stress level in Fenix 6 higher than my previous Garmin F5 and VA3

I wear the Fenix 6X pro for several weeks now. Previously, I got a Vivoactive 3 and a Fenix 5, meaning that I wear wirst HR measure and know FirstBeat stress level for more than 2 years now.

I did not face wirst Heart Rate measure issues with F6X, as others did (the rest HR and average HR seem quite good with both FW 5 and 5.74b, and I always use chest HR for running), but one of my observation is that the stress level is systematically higher with the F6X than my previous Garmin products.

We I moved from VA3 to F5, the stress level was consistent, but when I moved from F5 to F6X, the daily average jumped significantly.

If I wear the F5 and F6X simultaneously, I can see that the HR value are well matching, but the stress level on a period of time are always much higher on the F6X.

As the BodyBattery is directly related to the stress level, I wonder if this absolute calibration of the stress level can be a problem...

Is someone else experiencing this kind of observation?

If someone from FirstBeat coming on the forum can also comment?

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0 djhawkeye over 5 years ago

Good question. Same problem. The F5 is more smoother and the F6 shows that I'm super stressed when I wear the watches at the same time.

Perhaps the F6 is more correct?

0 NYanakiev7 over 5 years ago

I get similar issues lately. Perhaps correlated with poor optical HR behaviour that has been widely reported. Stress, body battery etc are all based on HR.

0 rom2sainpan over 5 years ago in reply to NYanakiev7

The weird thing is that on my side, HR values itself is ok and well correlated with my F5 (and chest strap), the issue seems more the stress value.

But you are right that if some WHR issues exist on F6, maybe for some people the HR value itself has problems while other lucky like me have good reading (but weird stress values)

0 Alda_VivoSmartHR over 5 years ago

I confirm that all-day stress is higher on my Fenix 6s pro, than it used to be on my Fenix 5s. However, I find values from Fenix 6s pro much more correlating with my subjective feelings.

0 Former Member over 5 years ago

The same.

0 Former Member over 5 years ago

Same problem...

I was trying side by side two different watches, my 6X Pro and my GF's Venu.

On the Venu, I'm calm like a dead fish and on my 6X Pro I'm stressed to death! I've tried them in different scenarios and the result is always the same, my stress level is lot lot higher on the 6X Pro. Also noticed the Body Battery could be low for days, like flatlined at 5 for days, and then jumps up to 80% or 50%...

It really doesn't seem to be reliable at this point.

I was suspecting maybe third party watch faces could cause issues, but not sure...

0 rom2sainpan over 5 years ago

as noticed in the thread related to beta 7.77, the firstbeat software has been updated (I installed 7.78 today). I noticed that my stress level was much lower this afternoon, and tonight, I tested my F6X and F5 at the same time: the stress value of the F6X is now very close to the F5, so it seems that the initial problem has been fixed.

Do you see the same?

0 NoTex over 5 years ago in reply to rom2sainpan

no, still having problems with body battery due to high stress levels when I certainly didn't have high stress

I'm also on 7.78 beta

0 Former Member over 5 years ago in reply to rom2sainpan

How to update to 7.78?

0 rom2sainpan over 5 years ago in reply to Former Member

7.78 is a beta version

forums.garmin.com/.../fenix-6-series---7-78-beta-release