What can cause a SO erratic heart rate value from the same HRM Pro+

"An actual mismatch would be really strange though, so until someone sees the FIT files I'm not sure it's not simply a case of user mix-up somewhere. ".

Kyle J, when users address support, any support, forum, whatever, we are used to go with his little happiness, without any real solution.

I could talk a lot about Microsoft, and how companies relayed their support to forums.

It is always easy to say that the "user" don't understand, and, to be franc, if he would, he wouldn't take the time to write what is his problem.

I code and I have people who depends on me and I couldn't let myself think that I know so much that 

The easiest way would be for a real Garmin technician connect to my PC or my GC account and look at data that are on my profile and see by himself what is the problem. Not having to send multiple files everywhere.

I sent you screenshots of my graphs, no interpretation there.

In the end, if I follow all your demands, with what you have written, it will be so easy for you to say that my problem is 15inches behind my keyboard.

You will look intelligent for all other support people to say that I'm just another AH that doesn't understand anything but, like millions of Garmin users who are not happy with their Garmin product, condescending won't give us any solution.

You know that it is OK to say "I don't know".

That was my point with Trux.

I'm not looking for looking for exactly the same heart rate but at least within 2%.

A difference of 60bpm is 36% difference.

This is huge.

And I didn't know that I would have to write soo many posts to get to the bottom of this.

The question is more about when I look at the graph for Health Stats / Heart Rate, where does those data come from ?

Trux said it comes from my wrist HRM.

WHY ?

If I wear my MRM Pro+, how come HRM Pro+ doesn't bypass my wrist HRM ?

Even if I send you many files, those files won't help at all other then confirming what I just showed you in the screenshots.

I printed all those pictures from screenshots inside Garmin Connect.

If you have screenshots of what Zwift sent to Garmin and what Garmin shows you,

What those files could tell you more than what the graphs show you ?

So we're gonna leave it at this.

The question was too hard to answer.

You could also disable the optical wrist HRM sensor on the watch entirely before starting the activity, to make sure the watch really reads the HR data from the strap, and not from the internal sensor.

I once tried turning off the watch's optical heart rate monitor to force it to read chest strap data throughout the day. After a few minutes it disconnects. The only way is to start any business. But I would like to know from Garmin why it doesn't allow it!

Kyle J, I understand that you are a volunteer that try to help others.

And we all appreciate the time you spend to try to help us.

Because this is something that you choose to do.

But if you read what Nicolo B just wrote, what would be your insight ?

If you don't know, will you try to reach Garmin Support to learn from his (my) question and get back to us with an answer that you learned from Garmin Support ?

That would be good for you and what you try to do here on the forum.

If not, it means that we all eventually be going to Garmin Support directly.

In my case, I bought a 1K$ watch that decides when it will use and not use my HRM Pro+.

That’s one big problem because now I have to find a way, for a billionaire company, about something so simple and expected from any Garmin Watch user.

It defeats the purpose of having bought that HRM to start with if I cannot prioritize the most accurate device for collecting HR Data.

But also, it illustrate the inconsistency of the information.

Which, I'm sure, it is me that don't understand.

If you go to this web page :

https://support.garmin.com/en-CA/?faq=vs3FdBS9QZ4DE2MWVAeZfA

You will be able to read second section :

What Happens If I'm Wearing the Strap and My Watch at the Same Time?

And you're right, having to choose between two, it will read the less accurate HR Data.

Which doesn't make Garmin look very intelligent.

But If I'M results oriented.

If I don't wear my watch during an activity, if I understand well, my HRM Pro+ will collect (record) all my HR data during the time I wear my strap during that acticity.

According to the section : "The HRM-Pro® and HRM-Pro® Plus heart rate straps can act as an activity tracker by storing calories, intensity minutes and step data in addition to heart rate".

Again, here, my watch is away, not in reach of my HRM Pro+, and my strap collect data to be later sync to Garmin Connect App on my phone.

So far, I never selected nor activated any "Activity" on my watch but my most accurate HR data are collected anyway.

(I think that you can see here that this doesn't make sense because the solution I got was to start an Indoor acticity at the same time I start Zwift.)

I finished my Zwift, save all my data in Zwift, then go to Garmin Connect and sync (away from my watch), those data will sync to GC and I will be able to see it in GC Graphs.

Do you agree that could be a good solution (even if that should have been configured differently to start with from a Garmin Organisation) ?

If not, what would be the alternative ?

