Experiment: Garmin Fenix 6 Optical HR vs Chest Strap

I decided to compare the internal HR sensor of the Fenix 6 against two premium external bluetooth/ANT+ sensors.. Here's my nerdy in-depth comparison in video format.

Hope someone finds this helpful!

Top Replies

LockyW over 3 years ago +1

Found this video having just upgraded to Fenix 6 from Forerunner 230. Did my own tests with a 10k road run and 50minute mountain bike ride. Used GoldenCheetah to export all HR data per second to Excel…

All Replies

0 AndreiDracul over 5 years ago

Hey!! Fellow oh1 :) ***waves***

0 Former Member over 5 years ago

www.youtube.com/watch

0 Conza over 5 years ago

Reflects similar to my experience.

0 Aceydude over 4 years ago

Ive found that my fenix 6 optical HR flatlined at 180 (which happened to be my cadence) but was fixed by tightening up the strap. The HR then climbed to where I thought it should be. I wonder if your 160 flatline happened to be your cadence at the time??

0 RichardB over 4 years ago in reply to Aceydude

Why drag up something that is over a year old?

0 LockyW over 3 years ago

Found this video having just upgraded to Fenix 6 from Forerunner 230. Did my own tests with a 10k road run and 50minute mountain bike ride. Used GoldenCheetah to export all HR data per second to Excel. Running found the wrist monitor to be pretty good for me - an average difference across the workout of only 2.2BPM. For the run there was a brief period at the start of nearly 20BPM difference, and a bunch of data points early/late of 6-10BPM (my HR varied from 79 to 180). Bigger differences late in the run were when my HR was 170-180 with the fenix typically lower (maybe matching others comments here about cadence (I average 173spm). Fenix did register 179 but was 6-10BPM low for many data points when the strap had me at high 170's. My summary data of % time in each HR zone was extremely similar with only 1-2% variation.

I also did one other road run comparison that wasn't exported and analysed in detail but it seemed just as close with HR zone summaries. I wear my watch pretty snug- I guess that helps.

MTB was basically just a lot less accurrate with average BPM difference being 27BPM. I assume this is due to vibration. Strap all the way here.

0 Former Member over 2 years ago

Any idea on battery comparison between using the built in Optical HR vs HR Strap?

0 mcalista over 2 years ago in reply to Former Member

You can go to the Power Manager and experiment on your specific scenario with wrist HR on or off, and Accessories on or off. It will give estimates on the battery life impact on having different functionality turned on or off.