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New Heartrate bug - HR spikes to 180 for no reason

Adrian s
over 1 year ago

Hi all! 

On the latest software version I noticed a really weird bug with the heartrate on Runs. It suddenly spikes to high values of ~180 even though pace and elevation stays the same. At first I thought the HR Spike was real, when looking at the watch and noticing, but my perceived exertion level was the same as before the spike, I think I would have felt it if my HR was actually ~180. 

I then started analyzing multiple runs and I noticed it happens very often, in situations where realistically the HR should have been constant - maintaining the same pace and elevation. 

When I do notice these spikes I usually lift the watch from my wrist for a few seconds and then it magically goes back to normal. 

The position of the watch on my wrist and the tightness of the band has always been the same, and my watch sensor and wrist are always clean. I was enrolled in the beta channel until this latest release and never saw this bug happen until after final release of 14.67 and now it persists in 14.68.

Is anyone else experiencing this issue? I'm now getting a "maintaining" training status instead of "productive" even though all of my metrics are good, and I suspect it's because of this bug, because my "Performance condition" drops during runs because of it. 

Thanks!

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to Dr Phil
    Dr Phil said:
    If the inaccuracy is from using WHR then it's been out there since Noah was an infant.


    Not exactly. Of course, there is always a dropout and inaccuracy in readings. The problem is not this.

    The problem is that Garmin, for a while uses an algorithm that contains a bug, and because of this bug, the - normally - inconsistent readings causes long periods of data that are completely off.

    As you can see in the graphs, it is not inaccuracy. It is totally wrong for periods.

    And that is not normal for optical HR sensors at all. 

    You may not face it - great, probably it is how you use it, how you wear it, how is your skin color / thickness, etc. That does not mean that your watch is free of this software bug. In fact, it is 100% that it affects your watch as well if you updated it this year.

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to 6340692
    6340692 said:
    The other good news is that Garmin-Sierra is working hard to collect reports

    As an engineer, I am not that optimistic on this. More precisely, it is totally unnecessary to collect data on this.

    In the lab, this bug can be reproduced very easily - if they wanted to do, it would be fixed already.

    My feelings and full respect for , as they have to manage this shitshow, but let's face it: if they are unable to fix a completely trash body fat reading in a product for long years, and this critical HR bug can exist for this long time then they don't really want to fix it.

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to pxl
    pxl said:
    As you can see in the graphs, it is not inaccuracy. It is totally wrong for periods.

    And I'll say again, this is nothing new and has been reported frequently by different people with different watches over the years. When changes are made to the sensor/algorithm different people experience different problems and different people are differently affected.

    pxl said:
    it is how you use it, how you wear it, how is your skin color / thickness, etc.

    Something that Garmin, and other manufacturers, recognise - https://www.garmin.com/en-US/legal/atdisclaimer/

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to Dr Phil

    I don't think there's any doubt that there have been various heartrate problems since the beginning of the optical heart rate sensor. But if you look at the threads, there is a specific set of problems that have occurred only since February 2023, in addition to problems that have always existed. A few users have even managed to go back to older software (by buying a new watch and not upgrading the software) and confirm that the specific set of problems goes away.

    I am one of the users that have noticed a specific problem only since February 2023 with the Forerunner 955 v14.13 software and never before. I also underwent a hardware exchange and the problem followed the software and not the hardware.

  • 0 over 1 year ago

    I had a run on the treadmill today. One of many, so I'm accustomed to where my HR should be, and that is typically between 130 and 155. Today, same 4.3 km workout, it ranged between 160 and 197.  Recovery time of 95 hours. Exercise load 323! Now, I was not even tired at the end, or out of breath at any time during the workout. For context, I'm 68 years old, and 25 years ago I had a lab-tested max HR of 186. So 197 falls into the 'ridiculous' category. After getting off the treadmill, I manually counted my HR at 96 (16 over 10 sec) while the watch was saying 139.

    Yesterday it was the opposite problem. I had a much harder bike ride (outside). My usual 23 km, one-hour route. I did it two minutes faster than I did on Sept 26. Yet on last month's ride my heart rate averaged 130 and maxxed at 160, ie. normal, while yesterday the numbers were 109 and 130. Exercise load, 101. I've never had such a low average heart rate on rides, or such low exercise load. So the HR was reading unreasonably low yesterday. To be honest, though, I've seen this low HR problem before.

    I don't know what to make of these figures, except that they completely throw off any of the analytical metrics derived from them.

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to Dr Phil

    well, now I do use an arm optical HR sensor, connected to my watch, and that never ever produced this kind of issue, and there are no complaints about that sensor in the forums.

    it just works.

    also, measured / transferred data was always full of error in data processing and telecommunication so there is a long history of how to handle noisy data properly, it is really not a rocket science, it worked several decades ago well - these kind of issues should not happen now

    it is not the optical sensor technology, it is a bug in garmin's algorithm, and that's it

  • 0 over 1 year ago

    Had the same bug happen on my long run this Saturday.  No change in pace or effort, HR spikes.  Back too chest strap for all workouts until Garmin can find and fix. 

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to cromwellc

    It sucks when that bug shows up. I am paranoid about it now and checks heart rate often during the run.  When  the spike occurs, I pause the watch ,which interrupts my workout session Pensive (and resume it 30 secs or a min later.) 

    Continue the run with watch on bug mode will screw up every biometric data associate with hr.

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to cromwellc

    Even with chest strap (hrm pro plus ). I still get random spikes as it seems to lose connection at random times(based off respiration chart ).  The moment it loses  respiration rate data, is when heart rate  start to go bonkers 

  • 0 over 1 year ago

    I have had the same issue 15.71 - HR starts to rise when its not (up to around 180bpm). Eventually sorts itself out and suddenly dips (back down to 150bpm).