ManSurfingOnLifeBuoy said:

What Happens If I'm Wearing the Strap and My Watch at the Same Time?

It is all written in the HRM-Pro Top FAQs:

1. Watch worn, no activity started » HR from the watch
2. Watch not worn (or internal HRM disabled) & HRM-Pro worn and connected directly to GC (must be added as a device!) » HR from the strap
3. Watch & strap worn, activity started on the watch, HRM-Pro connected » HR from the strap

So the best solution for you is as I already advised in my last post - add the strap to Garmin Connect (if not added yet), disable the internal optical sensor, or simpler just remove the watch from the wrist, and the all-day HR data will come from the strap.

OK.

I did a Zwift WO yesterday. So I can send you the fit files if you still want to analyze them.

So, the question that it all started with is why data are so erratic.

What triggered this is :

So, nowhere during that Zwift WO my wrist HR picked up anything over 92bpm.

I was wearing my HRM Pro+ AND my Epix Gen 2 Watch.

According to Trux, my watch wrist HR should have picked up my HR during the WorkOut (WO).

HRM Pro= was sending HRdata by bluetooth to my Zwift SetUp :Apple TV 4K 128Gb, Wahoo Kickr V5 Bluetooth for Powermeter and Cadencemeter.

So the data sent from Zwift to GC was :

I cannot send you a reliable file about those data other than the one I already sent you before.

Yesterday, I did what I wrote last in the previous posts.

I turned off my watch.

Wore my HRM Pro+ and did the Zwift WO.

Results were way better but not quite exact.

Here is my All day HR collected by GC.

And here is the data from Zwift.

(which are the same in GC Activity)

Zwift Peak HR is 164 and Garmin HRM pro+ synced a peak HR at 152bpm when I opened GC on my IPhone.

Still 12bpm difference.

So here are the files I'm able to send you.

This one is from Zwift site.

Zwift_130% Of FTP Hangers_2023-10-18-17-06-13.zip

This one is what Zwift sent to GC.

Zwift2GC_130% Of FTP Hangers_18102023.zip

Here is the All Day HR from GC.

GC_AllDayHR_2023-10-18.zip

ManSurfingOnLifeBuoy said:

According to Trux, my watch wrist HR should have picked up my HR during the WorkOut (WO).

Where did I tell that? Oppositely, I wrote that the optical HRM has its limitations, and you can never expect as accurate HR from it as from the chest strap. Additionally, if you do not start any activity on the watch, it only logs the HR in 2 minutes intervals, smoothing out any shorter peaks of HR.

So, it is what you told me.

I didn't start an activity.

So HR came from my wrist HR instead of the HRM Pro+.

It should have picked up HR pulse by intervals of 2min.

You sent me a part of the user manuals and what we can find on the internet.

And you were right.

But picking up a trend where, by 2min interval, my HR rise coming from a 100W to 250W, even by 2min intervals, it should have raised from 100bpm to 160bpm, which didn't happened. Any sub peaks should and will be around that 160bpm mark. Cannot drop more than 5bpm. Not 165-92 = 73bpm.

It is pretty unlikely that during those 2min intervals, HR dropped to 92 and raise up again at 160 when it wasn't picked up by the wrist HR.

Limitations are when you cannot read HR under water.

That's why Garmin sell HRM Pro+.

And you can sync afterwards.

Garmin went around that limitation.

But my point from the beginning, and it seems that it is what I read on other posts, if Garmin modify their watch to accommodate users like me, who are expecting that, common sense would be that HRM Pro+ should be prioritized to have the best and most accurate data, is not done mainly because, according to others, that those data, the way they are collected, procure more profits to Garmin than if they do what I ask.

We'll never know if those pretensions are true.

In the mean time, it is pretty annoying to have to turn off my watch to get the right data the right way when it would be so easy that when the HRM Pro+ is connected, it just bypass the wrist HR. And it already does that, automatically connect.

And here is the results. One hours without data.

Even after having synced with GC.

So this means that GC doesn't return HR data collected from the HRM Pro+ to the watch too.

But it is not a problem because the display conserve only the last 24h so it drops that moment in time.

Thanks anyway Trux.

Have a nice one.

ManSurfingOnLifeBuoy said:

In the mean time, it is pretty annoying to have to turn off my watch to get the right data

You do not have to turn off the watch. Just put it off the wrist, or disable the HR sensor (can be done with a Battery Save mode's hot-key if you disable the internal HRM sensor in it).