HR variance between Cardio, "Other" and Running/Walking workouts

My dear friend.  We have been asking this question about hr problems since September .  Garmin says there is no problem.  We gave up.

Coshy said:

I'm sure this has been posted a few times,

It has. And the answer is still the same - from https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=xQwjQjzUew4BF1GYcusE59&productID=641449&tab=topics&topicTag=region_heartratesensors

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. 

Additionally, HR is calculated differently for each activity.  Use the activity app that matches the activity being done.  For example, using the Elliptical app while running outdoors could result in incorrect HR being recorded.

https://www.garmin.com/en-US/legal/atdisclaimer/

But no doubt like all the others who complain about WHR, you'll choose to ignore Garmin's support documents.

Of course, you might have a defective device in which case you should contact Garmin Support.

Thank you for (yet) another thread about WHR. We can never have enough of them.

You're welcome (I think).

My point of this thread was to highlight the same activity (walking around the block) across a number of different activity type recordings yields vastly different HR results.  The Fenix 6 is being worn in the same manner, and I'm curious to understand why the activity doesn't just actually reflect your current heart rate, particularly the Cardio workout option is just ridiculous with the HR being presented.

Curious, thank you for posting. I never imagined the difference to be so very massive. Absolutely abysmal. The random number generator comment a few have been making seems so much more plausible now.

I have never had to pay painfully close attention to the activity type?!!! I'm recording with any of my other watches. It should all just work across the board with small variations.

The Garmin Defence League on here (won't mention any specific names but it's obvious who they are) just won't stop posting the same support article over and over and over again.

Coshy please make sure to send this report to Garmin, I think this is totally criminal of an approach.

Curious is such an understatement....I am genuinely starting to believe that the Fenix 6 series is no good using for 24/7 tracking at all. Luckily, I always use a HR strap, which explains why I haven't seen the massive variance you reported.

If I keep my Solar Ti watch it will only be for sports use with a HR strap.

Get a life, phillip, nobody likes smartasses. Nobody is helped  by your mantra like „theres  no problem.“. nor by your countless repost of garmin support advice, which never had solved any of the various issues people complain about.

I once followed the advice to use the cardio activity for tracking hr without location, to get some better results after the yoga activity type displayed nearly resting hr after minutes of sun salutations.

so after a trip to the sauna the hr climbed way above 200 bpm. I really don‘t know what activity Type i can trust anymore.

and i wonder how garmin can get away with that and the problem under the radar of the puplic. Why is there no garmin hr gate?

The 6 series has at least two states of performance for heart rate monitoring. Outside an activity, for daily monitoring, it seems to have a low rate of sampling that can only handle heart rates up to 120 BPM and which will not respond at all to burst of intense activity such as charging up multiple flights of stairs. There may be not more than two states, but I don't know if that's the case.

When you start activity recording I think there are different algorithms in play depending on the exact nature of the activity. This probably includes adjusting the sampling rate to meet the expected demands of the activity and the anticipated heart rate range. It might also include other factors intended to filter out false data such as cadence lock whilst running. I can only speculate on this aspect.

But without doubt, and admitted by Garmin, the sampling rate is low outside activities. I've had great results from the watch on the treadmill, with heart rate tracked correctly to 180+ BPM from the wrist. Trail Run has also been good to 175 maximum from the wrist, but poor whilst walking. Hike has tracked me as high as 153 during an energetic attack on an incline, but has failed to breach 120 BPM during an even more vigorous attack when true heart rate reached 170.

Walking is mostly OK, at walking pace, but takes 5 minutes before it gets in precise tune with reality. Maybe every activity type has it's own unique combination of parameters. I think the biggest complaints have been about Hiking and Back Country Skiing, which historically appear to have used wrong sampling rates. Maybe there are others too.

But Phil is right about avoiding activities that flex the wrist or use forearm muscles. It will mess the results and Garmin is correct to advise against it. I also would not waste my time with wrist HR for HIIT or circuit training. It's not responsive enough to be useful and won't do well with anything to do with weights, including bodyweight for things like push ups, burpees etc..

There is also the fit to consider. In my experience the watch needs to be worn tight enough to leave an impression on the wrist. Not digging in and hurting, which would be equally counter-productive, but the watch has to stay firm against the skin and the more secure the watch (and the skin beneath) the better, so long as you're not choking the blood supply.

The fact remains that if you want perfection during exercise a strap is the way to go. The wrist is a poor place for monitoring pulse and the Fenix range is on the heavy side for staying put against the skin if you don't snug it down. If I'm walking about or hiking within normal limits (not racing up a hill) the watch does good enough. If I run or bike then I always use a chest strap, whether I need to or not. It's habit. It's precise. And I usually feed data to at least two devices at once, so it's all round the better solution for me.

Coshy said:

Ultimately my question is this, why is there such a significant variation in HR readings between workout types?