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Instinct Heart Rate Monitor Inaccurate During Activity

5185553
over 4 years ago

Bought my Garmin Instinct a little over a month ago to start tracking heart rate during my workouts. I do weight training, crossfit, and cycling. I've noticed that the heart rate is very low during my weight training along with the crossfit and is only accurate during the cycling when I'm on my trainer. That being said, today I was in the middle of my workout on the trainer and my heart rate dropped from 150 to 90 and stayed low for about 2 minutes then jumped right back up to 150. This is odd because my cadence did not change a bit. I'm very disappointed if the device is being altered by sweat on my arm or a little movement. Others I workout with use the Apple Watch and get accurate results the entire time. The only reason I went with Garmin is because it is a bit more rugged and has a much longer battery life. If the watch is worn snug I would assume it should work correctly even if you sweat, otherwise it wouldn't work during a swim workout. Is this a common problem?

  • +1 over 4 years ago

    Read up the following document to find out how to improve the HR reading (from the page #6 to the end of the document):

    https://images-eu.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/A1c0MzlpaBS.pdf

    One of the ways to improve the HR reading, not mentioned in the document, is wearing it on the inside of your wrist, where the blood stream is stronger, and the skin usually thinner and lighter / more transparent, and also less hairy.

    Anyway, the optical HR detection on extremities has its limitations. If you need a precise HR monitoring, I advise wearing a HRM belt working with electrical signals, instead of the optical sensors.

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to trux

    I appreciate the reply. I did end up switching the watch to the inside of my wrist during my ride this morning after it started to mess up. Still a bit disappointed that it has these issues, especially when my friend's apple watch is worn the same way and does not have this problem. 

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to 5185553
    5185553 said:
    especially when my friend's apple watch is worn the same way and does not have this problem. 

    Did you try his watch? The detection is quite individual, and depends on a number of factors - i.e. skin tone, haemoglobin level, the volume of blood stream, periferal vasoconstriction, movements, the tightness of the wrist band, and others. As I recommended - read first the document and try understanding how it works, it may help you improving the reading.

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to trux

    At some types of exercises, I attach the watch to my ankle instead of the wrist, and get a quite stable reading. However, I usually have a quite stable reading on the wrist too, anyway, with the Instinct. As I wrote, it is quite individual and depending on many factors. As written in the document, finding the right position and the right tigntness of the wrist band is rather important, among others.

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to trux

    I have not personally tried his watch. I will try the watch on the inside of the wrist for all workouts from here on out and see if there is a difference and also compare to his watch. If not, I'll try the ankle for weight training to see if that helps. Again, thank you for the help. Hopefully this will fix the issue, I love this watch and want to keep using it!