FW 10.10, Sensor Hub 7.11 and Hiking activity still useless

I've had fr645music, fenix 5x and now fenix 6x sapphire. None of the. Have ever worked correctly with whr. So don't have your hopes up. Some of us have veins or arms that are not "compatible" with this watch. It's like in ear headphones. Some people can never get them to fit. My wife uses my fr645 now and she have resting heart rate while we are walking up steep mountains... I sometimes have 110bpm when walking straight up mountains...

As promised, another hiking test today with my V800+H7 for comparison. Again this was a dog walk, with three sets of jog/run and a period of a few minutes sat still from around 16 minutes in. Max heart rate from the 6X WHR was 161 vs 163 from the V800+H7. Average HR for the entire walk was within 0.5 BPM.

Here is the heart rate comparison, with cadence also displayed to show exactly how the heart rate responds to the effort, with lags etc.. 6X is green, V800 is red.

I think it is really difficult to complain about the Hiking WHR figures based on the test today and yesterday.

It may be worth noting that I did tighten the strap one notch for the activity yesterday and today as I noticed yesterday some fidgety HR numbers from the 6X yesterday when it was looser, really too loose for energetic activities such as running during a hike.

Eezytiger, your activity is too short. As i write first 30-40 minutes is always perfect. Sometimes even after 1 hour heart rate is correct. The watch sleeps after that. And that happen only in Hiking activity.

Here some example. Until 1:25 i have very reasonable measurement. After that everything is wrong. And that happen every time when i use hiking activity.

OK. Sorry. My walks/hikes are generally 30-90 minutes and don't usually include breaking into runs. I guess I won't be able to add anything useful. Again, sorry.

8304202 said:

Eezytiger, your activity is too short.

Why is eezytiger's 35 min test too short.  You wrote:

8304202 said:

Most of the times hearth rate is correct for first 20-30-40 minutes.

Then you added:

8304202 said:

As i write first 30-40 minutes is always perfect. Sometimes even after 1 hour heart rate is correct.

These two statements contradict each other.  You went from a timeframe that worked "most of the time" to a longer timeframe that is "always perfect".   35 mins easily surpassed the 20 mins you initially said.  Are you saying we should dismiss your earlier post and only test conducted 61 mins or longer should be accepted?

eezytiger said:

I guess I won't be able to add anything useful. Again, sorry.

I found your test useful.  No need to apologize.

I just cannot believe this is still a thing. This happened for me with some software update for 5 plus. I was able to use the watch to actually pace myself during long climbs. Then, suddenly it went from reasonable accuracy of tracking my HR during hikes to completely nonsense with a single update. It will almost always show somewhere between 100 and 120 no matter if I am climbing steepest of hills or slowly descending at a relaxed pace. This is consistent week after week, month after month, year after year. Here is one example: https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/5262319333. I can guarantee you my HR was in excess of 150 for majority of the first climb, except for breaks. This is off trail jump from boulder to boulder kind of thing and I was beat. Yet, going by HR from my watch, this was just walk in the park - except for one peak at 150.

I bought Fenix 6 hoping that this issue was fixed with different sensor and all. Apparently, I was wrong. Since my major use of this watch is for hiking, I may just return it.

I did 6 hour hiking and only once heart rate went over 125bpm while the true hr should have had spikes of 150 or more. It seems that when using hiking activity, the higher heart rate must last couple of minutes continuously before watch responds to it or you should have running parts where watch follows higher rates for some reason, I have tried that. When hiking, watch goes to some sleep mode and do not follow changes especially when those changes are not huge like start running.

To update the topic:

Here some examples of two very demanding hikes from last two weeks.

For first one was used Hiking Activity and as you can see the heart rate is completely off almost all the time. I want somebody to show me how will climb 2000m elevation for one day with average 102 heart rate.

The second one is similar hike. Again with elevation gain more of 2000m. But was used Trail Running Activity. There are still some points that watch loose correct rates, but situation is definitely better. Maybe at least 50% of time the watch measurement is acceptable. 

I think that it is crystal clear that watch have some major issues with hiking activity. And i'm not sure why it take so long time that problems to be solved. Last year i hiked with Fenix 5 and i never had any issues with heart rate sensor. All my hikes from last year was with average HR around 130-140. And i was able to trust in every measurement that watch show me. Unfortunately that is not a case with Fenix 6. And even the many other improvements that new one have it is very disappointment to realize that you must wear chest strap on all hikes if you want reasonable numbers. I know that with Optical monitoring there are always some small mistake, but when after long and very hard hike you see Avg HR around 100 and Base load or Recovery day.... It can't be serious.

Have you tried an IQ app such as Hike2+ by jim_m_58?