Wrist heart rate Fenix 5x plus

I recently bought the Fenix 5x plus.
Now I wonder if the wrist heart rate would be the same as with the Suunto Ambit 2 chest strap (3 years in use).

So I started heart walking with both at the same time.
The weird thing is when you see the stats (Suunto black / yellow), Garmin (white / red),
that with the Suunto chest strap the heart beat gets higher as I get tired. While the heart rate of the Garmin decreases!
Could this be because my wrist is getting sweaty?
Sorry for my bad English (google translate), I'm from the Netherlands ;-)
Anyone have an explanation? Thank you.

0 Elbo over 5 years ago

Wrist heart rate monitoring isn’t very good. For 24/7 monitoring it’s fine, for running it’s not very good.

I have the same problem. The wrist heartrate is most likely to lock on your cadens. And your cadens might go down when you’re tired at then end of your workout.

There are some things you could try to improve. Tighten your watch more (it should be quite snug) and wear it as far away from your wrist as posible.

Or just give up and use a cheststrap.

(your english is fine, but I’m also Dutch, so my judgement on english is limited ;)

0 Iwan Bass over 5 years ago in reply to Elbo

Thank you Elbo!
I quickly bought the Garmin HRM Run heart rate belt. This seems to be better from the table.
Also very nice the values of vertical ratio, ground contact etc. Have studied it a bit, very educational!
A bit of a pity that with such an expensive sports watch, the wrist heart rate is not reliable. But happy with my chest strap!

0 Elbo over 5 years ago in reply to Iwan Bass

I feel you. And the running dynamics of the garmin cheststrap are interesting.

The wrist heart rate could also be interesting for your resting heart rate. If there is a sudden rise of your rest heart rate it could mean you'l get the flu in a few days, or you train a bit to hard (or rest to little) or had a rough weekend like mine (caused a temporaty spike from the usual 43 to above 50, only because of some short nights ;)

0 Former Member over 5 years ago

I never found it that bad (I have a Fenix5). However it is important to have the wrist band tight enough. When it is too loose, you will not get a good reading. But it should not be so tight that it hurts.

For me the first 10 minutes the data is often not so accurate. Therefore I try to start the watch early so that the watch can get a good lock to your heart rate.

0 Former Member over 5 years ago

Mine Fenix 5 was working fine for HRM while walking for most of the year I've owned it. It started dropping 1/2 to 3/4 of the way through a walk to my cadence level just 2 updates ago. I was hoping the latest update would fix it. I'm convinced this is a firmware screwup on Garmin's part. No other reason why HRM would work fine for months on end and then suddenly become very inaccurate right after a firmware upgrade. Same watch, same watchband, same walk every day. When I'm walking from home, I can throw on my Polar OH1 for an accurate reading (not that I should have to). But when I'm in the office and going for a walk at lunch, I'm not going deal with strapping on an HRM. And with an expensive sports watch on my wrist, I shouldn't have to.

0 Iwan Bass over 5 years ago in reply to Former Member

Thank you all for your input and your experiences, great! I will see what the future holds, I would like to share my experience again if there is something special.