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

Former Member
Former Member over 5 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 5 years ago

    I went for a hike yesterday and my HR was far, far too low.. the average is around 90BPM while hiking uphill!!  The greatest giveaway is that the HR was higher while going down (around 100BPM).

  • 0 over 5 years ago

    I just did a test with my 6x pro solar. I did cross country skiing practise (freestyle).

    1. I selected cross country activity and did 3.5km skiing. Watch showed average 90 bpm, max 105bpm. At least 50bpm lower than should be.

    2. On far end, I stopped activity and changed it to running activity and did skiing back. average 110bpm, max 123bpm. Still way lower than should be (at least 40bpm too low)

    3. I stopped running activity and changed to cardio activity and I did 5min skiing at same pace. Now max was 169bpm, average 159bpm which is about correct.

    Watch was all the time at the same place on my wrist, real activity was the same, freestyle cross country skiing. Feeling of training load about the same.

    So there is something REALLY BADLY wrong with OHR algorithm at least with skiing activity. I would say even dangerously wrong, if you rely solely on OHR.

  • +1 over 5 years ago in reply to jarivee

    Did you send your findings to Garmin? There is something wrong with software and they cant figure it out, it more than 6 months and still problems.

  • 0 over 5 years ago 
    For me, the wrist heart sensor is totally useless. The HR are very high and are not real. I always use a chest sensor when I do an activity. Garmin should solve this problem. My fenix 5 Plus had three LEDs and this only two, this surprised me a lot.
  • 0 over 5 years ago

    Btw, what is the most efficient way to file a bug report to Garmin? Some email-address? I've been having mail conversation with Garmin Nordic to mention the issue (and also OHR issue when being in "watch mode") and I also tried to chat but not with big success as the chat window just stucks to "Retrieving Config - Please wait  " notification...

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

    I have had email discussions with my local Garmin support (Finland) and they have responded, but the answers are not too helpful and they kind of just ignore all this by saying that my wrist is in bad position and it's difficult to measure HR when skiing. Somehow the previous generation (VA3) managed to do this correctly (when skiing), but they don't care and I'm pretty sure that there isn't any fix coming. Really disappointed in Garmin regarding this and I have also lost all my trust in OHR on this watch.

  • 0 over 5 years ago in reply to Former Member

    They answered to me too that I had watch positioned wrong (+ other ***) and feels like they are ignoring all issues we find. I pretty close to just return my 900€ watch.

  • 0 over 5 years ago in reply to jarivee

    Mine is generally works ok for day to day activities, when I go for a swim, then it stops working completely, It used to work well up until about 5 weeks ago, Then Garmin did some kind of sensor update overnight. really considering taking it back because the HR while swimming was the only reason I upgraded from my Forerunner.

  • 0 over 5 years ago

    Fenix 6S Pro (6.10 fw) + Wahoo Tickr, light cardio