Wrong heart rate monitor during training

Vizi said:

Users have been reporting the issue for 7 months

Actually users have been reporting issues with WHR for years. Despite the insistence of some, it’s not a problem that’s just happened in the last seven months.

Vizi said:

Now it is Garmin's turn to actually do something about it

So the changes from Gen 4 to Gen 5 sensors for instance, and of course all the other sensor changes over the years is nothing to do with Garmin then? And then there’s the almost continual changes to the software too. But according to some comments these changes are nothing to do with Garmin as Garmin aren’t addressing the problem, aren’t doing anything to improve WHR  

Understand this, the chances of a working optical heart rate solution that will work 100% of the time for every single user of a watch using photoplethysmography to provide heart rate data is as likely as snow settling in the Sahara; not impossible just very unlikely. 

Might be that this is the case, it works for some and not for others. But I never had such a lot of software issues with a device. It's not only HR problems with my watch. And the way Garmin Support is handling those issues is to say it it really in nice words: not appropriate!

And yes, I wear the watch in a way it is supposed to be worn.

Might be that the first firmware I had was better. But there is no official way to go back to the old firmware.

You can download it from an inofficial source from other users. But that's not the way I handle a device where I use my credit card with Garmin pay! I will not install unofficial firmware. That's also because I would lose my warranty in that case.

I can use HR with my chest strap but I had it before from my old Garmin Vivoactive 3. I can fully understand those people here having problems with wrist HR measurement are Not willing to spend another 100 bucks for it! For me it's often a problem when just go out for a run and forget the chest strap, the run is then crap for the training metrics!

The way Garmin is handling those issues is not appropriate. If it's a problem for only very small numbers they could just reimburse those people their money and they would have peace. But they don't and that tells me that it's a huge issue and this would be too expensive! Look at all the the other watches where the same problems occurred after the firmware updates in the last half year!

And Garmin is still denying it and they do not communicate how they are trying to solve the problem for their premium customers. That's not fair and feel betrayed. Look at other companies like Apple or Samsung how they react when they have a big problem, at least they don't deny it, they communicate and they give information about when the problem will possibly be solved!

No one ever claimed 100%. But Garmin states itself something like 95% or similar.

And finally they claim that the gen 5 is their best WHR ever. My vivoactive 3 was better, my galaxy watch 4 was better, my 20 bucks miband 2 was better!

And finally again: people were happy with the gen 5 as it was stated here quite often. The problem came up with the firmware updates. And it's  not just a few percent off, it's like running for 20 minutes with real 160 bpm and the watch shows constantly 120 bpm. And then it suddenly jumps in one second to 160 bpm and is measuring right for the rest of the run. There's some kind of lag in their software and that's a fact that cannot be denied. 

Garmin Bug said:

But Garmin states itself something like 95% or similar.

Where?

Dr Phil said:

Actually users have been reporting issues with WHR for years. Despite the insistence of some, it’s not a problem that’s just happened in the last seven months.

Not these particular issues that many have in last 7 months. It is wrong to lump different (historically and currently reported issues) in same category and then dismiss them as they are all same old story.

Dr Phil said:

Understand this, the chances of a working optical heart rate solution that will work 100% of the time for every single user of a watch using photoplethysmography to provide heart rate data is as likely as snow settling in the Sahara; not impossible just very unlikely. 

No one said otherwise but that is not the point. Sky is also blue but that does not have anything to do with the topic. Let's stick to the point from which you so desperately want to move away from. The point is that on same hardware (Gen 4 to Gen 5 sensors) these particular HR issues happening in last 7 months for different users who did have those issue before 2024. They did not all suddenly change how they wear the watch, nor change their watches. What changed? Software on those watches. Thus it is perfectly reasonable to suspect that changes in software lead to those problems in some scenarios. We are all witnesses of that software updates often mess something up.

Over the last 7 months, specific heart rate (HR) issues have arisen across various Garmin watches with Gen 4 to Gen 5 sensors. Forerunner users were more vocal about it so they got paid some attention to, although the issue was not resolved until now.

Judging by all that, and previous threads in which people openly stated their issues and showed graphs, even tested different scenarios etc. it is really deceptive to blame users as if they did not provide data for Garmin or to normalize the issue as if it is "limitation of OHR". If it was due to OHR limitation, then these particular issues would be happening during last 2 years, not only during last 7 months.

Rather than normalizing the issues, users expect Garmin to address and resolve them. Or at least provide some useful information to users (statement "we are aware and will investigate" which users received until now is not useful information).

Hello forum.

Any news on this matter? I'm experiencing similar issue.

On my garmin epix 2, the heart rate jumps rapidly from 120 to 150 or even 160 bpm in a second after several minutes of training.

During the last few training sessions the heart rate did not rise above 125 bpm, while comparing it with other heart rate monitors and it should be around 155. I wear the watch correctly and in the past I did not have this kind of problem.

Nah it never improved for me. I went and bought a chest strap and don’t use the watch for HR while running now. 

Thank you for your reply. I will probably have to do the same thing you did as the watch HR readings are quite unreliable.

Welcome to the club of dissatisfied Garmin customers.

No trust to Garmin anymore for not admitting this issue is caused after a software update. No trust also for fixing it. Poor customer support and no respect to all of us affected by the HR issue.

I ended up buying an HR arm strap, not from Garmin of course. And I will never buy a Garmin watch anymore.