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Anyone STILL having heart rate accuracy issues with their Fenix 6?

9374082
over 4 years ago

Hi all,

Super frustrated, but I am still having issues with my Fenix 6S and heart rate accuracy even with the 4.20 software update. I'm wondering if it's just me or what the deal is? I had a 5S Plus before this and had no issues doing the same activities so I really don't think it's user error. My heart rate hardly reads over 110 during really vigorous exercise when my heart rate is closer to 160+. I have tried wearing on the inside of my wrist, tried my other wrist with no luck. It consistently reads 80-110 bpm the whole time. I wouldn't have bothered to upgrade if I knew this was going to be an issue. I know that wearing a chest strap is the most accurate, but I don't like to have to wear it for all of my work outs and my old Fenix was totally fine as well as my apple watch before that. Any suggestions? 

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to patrickmurray

    Ok, so I did another indoor bike ride today.   Left the F6 in smart watch mode but made sure to wear it about an inch and a half or just more up my arm and away from the wrist bones.   It worked great and was quite close to my wahoo tickr fit arm band that was sending HR to Zwift.   Intensity minutes also worked well on the F6.   So for me at least it seems to be working if I wear it an inch and half  or a bit more away from my bony wrist.  Will post more updates with other activities like running later this week to see how that is working. 

  • +2 over 4 years ago

    Same, got some good results on high intensity training like cycling, but the other tries, alpine skiing, backcountry skiing, cross-country skiing, it was mostly off by a lot.
    I did 3 hours of crosscountry skiing yesterday, a few steep climb in there. I'm usually at 140-160 bpm while skiing and 155-175 bpm on climb.
    Fenix 6 average BPM: 96
    Max: 126 (on a descent..)
    Total calories from Fenix 6: 640. lol.

    Something's wrong with my new 1000$ fitness watch....

  • 0 over 4 years ago

    Interesting. For people that have a functional HRM. They get numerous thumbs down (-1) against them.  Yet if you just agree and say all Fenix are crap and it's a $1000 piece of HRM trash you get thbs up.

    Gotta just chuckle at the point of a board where open-mindedness is frowned upon. 

    Ok.   Lol. I'm lying my HRM is trash.   I posted a lie about it working just to rock the boat.  

  • +1 over 4 years ago

    From some orienteering this morning. Activity was recorded in trail run mode. I had everything connected for about five minutes before I began recording. I didn't do a warm-up either. Below is the HR data from that activity.

    Less than half the activity had what I'd deem accurate WHR data (±10 bpm of chest HR). The biggest difference is -60 bpm.

    I get that orienteering would make it more difficult for the WHR to get a good fix, but 60 bpm is quite the inaccuracy. I don't remember my FR235 (which I've since sold) being a problem. I don't have a problem wearing my chest strap, but a £500+ watch should be at least as good as a mid-level watch that came out four years prior.

    6 Pro, firmware 6.10, WHR 20.04.70, sensor hub 4.20.

  • 0 over 4 years ago

    Just info: f6x pro, 6.10, stil broken whr.

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to rolfsg

    From Garmin support :

    "In some cases there isn't much blood in the tissue on the back of the wrist. This issue is common when it is cold outside or early in a workout before your blood really starts pumping."

  • 0 over 4 years ago

    It's not only Fenix 6 that has issues. My wife has Venu and we were skiing yesterday. I had chest strap and she didn't. My average HR was 139 and hers was 100. Today we switched the strap to her and my avg HR was 105 and hers was 127. Pretty clear what's happening. This is totally unacceptable. When I checked the hr readings from last winter using Vivoactive 3 they were in line with the strap readings so there's definitely something wrong with the new sensor or it's software. The newest update made it even worse.

    It seems that some people aren't facing this but there are also a lot of people who have similar issues that I have. I will post this to Garmin support but I don't know if it helps at all. This really needs to be fixed. 

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to 2885191

    https://support.garmin.com/en-CA/?faq=xQwjQjzUew4BF1GYcusE59

    • Certain Types of Activities Can Affect Heart Rate Performance

      Activities that cause flexing of the wrist (ex. rowing, weight lifting, or gripping a tennis racket) may create an effect similar to wearing the watch too tightly and restrict blood flow.  When this occurs the watch may have a difficult time detecting an accurate heart rate. 

    You won't get accurate wrist-HR when using ski-poles.

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to Otto-Destruct

    This could be true but it isn't. I didn't have these issues with my previous vivoactive 3 so this is clearly related to the same low HR issue many people are experiencing. 

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to Otto-Destruct
    Otto-Destruct said:
    You won't get accurate wrist-HR when using ski-poles.

    I don't know how hard you grip ski-poles - but gripping handles on cross-trainer (elliptical) has 0 effect on accuracy of OHR. And it is not light grip...

    Dark red line is F6X OHR.