Hi Everyone,
I had a pool swim today while having my 5X connected to MioLink heart monitor wearing it next to the watch. Watch was performing flawlessly and detected all my laps accurately. It also was reporting heart rate from MioLink as I checked that watch own monitor was off. After finishing my swim I synced my watch with GC and found that my swim activity is missing heart rate data (https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/1655510760). Tried to look for information on the topic and found this thread on Fenix 3 (https://forums.garmin.com/archive/index.php/t-324350.html) which didn't get anywhere, although there were a lot of discussion on inaccurate measurements, technical problems of implementing this for pool swim, and Garmin desire to protect its own chest straps monitors.
Does anyone know why Garmin deliberately not saving heart rate data for pool swim activity into GC? Or maybe I am missing some settings? I really really want to believe that I just not set something right?
In the thread I mention people were saying that there is technical issues preventing heart rate data to be saved properly (like because it is laps), but I checked my daily summary page (https://connect.garmin.com/modern/daily-summary/Belarusian/2017-04-02/timeline) and I can see heart rate data during my swim (although with 2 min intervals), so I believe it is technically possible and can be done. Another argument which was given in another thread was that Garmin doesn't want to deal with inaccuracy issue which creates a lot customer support. I believe they do the same disclaimer for UltraTrac mode - which is very similar issue to this. This leaves only last argument that Garmin is trying to protect their own chest straps for swimming. I somewhat can understand that, but at the same time I think Garmin is missing some opportunity. I personally will never ever use chest strap for swimming. Period. I also know a lot of people who swim and they won't use it either. At the same time a lot of people would use wrist-based monitor and I think Garmin should make one (I believe the main problem of inaccuracy is that water changes reflection of the skin, but there are solutions to make sensor-skin attachment completely waterproofed which could solve the problem) or at least allow people to use existing third party ones.
I was literally writing Facebook post about my experience in swimming pool today planning to recommend my setup to other people and found out that heart rate data is missing from activity and now I don't even want to post it, because I am disappointed that I have to look at my daily summary page to figure out what was my heart rate during the swim..., so please someone tell me that it is fixed and I am just missing some proper settings for this? Please save the day.
