me I had a surge, it was not accurate.
3rd Intensity and active calories with Garmin devices ARE COMPLETELY MESSED UP RIGHT NOW AND HAVE BEEN FOR MONTHS!

Apologies, but the yelling was for Garmin and not you. The point is one is not responsible for the other. The OHRM has it's own issues, but they do not correlate exactly with the shoddy software across multiple devices. I own a Fenix3 HR (their top of the line). You'd think this thing would work perfect; you'd be wrong. I have today traveled on foot four miles and have burned less than the amount I had while SLEEPING!! Now don't get me wrong, i'm on a recovery week after a month long cycle of high intensity training. There is no doubt going to be some loss in cal burn.....but nearly 1800 calories over my normal is absurd. The watch told me I burned less than 2000cals yesterday, less that 1800cals!!

Either hang in there or get your money back, Garmin makes a nice looking watch and puts a lot under the hood....but none of it works.

Sorry, I don't really accept that as a plausible answer. Yes my other watch is a Surge, not a Blaze, sorry. (I was looking at the new Blaze before selecting the Vivoactive HR, which is why it got stuck in my head.)

I don't think anyone can realistically expect these devices to be exact. But they have to be in the ball park. A HR wrist reader that is inaccurate by 40-50 beats a minute is completely useless and might as well just report random numbers. I don't believe Garmin would release a device that was completely useless.

(And frankly, if the Vivoactive HR was really so hopeless I would get my money back and go back to a Surge, which works adequately.)

Footnote: On any of these types of devices I would treat the calories used skeptically. However, that is not the issue with me. The issue is that the HR reader seems to be completely faulty. Is there a way to 'reset' the device? Is there a point in doing that?

As a follow-up here, I rang Garmin local support and as I suspected, they suggested resetting the device. I actually reset it mid way through my work-out as I was getting crazy heart rate monitoring of around 85 beats a minute. (Which was completely impossible for my level of intensity.) After I reset the device and restarted the activity, it started to more accurately report my heart rate in the 120-160 range, which was more realistic. So fingers crossed problem fixed.

I have had my Vivoactive HR for about a week. during that time I have been very active, doing treadmill runs 4 times during that span.

Outside of the stride length being off (which I believe I adjusted), I have found the HR to be consistent throughout the workout. I have been a user of Polar M300, Fitbit Blaze and Firbit Surge over the past few years. The VivoActive HR has been far more reliable than the Fitbit items. The M300 used a chest strap so it is not a fair comparison to a wrist based one.

Intermittent Faulty heart rate in Vivoactive HR

I have the same problem, i´m disappointed. I share you a snapshot with notes. I send an email to garmin support with this issue i hope they fix it. On the other hand I hope to Garmin team is monitoring this thread.

1206

A further follow-up...

The new Vivoactive HR device (which I exchanged) seemed to work correctly for a few days but this was just unfortunately following the usual pattern of working and not working. If the hardware technology is the same as the Fitbit Surge (don't know if that is the case), then this would imply that it is a software problem of some sort. Especially considering that the device sometimes gives accurate readings but usually doesn't. Since I've now tried two of these devices and both are useless for measuring heart rate, it does indeed seem to be an inherent failing of the device itself.

Now I want to clarify what I mean by 'failure.' The device is reasonably accurate measuring resting heart rate and any sort of consistent activity, such as walking, running, etc. I can put a Fitbit Surge and Vivoactive HR on the same hand and they give more or less the same reading if I am sitting down and resting. (Within a heart beat or two anyway.) Where it completely fails to be accurate is during any sort of high intensity stop-start activity such as lifting weights in the gym, sprints, boxing rounds, etc. These are all very common sporting activities!

For all these types of activities the device completely fails to give reasonable readings on a consistent basis. In my worst experience, it was measuring my heart rate at 54 beats a minute for an activity that was closer to 150 beats. However it is seldom quite that bad. Sometimes the device will give plausible readings for half the work out, for example.

There are two options here for anyone doing short duration high intensity work as far as I can see:

1. Return the device for a refund and purchase a Fitbit Surge which doesn't suffer from this fault.
2. If you don't want to give up your device, go to the additional expense and hassle of purchasing a heart rate strap.

I've been using a heart rate strap (which I bought a few days ago) with the device and the readings appear to be quite accurate or at least highly plausible. I can see my heart rate trending up as I approach the end of my work out, for example. I don't see the bizarre and sporadic heart readings I get using the wrist monitoring only.

Garmin really need to get on top of this ASAP. The device currently being sold is not fit for purpose for the activities I've described. It seems OK for walking, treadmill, etc. That is all.

Graphical illustration of major problems with device

This graph contrasts the HR wrist monitor versus heart rate strap for the identical activity



I will also add that the heart rate strap captures accurately all the aspects of the work out, including high intensity periods, rest periods, a 5 minute high intensity period with a 15 second rest break between sets, then a 3 minute rest break, then a high intensity activity for 4 sets, then a 4 set wrap up. The wrist HR has no idea what is going on.

I purchased my VivoActive at the end of last year. I have also noticed that it randomly displays heartrate figures that are least 50 to 80 bpm too slow for the current activity. When this happened last time, I powered off the device, resynced with the iPhone app and all was good again. This is definitely something that has to be addressed in the next software release, given that it is one of the main functions of this device.