Is Respiration Rate not working?

I did a quick try, and I observed the same problem. When my actual brpm was 15, the watch detected 13, and when my actual brpm was 31, the watch detected 15, and Garmin Connect reports 14 (another rounding error or bug I presume).

Out of curiosity, I tried to do the same with a chest strap, but the health snapshot requires the watch, most likely because of the SPO2 measurement.

Doing some research about HRV data during exercise, I came across this article where the Garmin respiration rate is compared some collected with accurate equipment. The result is that the Garmin respiratory rate trends seem to track efforts variations during exercise to some extent, but the absolute respiratory rate values are way off too low. To quote the author:

"Garmin needs to work on their methodology.  Although it did partially track on my ramp, I have done other ramps where it was way off.  The accuracy during warmups, HIT and zone 1-2 cycling was not good.  Bottom line - trusting the Garmin data is problematic, even with a good HR belt like the H10. This was both surprising and disappointing to me.  We know what is theoretically possible in resp rate estimation from the Kubios data, let's hope Garmin can reproduce this someday.  I will be keeping an eye on Garmin methodology and will update this post if/when they ever fix things."

http://www.muscleoxygentraining.com/2022/09/respiratory-rate-metrics-ecg-vs-hrv.html

Unfortunately, the health snapshot suffers probably from additional accuracy issues from the wrist heart rate.

I have done some comparison of the SPO2 rate with a sleep study equipment, and found the same pattern: some trends are represented, but the actual values were off

https://forums.garmin.com/outdoor-recreation/outdoor-recreation/f/epix-2/292949/epix-2-vs-sleep-study-spo2-off-wake-deep-undercount/1415001#1415001

So yes, these quick tests don't instill confidence.

Hopefully HRV data collected during a recorded activity is accurate enough, and its application to qualify HR data and to estimate EPOC, VO2Max and threshold is less prone to errors.

To be honest, from what I’m seeing in terms of accuracy I’d be better off just using a mechanical watch and guessing a number for the sensor metrics. They bear no relationship to actual respiration rates.

Has anyone with a epix managed to get it to reflect their actual respiration rate? If not, how are garmin managing to get away with selling watches with features that simply don’t work?

I was checking the brpm during recorded activities, and the patterns and magnitude levels make sense during threshold, VO2, tempo and endurance intervals, but I never actually measure manually to compare with the watch absolute values. Something to try...

So it looks like an issue with the health snapshot app.

The respiration rate is determined by changes in the duration between heartbeats when breathing in and out. If the wrist based heart meter cannot gather that information correctly then it certainly can’t be gathering HRV data accurately, which is based on the differences in duration between heart beats. Without accurate HRV data it cannot be determining stress levels correctly.

unless other users can confirm they are able to record accurate respiration rates then it looks like we’ve all bought an expensive nightlight rather than a useful health tracker and that Garmin have falsely advertised their product.

Anyone?

The following query has just been emailed to Garmin support. I will post their response if received.

“Respiration rate as shown on my Epix Gen 2 is not accurate. I have breathed steadily at rates between 5 and 30 brpm and the respiration rate on the watch does not shift from between 12 and 16 brpm. Given that this metric is based upon differences in the duration between heartbeats and that it is so inaccurate I do not believe that other metrics such as HRV, stress and body battery, which use similar data, can be recording accurately. I have tried the watch on both wrists at several different levels of tightness whilst using the respiration widget and the health snapshot app. All attempts result in the respiration rate not even vaguely matching my actual respiration rate. Please could you advise how I may get this watch to work as advertised, particularly given this is a problem experienced by the other members of the Garmin Forums and not just for my specific unit. I assume these HRV based metrics actually work and are not just advertising gimmicks / false advertising? Obviously if I do not receive a response to the contrary which resolves the issue I will be able to advise others accordingly.”

Seems like more data to show the garmin feature doesn’t work. Thank you for the making the effort to test this out (and how very interesting that you have had time to undertake a test but Garmin have not yet found time to reply to my query!)

it’s beginning to look like the Epix respiration rate feature is astonishingly accurate… but only if your respiration rate is always 14brpm and never changes!

First of all, thank you so much for all the effort you put in supporting this community. I find that your work is inspirational for the quality of data and explanations you provide every time! I'm learning so much from your posts! That said, from your testing, I believe we can safely assume that HRV measurements are right. I was a bit worried about it because they are so foundational for other functions (stress, stamina, body battery, performance condition) that having them wrong, would mean that the watch is just a glorified nightlight (as PhotoPete said). What do you think? (btw I'm experiencing the same behaviour in respiration glance and health snapshot)

Assuming that screenshot is from Garmin Connect - I don't see this.

Have I disabled respiration capture during activity somewhere?? I've had a look through the settings and can't obviously find anything.

If I scroll back through the daily report, there are gaps in my data at the times when I would have been running :( 

Answering my own question, from Garmin..

"NOTE: An HRM-Tri, HRM-Run, HRM-Pro, HRM-Pro Plus, or HRM-Dual strap is required for all activity types with the exception of Breathwork or Yoga activity types"

The Health Snapshot (which clearly doesnt reflect REAL respiration rates) doesnt need this. So is the suggestion that respiration measured at the wrist is faulty? And therefore, is there an implied suggestion about the HRV measurements?