Fenix 5 - very Poor Heart Tracking with Tennis

I have had my Fenix 5 now for 3 weeks. With Running and Cycling Optical heart rate tracking works fine and gives me ball park figures (i train with a separate heart rate strap so can control the numbers). However in with tennis the values are just, to put it bluntly POOR. i know from experience that the HR should be between 130-170bpm in hectic games. I am not a OHR noob, have had a Polar A360 just for tennis for a while but made the switch to Garmin. The A360 2 years old worked better than the Fenix 5.

I have set up a training called tennis on the watch with only OHR on (no GPS)

I did the normal things to control the OHR. (wait for a lock, correct wrist fit, even shaved some hair of my wrist, put a sweat band over the watch to occlude ambient light, checked fit), but alas. My Fenix tells me my heart rate is 70-85bpm for most of a match... I know a chest strap is always better than OHR but this is just poor! especially in a €600 watch. See screen below

Anyone have an idea if the accelerometer / OHR maybe have a bug? Or the algorithms at Garmin are not up to interval training?

I hope Garmin reads these threads and can reply on this.

Top Replies

Ma73ko over 7 years ago +1

Really I can not accept that Garmin is focused to introduce new Yoga profile and not a Tennis profile. Coming from a Polar M600 I trust that OHR can be in the ball park even during tennis activities.
I…

All Replies

0 Former Member over 7 years ago

I read the discussion with interest. OHR appears to be working fine for me during running which is what I do (worst case scenario measured heart rate is low at the beginning of the run but that's not necessarily unreal). But I have reported before in other contexts that sleep detection is a real problem for the F5, and the only way sleep detection can work is by combining movement with OHR. Here it's really hit 'n miss, with sleep not being recorded I would estimate 50% or more of the time as soon as the sleeping hours are outside the default (i.e. user specified) range. The F5 regularly reports that it wasn't worn during those hours, when it obviously was. Interestingly, a fitbit surge I had before was 100% spot-on in sleep detection and analysis. I am pretty certain that there is an issue with OHR here, probably linked to algorithm/software rather than the hardware

0 Former Member over 6 years ago

I found this thread because my Fenix 5 recorded way too low heart rates with OHR while playing tennis. Elsewhere I read the hint to use "Indoor track" as a mode and move the watch a bit up and tighten the fit. Did that - worked. Heart rates seemed realistic yesterday.

0 Former Member over 6 years ago

Indoor track? But you cant use GPS in this app. So basically you need to choose between GPS or OK(ish) HR? Nice...

0 JSRUNNER_ over 6 years ago

bejek why would you want GPS for tennis - its likely to be wildly innaccurate?

0 Former Member over 6 years ago

bejek why would you want GPS for tennis - its likely to be wildly innaccurate?

innacurate - ofc, but it's still pretty funny, watching your movement on the court on satellite map

0 JSRUNNER_ over 6 years ago

bejek - so yes you have to choose an entertaining GPS track and HR :)