Wrist heart rate outside of activity is hopelessly inaccurate?

Yes, I have exactly the same behaviour.

Crazy differences between HRM strap recorded HR and the one I can see on epic without started activity.

It is simply another non functioning feature. There is no credibility to heart rate tracking that can report 66 when it should be 149.

That throws confidence in a whole host of the other daily tracking metrics out of the window too.

I'm not an Epix owner, but this caught my eye based on my Fenix 6X experience.

This was reported by me and several others around three years ago with the Fenix 6 series. Eventually we just accepted that this is how the watch is engineered, with a view to extending battery life. Supposedly it was a non issue on firmware prior to 5.00, but became a "feature" from that point forward. Unfortunately I started with 5.00 so I never knew any different.

If you want to accurately track higher heart rates than around 110 then start recording an activity and, better yet, use a strap and don't rely on WHR.

Respiration rate requires HRV, which can't be determined reliably from WHR when active. Once again, strap required.

Respiration rate when not active can’t be determined by the watch either. The feature is broken.

Appreciate you are trying to find a workaround for non functional software, but we shouldn’t be rolling over and sorting out Garmin’s failures for them. There are plenty of occasions where heart rate can rise well over 110 without actually doing an activity. What is the point in monitoring daily heart rate if it can’t monitor the full range of heart rates during the day?

Garmin are selling watches with features that don’t work and we are expected to just pay our money and be happy trying to work around their defective features? These are expensive devices and many of the features they are advertised with don’t seem to work. How can that be justified?

Garmin need to get their act together and sell products which actually work as advertised. If they are unable to produce watches which track outside of an activity they should not deceive customers by including those features. 

Strong words.and accusations? Happy for Garmin to prove me wrong and demonstrate how I may get my watch to work correctly.

Certainly in the lower power 24/7 mode, while it is pretty good with lower heart rates, the WHR can struggle with heart rate above 120 pm.

Normally this is a non-issue, because MoveIQ (basically activity autodetect) identifies the movement patterns of more vigorous activity, and triggers the higher power activity mode which will track higher heart rates accurately.

However, indoor cycling is an activity that involves very little upper body or arm movement, and MoveIQ may not pick this up and trigger the activity mode. Outdoor cycling is normally OK, because vibrations from road buzz, or the micro-adjustments to steering and balance to keep straight and upright are usually detected, but indoor cycling is more static. The arm movement of most other activities should be enough to trigger moveIQ and give reasonably accurate HR.

This is really an issue arising from the battery saving features in a fairly narrow scenario, rather than a fault in YOUR watch. Exchanging the watch is not going to solve the problem.

I'm not sure how actionable all-day heart rate is - you are going to get more granular and useful HR information by looking at the activity itself in GC than the last 4 hour graph. But assuming this information is important to you, I'd recommend starting the Cardio activity while indoor cycling (and Discarding rather than Saving afterwards to avoid duplicates from the Edge)

I got a feeling that it also depends on how much movement the watch detects. As you, when on my trainer the watch almost always fail to detect proper pulse without starting an activity, but on my mountain bike out in the woods it does a good job without starting one. (I log both indoor and outdoor bike activities using my Edge)

Just tried a brisk walk up a steep hill. It seemed to pick up the higher pulse rate (max 130) better so could be related to motion.

Really don’t see why that is necessary though. If it needs higher power to track higher heart rates then surely the software could be made to switch to higher power mode when it detects the heart rate starting to rise to the higher levels where it is needed?

Garmin need to sort the all day tracking features so that they work. At the moment there are too many failures and scenarios in which they don’t work to make them reliable for anything.

Surely if their failure is due to power saving then the user should be given the option to disable the power saving and have more accurate tracking?

My experience: back in August, I got up at 2:00 am, didn't feel ok and checked the time and HR - it was at 110. Which shocked me quiet a bit. Measured it by hand: 110. Turned out I got corona. So it completely matched. 

If I go outside and just do a couple of sprints without starting an activity, it tracks my HR just fine. When I do core and HIT, I use the Epix and track the session - HR seems just fine too. Unfortunately I do not wear my EPIX when I do endurance training seen that I use my chest strap and bike computer. Maybe it has to do with how you wear it or with the size of your wrist. 

Definitely not anything to do with how it is worn or the size of wrist given it tracks pretty well when an activity is started, just not outside of an activity.

Interesting that you say yours tracks well outside an activity though.