Product Quality Vs Commercial Reality

Wrist-based will always be inferior to the chest strap.  I wear the HRM-TRI when running mostly because I want the running dynamics (in particular I've found that L/R balance, if it's off, will warn me of a low-grade injury before I actually feel it) so it's worth it to me to use it. 

Same here. The L/R balance is worth the price of the strap alone for me

No one has ever argued chest straps aren't better (take a look at the massive HR thread on here that is 7 months old). However, wrist-based systems can and do work to a certain degree of accuracy. No one expects them to be perfect, but they should at least be relevant. I came from an old AW2 and it worked great, even for strength training. Sure, a strap would have been more accurate, but it was good enough for me. However, the F6 is almost useless for anything that doesn't have a relatively constant HR (ie running). 

And yes, I have a strap, but there are times that I just simply do not want to wear it and want my watch to be at least close (say for skiing, or hiking, or some other activity that isn't exactly "training"). The sampling rate is so slow on the F6 that it doesn't catch any type of up and down in HR unless it last for at least 30 to 60 seconds.  

A device like this has a lot of moving parts, not just in the device, but how people wear it as well.  

I've triggered some alarms in my phone to tell me to do certain exercises at random times during the day so I keep the metabolism moving a bit.  Yesterday, I did 3 planks and the Fenix recorded my heart rate at 154 over the 3 minutes I spent doing them.

The problem is I don't know if my hand-positioning caused the watch to be off or if it was just a bad read.  I've had crazy reads before with the watch including a rate of over 240 bpm, and random spikes during workouts.  I do know the watch decided I was overtraining after that.

I suspect that the AW would not have done this and is probably just about as accurate as a chest strap, most of the time.

Personally, I think Garmin needs to step up its game, even if I get the OP's points.  If all the AW does is double battery life, which admittedly they don't seem to want to do, I'm gone.  Garmin is walking the proverbial razor's edge right now and they need to tighten up or they'll get run over one of these days.

Personally I think the one who's closest to that is Polar. If the Vantage V had maps I'd have bought it. Unlike the AW, Polar has good firstbeat metrics and ANT+. Oh and forgot to say Polar's also phone-agnsotic. No need for a particular phone.

Body weight over your hands with flexed wrists = impeded blood flow = poor WHR output = documented in the Garmin Support notes.

No surprises there.

Hang on.

The Apple Watch has a notorious expanding battery issue which pushes out the screen.

They denied it for months until a critical mass of complaints forced them to honour their warrenty.

One of their Iphones flexed and bent sometimes breaking the device.

ALL sophisticated products WILL have issues due to that sophistication. There are just so many moving parts.

I am not defending Garmin by any means but being pragmatic I can see that there is generally a level playing field of malfunctions. All that is really left is which device/brand do you prefer.

I think that we need to manage our expectations. We expect the WHR to be as accurate as a medical-grade EKG... WHR sensors didn't exist 6-7 years ago (at least not common). It will probably take another 4-5 years before they become accurate. Mine mimics my strap pretty much during activities. The rest of the day it has occasional spikes. Take all those spikes together and it probably reports that I burned 20-30 calories more than what it should be. Now, we're assuming that the calorie measurement is accurate, of course. All manufacturers use different algorithms and they're probably all off somewhat. So at the end of the day it really doesn't make a difference, And really, what do you use the WHR for? To measure calorie burn during the day, measure your resting HR, and to assess performance during workouts. It works well enough for that. The occasional spikes don't make a difference really. If you want to have it more accurate, wear it high on your wrist, tighten it, then put it higher and tighten it again. I wear mine high and tight yet I spot green or red laser light out of the corner of my eye at least 20 times a day. And sure enough when that happens I get spikes. For me it works best when it's tight enough to leave a mark. Otherwise the watch is so big that when I move my wrist the edge of the watch will touch the wrist bone and bingo, no contact with skin. In my case the sensor would need to protrude another 1-2mm to contact my skin at all times. But then, people would complain that the sensor protrudes too much...

On top of that we expect the GPS trace to be as accurate as surveying equipment worth thousands of dollars. Then we complain about every other aspect of the watch. What we're getting for less than $1000 was pure science fiction 20 years ago. The wrist HR, running dynamics, power readings (with a Stryd) were all impossible 10 years ago. 

The reality is that in 10 years we'll still be complaining. All the problems listed above will be long fixed but we'll be bashing the watches because they don't detect strokes fast enough, that the macro-nutrient analyser is off and that the social distance indicator doesn't work underwater.

Finally, how many F6's have been sold so far? 300 000? 500 000? Garmin sells about 10 million watches a year, so 3-500 000 F6's seem reasonable. At least 50% of smartwatch buyers know a thing or two about the Internet and can find this forum in minutes if they have problems. Yet as far as I can tell, there doesn't seem to be a high percentage of complaints. I didn't do the math but I'd be surprised if there are 100 people on this forum complaining about their F6. To me that indicates bad watches, or physiological differences that make the sensors inaccurate for some people (different wrists, not enough  wrist fat, too much wrist fat, weird blood vessels, etc). 

There is so much truth here.

guy.charron said:

To me that indicates bad watches

Since the WHR (24/7) problem occurs after a software update and disappears for some after another software update, it is more software-related. 

guy.charron said:

WHR sensors didn't exist 6-7 years ago (at least not common). It will probably take another 4-5 years before they become accurate.

24/7 WHR: My fenix 3HR and also the fenix 5x were accurate. My fenix 6x not (anymore).