Why Does HRV Require a Chest Strap?

it kind of annoys me tbh. if other companies can do it and appear to do it to a similar degree of accuracy using just the device itself (Oura ring, Apple watch, etc), why does garmin insist on requiring a chest strap to measure?

Top Replies

Dr Phil over 4 years ago +8

Heart Rate Variability (HRV) can only be masured by looking at the inter-beat variation of the R-R interval of the electrical signal from the heart. The electrical pulse signal has clearly defined peaks…
the5krunner over 4 years ago in reply to Maurycy +2

Marco Altini is THE world authority on HRV, so I would defer to whatever he says about it.

I've not read in detail that article but the Apple Watch uses the BREATHE app to take a resting HRV reading and…
the5krunner over 4 years ago in reply to the5krunner +2

support.garmin.com/.../

All Replies

0 Dr Phil over 4 years ago in reply to Skyewalkr

Skyewalkr said:
accurate measured data as well using optical sensors

You still don’t get it do you? The only way to measure HRV is by measuring the interbeat variation of the R-R interval from the electrical signal of the heart. If your device is providing a number from an optical reading it’s an estimate based on the amplitude of a light change measured as a pulse of blood changes the color of the skin as it pulses through the blood vessels. While it is possible for estimated HRV to be a reasonably close approximation of measured HRV (and there is research to support this) I suspect there would not be any exercise physiologist or medical professional that would use OHR to determine HRV for prescription purposes.

Skyewalkr said:
why do they not provide the measured data to you?

What would you do with the raw data? Do you have the tools to perform the calculations to analyze the data? Do the other devices provide the raw data? Garmin, and others, 'translate' the data into something that should be understandable to most people but obviously not everyone can even understand that.

Clearly there’s little point providing information to a closed mind.

0 Skyewalkr over 4 years ago in reply to Dr Phil

don't you worry about what i would do with the raw data. i paid $900 for a state of the art fitness device to provide as much data as possible, and that's it. also, your good friend marco altini would strongly disagree with you regarding optical vs ecg strap. go read his blogs and look at his data

0 robm over 4 years ago in reply to Skyewalkr

If you really want to see all the hrv numbers from your Garmin without a strap, get the meditate app and enable advanced hrv. Still won’t have the msec accuracy needed, but it’s lots of data.

0 Ɛpsilon over 4 years ago in reply to robm

Also https://apps.garmin.com/en-US/apps/ff2e268f-bdcc-4580-b03e-809336d56f2a#0

https://apps.garmin.com/en-US/apps/0bdc0e75-9baa-417a-8c9f-e976662a5d2e

https://apps.garmin.com/en-US/apps/1214076f-6114-4c9e-9e11-d66ad078cfe2

0 Skyewalkr over 4 years ago

if anyone uses runalyze, i just noticed that it captures HRV data natively and automatically during workouts via the fenix 6/delta. very interesting, since they say they're just reading the data from garmin's fit file...

Runalyze offers HRV analysis for all files that contain exact R-R intervals, i.e. the exact times between all heartbeats. This can be the case for *.fit files from Garmin (if respectively configured), *.hrm files from Polar (1) and *.xml, *.sml files from Suunto.

Most devices using an optical sensor for measuring heart rate are not accurate enough (e.g. Mio Alpha, see Bad devices, but there are ways to achieve good accuracy with opical measurements, see Camera HRV.

Garmin Fenix 6X Pro

Device

Heart rate variability

1.1

lnRMSSD

425

avg. R-R interval

RMSSD

SDSD

SDNN

5 min-SDNN

0.0

pNN50

0.1

pNN20

5.3

Anomalies

0 Ɛpsilon over 4 years ago in reply to Skyewalkr

Runalyze offers a lot, and is very cheap for premium too.

0 4042415 over 4 years ago in reply to Dr Phil

Thanks for that reply! Good information. I've heard the great thing about HRV is to look at the data in the morning and understand how much stress you should put your body under.

I do agree with the poster they should offer the HRV with the disclosed caveat that it is more accurate with a chest strap. I thought the Fenix would have this built in and am disappointed as well.