Recovery Heart Rate

What for? Wouldn't it be a waste of screen space to have one field dedicated to something that appears only after you finish workout?

I think he's suggesting it should appear on Connect afterwards, not on the device (other than the way it already appears). If so, I agree.

I just wish that the watch could find the recovery heart rate a little more intelligently. I don't do an exercise at full speed and then stop at once. I allow some cool down time at low intensity at the end of the activity. So when I stop, my heart rate has already more or less recovered.

So if the watch looked for the highest HR recovery rate near the end of the session instead of just counting 2 minutes after the end of the session, I would get a much more usable number. And I would not have to wait for 2 minutes before I could save the activity.

I just wish that the watch could find the recovery heart rate a little more intelligently.

The point of reporting the recovery heart rate is to give an indication of how quickly the user's heart rate is able to return to normal after stressors cease (or are removed). It's not there to cater to any other scenario or purpose. There is nothing less-than-intelligent in not taking your use case and/or preferences into account.

So if the watch looked for the highest HR recovery rate near the end of the session instead of just counting 2 minutes after the end of the session, I would get a much more usable number.

Usable for what exactly? And is that even relevant to the design of the feature?

If there is something else you want to measure, feel free to develop (or commission) a Connect IQ data field that uses a different formula or measure method to suit your purposes.

The point of reporting the recovery heart rate is to give an indication of how quickly the user's heart rate is able to return to normal after stressors cease (or are removed).

Yes, and that is what I want.

But when the developers' assume that the user will press the Stop button at the exact moment where stressors (and here I learned a new word) cease the result is that only a very specific use case is covered by the watch.

Then it only means that you do not understand what recovery heart rate really is. By definition recovery heart rate is a drop of heart rate immediately after an intensive effort changes into total rest. If you want to do a cooldown in between, then there is no way to calculate RHR reliably. You would get a number by comparing your high effort HR with the resting HR some time later, but it would not be equivalent to recovery heart rate.

I do understand what a recovery heart rate is. My point is that the watch makes the assumption that you go to rest exactly when you press the Stop button - even when that is not what actually happens.

And since the watch monitors your activity - for example running cadence and pace - it actually knows whether you stopped doing the activity at that time. But it still shows a recovery heart rate based on the time you pressed the Stop button, even if this is wrong.

The error from these wrong assumptions is larger than the error you would get from measuring recovery heart rate at the time where you for example switch from running to walking instead of switching from running to a complete stop.

Ok, so if I understand correctly you would like to see RHR when the watch detects rest after intensive workout and not see it otherwise (because it would show a wrong value and with that I agree). That would require a lot of careful implementation, would not work in certain scenarios (like for example a workout with a HR strap with the watch lying on a desk nearby), while a simple workaround is just to ignore the RHR value when you don't rest immediately after an intensive workout. That's what I do, actually.

My point is that the watch makes the assumption that you go to rest exactly when you press the Stop button - even when that is not what actually happens.

It is what actually happens if the user wants his/her Garmin fitness wearable device to calculate and report on his/her recovery heart rate, and having been given clear instructions on how to trigger the calculation.

I can understand if you say the instructions in the Owner's Manual are not clear or explicit enough. However, if your complaint is that the implementation does not match your own preferred manner of operating the device, then Garmin is not the one that needs to be “a little more intelligent”. If you refuse the manually stop the timer, even though you know that is the trigger, because you want your watch to keep recording while you recover/rest, then that's your conscious choice to forgo calculation of your recover HR on your watch.

And since the watch monitors your activity - for example running cadence and pace - it actually knows whether you stopped doing the activity at that time.

That's a false assumption on your part. I see many people on my usual running route stop their run to perform sit-ups, push-ups, stretching, etc. immediately afterwards; even though there would be negligible displacement in their location (as far as GPS can tell), and the pace and cadence would be close to zero, it does not mean all exercise has ceased and/or stressors removed. It's better to make the user manually and expressly trigger the calculation by stopping the timer.

I have a habit of stopping the timer after 5km (or whatever distance I was running that day) but then immediately proceed to walk uphill towards home, instead of standing still for two minutes, so I'm knowingly interfering with my Garmin watch's ability to calculate a ‘true’ recovery heart rate figure.

Ok, so if I understand correctly you would like to see RHR when the watch detects rest after intensive workout and not see it otherwise (because it would show a wrong value and with that I agree). That would require a lot of careful implementation, would not work in certain scenarios (like for example a workout with a HR strap with the watch lying on a desk nearby),

Well, such careful implementation is already done elsewhere in the watch: The watch will not report a new LTHR unless the watch decides that the conditions for calculating the LTHR were fulfilled.

while a simple workaround is just to ignore the RHR value when you don't rest immediately after an intensive workout. That's what I do, actually.

Which is fine if the RHR value is discarded by the watch after being showed on the screen. Then you will have to remember your RHR by yourself, and you will of course only take note of those RHR values which you recorded under valid conditions.

But this thread was started by a user who wants the RHR value recorded on Garmin Connect. That would mean that Garmin Connect would remember both valid and invalid RHR measurements. And you can't even check your other logged data from that activity in Garmin Connect to check whether the conditions were valid - because you have to stop logging before the watch will start the RHR measurement.

So if we want Garmin Connect to show RHR, we should also want the watch to weed out invalid RHR measurements to the extent which is possible with the information which is available to the watch. Otherwise we will have a Garmin Connect account filled with garbage data.

And before anyone suggests that the user will only wait 2 minutes or more after pressing the stop button, before pressing saving the activity, if he actually wants a RHR measurement: I very often wait more than 2 minutes for completely other reasons. I press the Stop button and then I go on with whatever needs to be done around me to finish my activity. Later when I have more time and no other people waiting for me, I save the activity. That is probably a very common usage scenario. So 2 minutes of waiting cannot be considered as user confirmation of RHR measurement validity.


A side note regarding cooldown or stop:
You wrote in an earlier reply that an RHR measured while walking would be invalid. And I agreed to that because that was my understanding too. But yesterday evening I found the actual article from the Cleveland Clinic experiment which is often referred to when discussing RHR. And it turns out that they actually did not stop completely while measuring RHR. They walked! More precisely, most of the subjects walked with 2.4 km/h on a 2.5% gradient.

(But they also measured after 1 minute, where the Garmin watches measure after 2 minutes, so we will not get anything comparable to the Cleveland Clinic experiment anyway.)

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0735109703008337