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Heart Rate Drop outs

dwaller1973 over 5 years ago

Just purchased a Marq Expedition and received it last night. While I love the watch, I'm seeing a lot of heat rate drops. I'm using the rubber strap and wearing the device snugly. I can only imagine what it will be like with the leather strap. I'm not overly hirsute by any stretch of the imagination and no tats. I'm coming from a Fenix 5s plus and that device locked onto HR constantly. I ran a seven miler this morning with 419ft of ascent and the Marq registered my avg HR at 128 while in comparison the same run on Sunday averaged 155 on the Fenix. In fact I'm looking at the HR app right now and it's not registering my HR. Am I doing something wrong here or do I need to reach out to Garmin support? Thanks in advance.

0 nmyeti over 5 years ago

That does seem quite odd. I've been told that if you are wearing the watch, it should be tight enough to just slip your little finger under the band at your wrist. I can easily get the watch to fit this way with both the silicone and leather bands. If you are wearing the watch in this manner and still seeing HR drop out while just sitting around, make sure that the watch is up to date from a firmware perspective (via Garmin express is the fastest way). If it is, call or chat with support as your experience isn't normal.

As for running OHR performance, I've found the MARQ to be better than the Fenix 5x Plus in most cases, but both struggle with intervals and have a tendency to go the wrong way as intensity increases.

0 dwaller1973 over 5 years ago in reply to nmyeti

Thanks so much, I don't think the HR performance is normal. I've rebooted the watch, deleted data and reset it, toggled on and off the HR monitor, etc. and now its not working at all. HR sensor light does not cut on at all at this point. Beautiful device but devastatingly bad first impression for an upscale device. Had a few generations of Fenix devices and never had this happen. First thing that happened last night was the 3.50 firmware came down from Garmin Connect. Wonder if that had anything to do with it. Wait time for customer support seems abysmal as well.

0 nmyeti over 5 years ago in reply to dwaller1973

In the US i've never had much of a wait time for customer service. I don't know how it is in other regions (if you are somewhere else) but in the US chat and phone support have been fantastic. I would suspect there is something wrong with the firmware on your OHR sensor. Try going into the system>about menu and scroll down until you get the software versions of each of the individual components. Check WHR version. Support will probably want to know this.

Perhaps Garmin-Heath can help.

0 dwaller1973 over 5 years ago in reply to nmyeti

Thanks! I'm in the States and wait time was 45 mins but once the Garmin Support rep was on the phone he was fantastic. It was interesting that he was able to verify what I was seeing through Garmin Connect. We went through the basic troubleshooting steps before he issued a replacement. If the replacement is good, I'll be satisfied and write this off as just bad luck. Thanks for the insight.

0 nmyeti over 5 years ago in reply to dwaller1973

Really glad they took care of you even after the somewhat long wait time. Garmin probably needs a "schedule a call back" service for those types of wait times. I've never waited that long, but my experience with the actual people working the phones or chat has been just as fantastic. I've yet to interact with a Garmin employee that doesn't genuinely want to do right by the customer. You probably just had a fluke experience with the watch. Even with the nicer materials and such they are still technology and occasionally do not work the way they are supposed to, so it is good to know that Garmin quickly stood behind their product. Let us know how the new one works when it arrives.