Having TE problems??? IT'S THE CHEST STRAP!!

I'm dropping this here because for the second time in two days i've had what seemed to be accurate TE numbers back from the watch. I did a bike ride and just now a quick 5k. Both days I got back initial numbers from the workout with using my chest strap for HR (year old HRM-Tri) and they actually seemed fine. I never DL info from the strap, but I was curious and decided to see what the difference was....

The TE from the strap is absurd.*

*And now I can't link to it because for some reason it has disappeared from the watch and GC.

From the initial run
https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/1766230296

TE form chest strap from what I saw (Anaerobic.08/Aerobic 1.0)

Then it dawned on me...This is the same damn number I have been getting with anything kind of workout (non running, non biking) I do 3 days of Tabata HIIT Training (tues,thurs,friday). Every single one is done with a chest strap. I NEVER use the OHRM for anything. What if there is a bug with "Other workouts" (The actual Other profile, Cardio, Strength training) that is taking not just your HR....but is also getting the TE from the strap and not the watch? Cycling and running don't seem to do this (it's getting the HR from the strap and getting the TE from the watch). I have no idea how to test for this other than downloading the info from the strap AFTER the fact.

If this is the case, and GARMIN, I mean really? REALLY?! This is one giant mistake if true. The difference here is so TITANICALLY wrong, it makes the watch, the strap, and weeks of recorded data useless. It means my Load is wrong, the status wrong, the TE for weeks wrong, Vo2max estimates wrong, EVERYTHING IS WRONG! What am I paying for if not a nearly precise piece of technology that records vital data about my health and fitness in nearly every facet!

And look, i'm not waiting for a reply, and i'm not going to send this info to your team. I'm out in about a week from this failure of a watch. I'm writing this for those that come read these forums and are having problems with your products. I'm hoping you'll actually take the time and READ YOUR OWN FORUMS FOR ONCE AND NOT DISMISS IT OUT OF HAND!

Your products are poor
Your software is shoddy
And it's starting to show.

0 carl.andersson over 8 years ago

Each fit file are from the above shared workouts. I labeled each by what strap was used and the date. They are each the same routine.

Have at it. I already took a look at the both and the R-R data looks like night and day to me. Whatever information is being sent via the H10 is not conducive with the F5, while the one from the HRM-Tri does. The tool I used stated the H10 one was partially corrupted, but the tool I used to look is a demo and hasn't been updated in some time.

Thanks for that Justin. I uploaded both files into runalyze.com and can confirm there is RR data in both, so that kind of blows that theory out of the water.
Polar H10
https://runalyze.com/shared/1ffa7
Garmin HRM-TRI
https://runalyze.com/shared/1ffa6

What I can see though is that although the activities are really similar the workout on the 30th had both a higher max heart-rate and higher average heart rate. So even though the graphs looks almost the same you end up sitting in quite different heart rate zones for the duration of the workouts.
That would have resulted in a higher TE score. What you can't see in Runalyze is your EPOC peak which is what Firstbeat/Garmin use to determine the TE of an activity, but it would have been higher in the second workout for sure. You can see TRIMP, which is a similar metric to EPOC peak and it's significantly higher in the second workout - but again it's based on heart rate/hrv data.

So really the question should be - do you think both of these straps are accurate? Because the watch can only use the data it is given right and I don't actually see anything in those two activities to suggest something is seriously wrong unless one of the straps is over/under reporting your heart-rate?
The heart-rate graph shapes are very similar, but one has a lower overall heart-rate. It could've been that your warm up was slightly harder in the second workout (so your heart-rate never quite recovered after that) or maybe you were just feeling much fresher/stronger for the first workout?

Try running the HRV Stress test before your workouts, and see over time how that looks (I think the first few times you do it you'll just get a score of zero).
You should start to see correlation between that and your TE scores - high stress numbers may result in quite different workout performances vs low stress scores, and that should impact on your TE for a particular workout.
Garmin have promised they'll bring the all-day Stress scores from the Vivofit 3 across to the Fenix 5, but we'll see if they get that into the F5 before Polar get Stryd support into your M430 :)

0 2goBeyond over 8 years ago

Thanks for that Justin. I uploaded both files into runalyze.com and can confirm there is RR data in both, so that kind of blows that theory out of the water.
Polar H10
https://runalyze.com/shared/1ffa7
Garmin HRM-TRI
https://runalyze.com/shared/1ffa6

What I can see though is that although the activities are really similar the workout on the 30th had both a higher max heart-rate and higher average heart rate. So even though the graphs looks almost the same you end up sitting in quite different heart rate zones for the duration of the workouts.
That would have resulted in a higher TE score. What you can't see in Runalyze is your EPOC peak which is what Firstbeat/Garmin use to determine the TE of an activity, but it would have been higher in the second workout for sure. You can see TRIMP, which is a similar metric to EPOC peak and it's significantly higher in the second workout - but again it's based on heart rate/hrv data.

So really the question should be - do you think both of these straps are accurate? Because the watch can only use the data it is given right and I don't actually see anything in those two activities to suggest something is seriously wrong unless one of the straps is over/under reporting your heart-rate?
The heart-rate graph shapes are very similar, but one has a lower overall heart-rate. It could've been that your warm up was slightly harder in the second workout (so your heart-rate never quite recovered after that) or maybe you were just feeling much fresher/stronger for the first workout?

Try running the HRV Stress test before your workouts, and see over time how that looks (I think the first few times you do it you'll just get a score of zero).
You should start to see correlation between that and your TE scores - high stress numbers may result in quite different workout performances vs low stress scores, and that should impact on your TE for a particular workout.
Garmin have promised they'll bring the all-day Stress scores from the Vivofit 3 across to the Fenix 5, but we'll see if they get that into the F5 before Polar get Stryd support into your M430 :)

Thanks for doing all that, honestly I have never heard of runalyze before (but of course I now have an account.) To answer your question about which is strap is more accurate, the HRM-Tri is obviously, The R-R data alone should be speaking to it. I still feel (again opinion) the H10 info going into the watch is being interpreted wrong by the watch, or that it's just not as accurate as it claims. Either way, gonna be using this to track how info is being funneled into the watch for the time being.