7.60 on Fenix 5X Plus, walking/hiking heart-rate off

The OHR seems to get confused when your heart range is changing too quickly. I guess you were walking at a low heart rate, started the uphill climb, and your heart rate increased rapidly. The watch was unable to pick up on this rapid increase.

My guess is that the OHR tries to suppress false signals, for example from walking cadence rhythmically influencing the OHR position on the arm, by ignoring any part of the signal which falls outside a narrow heart rate range, defined by the heart rate detected during the previous xx seconds. So when you increase intensity too rapidly, this allowed heart range range can't keep up, and your real heart rate falls outside the range. But it is just a guess.

Thanks AllanOlesen67 - that sounds like a reasonable guess. Hope they fix it quickly.  Does Garmin (as in the officials, support people or whatever) follow the forums, or are we meant to contact support directly as well as moan here? :) 

The problem with fast changing heart rate and wrist OHR is an old and common problem. As far as I know, other manufacturers have similar problems. So I would not expect it to be changed in a firmware update.

If you do activities, where your heart rate will change fast, consider using a chest strap. Or an OHR band for your upper arm.

I have the same issue since 7.60 update. It's not confused, it's completely broken - I think this is specifically related to walking, not just fast changes. I'd go up the steep hill, where my HR is upwards of 150bpm, which can be verified by simply checking for pulse on wrist, and watch reports 85. My average HR for 17mile/5 hour hike on Saturday was 86. which is  about 30 bpm lower than what I would expect. It seems to be ok for running - I was running towards the end and my HR went up to more reasonable ranges, up to 170 bpm. But for walking, it's now completely unusable. 

Post-update hike: https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/3796477059 (notice the running portion towards the end)

Pre-update hike of comparable diffuculty: https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/3728975100

Former Member  for all it's worth; I had a lengthy chat w/ Garmin support yesterday, and seem to have been the first to raise these issues so far.  Which also raises the question whether Garmin support actually monitor the going-ons here in the community; I suspect not.  Garmin-Daniel - can you confirm? ;}

I'm collecting one more days worth of walking efforts, and then will be back in touch with them to raise a support case - the 2 walks I had recorded since the upgrade didn't seem to satisfy them in terms of sample size.

Cheers, happy hiking!

Tink

P.S.: Yesterday I hauled shopping up my home hill at a faster than usual pace, and at a spot where I could just about *hear* my pulse the watch was recording 60. Pft ;}

Thanks! When I have some time, I'll get in touch with Garmin support too. But this really doesn't seem like that hard issue reproduce/notice. I don't know how accurate my OHR was before the update, since I don't regularly compare it with the chest strap, but even without chest strap I know it's way too low on every hike after the update. 

I've been having problems with OHR and garmin at least since I've purchased the 645 music last year. I remeber last year I went for many cardio exercises and even stair case climber machine at my working centre with 60 in pulse. My real pulse was closer to 180 i think... The OHR can only be used for the day pulse when you're doing your usual business. Workouts need to have chest strap. 

RunningM - I'm not sure about that.  Seems to work fine me running and cycling. And in software 6.55 beta and 7.10 it was spot on (or at least so a cursory check suggests) for hiking, too.

Where did you previously configure which sensors belonged to which activities?

I have never found such an option in any of the firmware versions I have used. I have always had to manually disable my Stryd as a power sensor in the sensor settings if I went biking while wearing the Stryd.