OHR Useless With Dark Skin

Has there been any resolution to this? Been wearing a Vivosmart 3 for about a week now and it does the same thing. Very sporadic in reading all day HR. The very odd thing however is that when I go into workout mode it seems to read HR relatively fine. Also if I wear the band on the inside of my wrist it reads HR ok. Nervous as I just ordered a Fenix 5 yesterday and worried it won't work.

I was able to get it to work on the inside of my dominant wrist only. Even then, I get 12-20 hours of recording. It will drop off for stretches of time. I don't use it for exercise.

Has there been any resolution to this? Been wearing a Vivosmart 3 for about a week now and it does the same thing. Very sporadic in reading all day HR. The very odd thing however is that when I go into workout mode it seems to read HR relatively fine. Also if I wear the band on the inside of my wrist it reads HR ok. Nervous as I just ordered a Fenix 5 yesterday and worried it won't work.

In order to save battery, most OHR's sample less frequently in 24/7 mode than in exercise mode. The less frequent sampling in 24/7 mode may make it more difficult to track changes in HR in marginal conditions (eg. loose watch, darker skin, more deeply buried arteries, etc). The F5 is supposed to have the latest more energy efficient sensor, plus it's got a monster battery and I think this allows more frequent OHR sampling.

Giving it a few days to see how it works. Garmin in 2017 please do not alienate customers...

I have written on this recently. The 5x plus has been a nightmare in this regard, on my darker skin. The HR drops out randomly on the outside wrist position. The HR works flawlessly when the watch is on the inside of the wrist on the clearler skin. Then...miraculously, on another site someone recommended that those with this HR problem should wear the watch such that the sensor does not touch the skin. They recommended plastic under the sensor. Voila, the sensor has worked without dropping out on my dark skin on the outside of the wrist with the plastic under the sensor. I do not know why this works. GARMIN SHOULD FIGURE IT OUT. Plastic under my $1000 watch to get it to work is not sustainable.

What type of plastic did you use? I also don't think I should have to do this to get a very expensive device to do what my $100 fitbit does with no issues but I really want this thing to work... I wear a chest strap during workouts so no problem there.. but I still want to know if my HR jumps for no reason during the day as I monitor that and was hoping to do away with wearing 2 devices..

Just bought a Fenix 5S Plus and it’s back to this same nonsense with Garmin. They don’t test on dark skin. My Vivosmart 3 works fine but this $900 Fenix doesn’t pick up my HR at all. So sick of this. Back to the Apple Watch I’m forced to go. It’s like Garmin doesn’t want my money. Returning $1k in merchandise because of this.

This limit is likely a compromise between battery life and performance. I am a pasty sunburn-prone person, and it works fine enough for my purposes.

My bet is the optical output power isn't set high enough for dark-skinned folks, and the plastic helps put a gap in place so light is dispersed better and can be picked up on the receiver. The back of the watch is already plastic-ish around the sensor, see if you can pull off the same thing with a small screen protector piece of material (plastic type, not glass). It may be much more rugged than a piece of packing plastic, or you could also layer up some tape to raise it a little if you prefer it snug.

I agree, this should be resolved if other brands support dark skin just fine. Allow the optical power to be ramped up so it works!
BTW I wonder why green light it used rather than red? I would assume green passes through flesh fine without the presence of blood, so you are detecting the level between heartbeats of lower blood pressure? Green is generally well-blocked by darker skin though, red passes a bit better.

I knew I'd win you over ;)

The fenix 5X without the OHRM would be my next purchase in a nanosecond.

Come on, Garmin, we know you can do this!

+1
Give us a non OHR option in the next Fenix range pleeeeeeeeeeease!