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

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? 

  • Yes, the same for me super frustrated!!!

  • I just got my Garmin Fenix 6s and heart rate with the latest software is just ridiculous. I used to use Polar's product and Garmin forerunner and this is the worst. Real heart rate is about 160 and garmin Fenix 6S is showing exactly the same numbers from 80 - 110. I think that garmin should recall every product and return the money, this is just useless product or is a ok watch, but I didn't buy just a watch

  • I gave up. This watch just doesn't work well with the exercises I do most: Running, Hiking, Stair stepper and weightlifting/HIIT. I had an old Garmin VA3 that worked better (old sensor) than the Fenix 6 Pro (new sensor) that I have. I can tell you from my experience that there are old Garmin devices and new devices from other companies that are able to produce reliable and reproducible WHR with all activities that I mentioned. The excuse I wear it wrong or that it is "normal" for all watches with WHR that I see a heartrate of 160-180 with WHR when doing weightlifting or recreational running is non-sense. My old VA3 didn't do it and my new watch from another company doesn't do it either they show HR of 100-120 for weightlifting and 130-150 for running as it should be. That means at the moment the F6 cannot measure the WHR reliable because of the new sensor. The off HR has major consequences on the health readings: If I have constantly have a HR of 170 while weightlifting or running it calculates the burned calories 200-300 higher than normal. It screws up my calorie intake, messes probably with recovery/training intensity because it calculates anaerobic and high aerobic training wrong.

  • Same here. Come from rock solid f5 plus and now have a worthless f6x solar with wrong metrics caused due to much to high wrist hr readings. Today while working with the computer I had the wahoo tickr with wahoo app and the f6x with wrist hr. F6x shows around 65 bpm while wahoo was constant at around 43 to 48 bpm. This was controlled with timer and beat counting with hand . F6 is constant too high around 15 beats, wahoo is quite good. When I switch pulseox off it becomes a little better but is always 5 beats too high.  Due to this all hr related values are to high  and crap

  • I m wondering that there is no wrong wrist hr thread in the marq forum. I thought it is the same hardware Plattform than the Fenix 6. Is there no wrist hr problem in normal situations like rest, work, watch tv ....

  • It is interesting to hear people had much better readings with the old sensor and models. I came from an AW2 that worked WAY better as an OHRM. Of course, it isn't perfect, but it was pretty close! The ORHM on the F6 seems more like a random number generator than anything else. I am starting to wonder if the new sensor has more a flawed design than it being a software issue?

  • I hope that they have just to tweak it more. But after 9 months they should be closer to acceptable results. The VA4 and Venue seem to have the same issues. 

  • This is what I had - most times all day heart rate at relative rest is too high. Sometimes it's 10-15bpm higher but sometimes, completely randomly, it even shows double (90 vs a real HR of 45-50). I opened a separate thread for OHR readings when not exercising here.

  • I am starting to wonder if the new sensor has more a flawed design than it being a software issue?

    I still think it's software.  The 945 and 245 have the same sensor.  I manually checked my HR on my 945 while reading this. It was an exact match.  I've never had problems with it, nor are you seeing the problem posted on those forums.