Fenix 6X Sapphire - faulty OHR or software bug?

Had the watch spike my rate up to 184 for a brief bit today.  It also shows a pace spike at the same time.  Since I was going up a relatively steep hill, the latter for sure didn't happen, and at my age, 180 bpm's is past stopping time.  I know from long experience on the hill, mid 140's at worst.

I've seen this kind of thing before, had it jump to 170 when my heart rate was probably not even 120.

Indeed, i have a polar h10 and a vantage V. The polar h10 connects to my phone with polar beat and all my gym equipment. It is a very good chest strap. I compared the polar VV and the garmin 6S during activity with just the ohr and not starting an activity. the polar sustain high HR for the duration of the workout when the 6S dropped to half the rate after 30 mn. But sometimes it worked. so no consistency. 

Pierrotsc said:

But sometimes it worked. so no consistency. 

My experience is the same. I get the feeling the watch sometimes 'thinks' I'm resting and lowers the polling frequency of the HR sensor. Only way to prevent that behvior is to start an activity for every time I'm not resting, but also not in an activity (walks, cycling to and from work, etc.). Never had to do this before with a lot of Fitbits, Garmin watches, Polar watches, etc. This kind of inconsistency is just unacceptable in my opinion.

Indeed. i just returned mine. i could not justify the price tag for something that works with cheaper wearable. The watch has a great built and a lot of metrics but they are most of them based on HR.

I would prefer the user option to control the polling, even at the cost of battery life. Could be controlled by battery profiles.

Odd thing is the hr when not in activity doesn't register past 120/130. You could be running for dear life... even with low polling frequency.. some high hr should come out of it..

So for the rest of us,  it's a nice time piece.  

Problem is the battery is not easy to replace. Its soldered in. And replacing depends on vendors having such battery. And soldering skills

I think it will depend on how many people complain. I got a message from support a while back and they did acknowledge that the frequency was a lot lower not in activity and that is why the behavior. So this is on how the watch is designed. I only get 5 days of battery with my polar VV. i guess they poll the hr faster when i move if i recall. although during spinning class, it satyed at 140 for 45 mn while garmin dropped to 70 after 30 mn. the first 30 mn were fine though. Most of the users do not check their hr during the day. at the gym, they either start an activity or use a strap. If you notice, not many people really are complaining about the ohr. 

Pierrotsc said:

Most of the users do not check their hr during the day

And you know this because?

I can't speak for most users but I know I do glance at my heart rate during the day. I take regular walk breaks of 5 minutes or so every hour or two and am interested to see what the WHR is reporting particularly because of the complaints about it not working. It is possible other readers of these threads do similar. Beyond that who knows? 

Pierrotsc said:

If you notice, not many people really are complaining about the ohr. 

There are several vociferous, almost serial complainers, who make a point of posting negatively about WHR whenever they can. Unsure how many have actually reported their issues to Garmin Support but that is something that should always be done; in addition to posting here of course.

Whether or not Garmin will change the way they record with WHR is unknown. however, we do know they are working to make it more reliable and accurate for as many people as possible.

In the meantime, my suggestion is that if you know you are going to be active beyond your normal daily routine, record it as an activity. If you want reliable, accurate heart rate data during an activity, use a chest strap. If you have to sprint for a bus or run up a couple of flights of stairs accept you might lose a few calories but in the scheme of things that loss is going to be minor for a burst of activity that only took a couple of seconds.