OHR vs. Chest strap HRM in Garmin Connect

Former Member over 8 years ago

So I'm having a very wide discrepancy in the HR, and consequently the calorie burn, between the wrist sensor and the chest strap. I called Garmin ages ago when I first got the Fenix 5x and they said it need to "learn" to be more accurate. Well, it's flunked. Still getting consistently low reading with the OHR. I've switched back to the chest strap, and the HR and calorie burns are back in line with what I used to get with my other trackers (and in line with what MFP and Livestrong say I should be getting). This defeats the purpose of me getting the Fenix5x though. I wanted to do without the chest strap.

2 questions:

- Is there some way to make the OHR more accurate?

- Is there a way to determine in Garmin Connect which was used for the activity? I'm not seeing anywhere where it say chest strap versus OHR.

Thanks.

0 Former Member over 8 years ago

Wrist based OHR's are always going to be pretty naff for anything other than day to day tracking and light activities.

Making sure they are tight will help, the less it moves around the better. But in the end it is sensing the slight colour changes in your skin each time your heart beats (the skin goes slightly more red on each beat), so anything that also changes your skin colour... like, ya know, exercise, will throw off the readings.

For anything beyond light activities, you really do need a chest strap.

0 sis651 over 8 years ago

During activities if external HRM is activate in settings it uses the chest strap and switches off the OHR LEDs below the watch, you can check them during the activity. If chest strap is connected LEDs should be off...