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Heart rate not accurate

Former Member
Former Member over 5 years ago

SOLVED: the watch was not tight enough. Has been accurate since.

I received my 6X Pro yesterday; my first Garmin. Sitting around my house yesterday, the wrist HR reading seemed accurate. I did a stairmaster workout today and was surprised to find that my HR would not go above about 80. This was obviously wildly inaccurate as my HR was actually fluctuating between 150 and 170. A few minutes after getting off the machine, the 6x started reading a HR around 110 as I was cooling down. 

I did a few quick tests on a stationary bike with a chest strap and found that with a HR around 130to 135, the 6x wrist HR was reading between 100-110.

I understand a optical wrist HR sensor is not going to be as accurate as a chest sensor, but this is so far off that it is useless.

I am going to try a few adjustments over the next couple of days, such as how tight I make it, how far up by wrist I place it, and trying it on the underside of my wrist. If those don't work and I can't find a solution, I feel like I'm going to have to return this. I really want to figure this out because I love everything else about this watch. Any advice?

  • 0 over 5 years ago in reply to Luxmoggy

    I've had the exact same results moving from the AW2 Nike to the F6 Sapphire Titanium....maybe we just got lucky!!

  • +1 over 5 years ago

    I am also utterly disappointed in the heart sensor performance. 10 miles walk with elevation in around 3 hours and never caught a proper heart rate. As a result I am not credited intensity minutes and can’t monitor the training effect of my excessive. 

    It also NEVER measures accurately my pulse during HIIT classes (30 minutes), I’m all sweaty and breathless but this thing shows 80-90 heartbeats. The only time it shows increased heartbeat is during swimming

    I was doing the same excursions with my Fitbit and never had a problem. This is one of the most expensive watches if not the most expensive and yet it fails in simple tasks as the heart rate monitoring 

  • +1 over 5 years ago in reply to Dimitris London

    Please review the following articles and make sure your watch is up to date on the latest 8.10 software. If you are still having issues after going through all of the troubleshooting steps then please contact your local Product Support or feel free to reach out to me directly via private message.

    The Heart Rate Sensor on My Watch Is Not Accurate

    Tips for Erratic Heart Rate Data

  • 0 over 5 years ago in reply to Garmin-Nate

    Been there, done that. I am on 8.73 and outside activity HR is not nearly responsive enough, especially when cycling, but also when hiking or taking a short run. I have to manually start an activity almost every time to get the WHR to pick up an elevated HR. 24/7 tracking seriously lacks accuracy and because of the difference between inside and outside activity I have concluded months ago it is software related and can be fixed. I would be willing to sacrifice a lot of battery life for better 24/7 accuracy!

    Inside activity I use a Polar OH1 strap, so I don’t know about the in activity behavior.

  • 0 over 5 years ago in reply to JeremyBlck

    Your issue is:

    JeremyBlck said:
    outside activity HR is not nearly responsive enough, especially when cycling, but also when hiking or taking a short run.

    The solution you found:

    JeremyBlck said:
    I have to manually start an activity almost every time to get the WHR to pick up an elevated HR.

    The problem is:  ????

    Push the damn start button when cycling, hiking or taking a short run.

  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 5 years ago in reply to tess

    Tess.  Do you not understand the importance of your heart rate outside of activities? If is is in accurate then just about all data unusable.  Random numbers.  This is the biggest problem with this sensor and watch.  

  • 0 over 5 years ago in reply to tess
    tess said:
    Push the damn start button when cycling, hiking or taking a short run.

    I do, and then I delete the activity so HR is stored and does count toward the other metrics. I do not want my cycling to and from work mess with my ‘real’ activities. Problem is: I have to manually start an activity every time and have to be aware all the time. 24/7 tracking should not require any effort to be accurate.

  • 0 over 5 years ago in reply to Former Member
    Tess.  Do you not understand the importance of your heart rate outside of activities?

    I understand. Do you understand the poster I was addressing said while cycling, hiking or taking a short run?  According to Daniel Webster, these are defined as activities. 

  • 0 over 5 years ago in reply to JeremyBlck
    JeremyBlck said:
    I do, and then I delete the activity so HR is stored and does count toward the other metrics. I do not want my cycling to and from work mess with my ‘real’ activities.

    I'm not trying to mess with you Jeremy.  I understand what you're doing.  I just can't wrap my head around the why.  Cycling, hiking, or running are just that.  They're activities being performed regardless if it's on the way to and from work, for leisure, or a planned workout.  If I understand correctly, you don't want a casual cycling ride to work counted towards metrics (training load, TE, etc) from a planned cycling workout.  But the reality is you're just manipulating your numbers because you are actually doing those activities, but you don't want it to count "against" you.  If it's not there, it doesn't count?  Are you really getting true metrics then?  For a lack of a better analogy, that's like wanting to count calories for the food you eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner, but not for any snacks in between because they're not real meals.

  • 0 over 5 years ago in reply to Garmin-Nate

    honestly we had 935 and 645 garmin with almost fine HR measuring. we made that mistake and bought 6s and 6x , now we are using chest stripes becoase HR sensor on 6 series is so horribly wrong its behind fantasy for 1k usd watches, its equal to none (none sensor would be better than this) and i strongly recommend everyone to use it too insteand of loosing nerves on non working HR sensor. and i know its not caused by skin , its caused by watches, if you need more accuracy, use 935 or 645 Slight smile . Dear Garmin - those advices and explanation only make people more angry becoase they used previos product and they were working correctly.