Related
Options

Fenix 6 pro green light sensor and heart rate not working consistently

Biddy
over 2 years ago

I have read all of the threads for when the green light and/or heart rate from the watch is not functioning... trying everything suggested:

  • Restart the watch
  • Clean the back
  • Tighten the strap
  • Make sure software is up-to-date

I have done all of these!!

Occasionally when I restart the watch (several times in a row!) I can get the heart rate readings back, not always with the green light though (more often it does not turn on? Not sure if this is problematic).
It then might last a few hours, before dropping out again.

It also seems that even when the heart rate monitor is "functioning" the stress and body battery readings are completely thrown off. 

I have invested a lot in garmin over the years, but I am very disappointed with this current lack of performance.

Please help, before I am forced to start exploring the world beyond Garmin! 

Top Replies

All Replies

  • 0 over 2 years ago

    Well, the trick to restart the heartrate on a vivoactive is to disable it and then perform a hard reset and re-enable it. You could consider a full reset as well to see if that helps. Generally though the wrist based heart rate is not that accurate (at least not on the vivoactive) and I decided to buy a Fitcent heart rate strap to measure it electronically. That removes the dependency on the watch for heart rate but you still get the goodies during activities. Unfortunately the strap only works during activities as external sensor to register heartrate though but at so much more reliability. 

    I would suggest to chat with Garmin Support. The expensive range should get a bit more attention if things are malfunctioning so give that a shot. 

    support.garmin.com/.../

  • 0 over 2 years ago

    Hi, 

    I do have the same problem with my fenix, it give reading even if the lights are off and like you, when i put the watch back on wrist the lights doesn't work. I was wondering what was your solution?

  • 0 over 1 year ago

    did you find a solution? I've suddenly started having issues with the heart rate sensor. It totally inconsistent, sometime it reads crazy low resting heart rates, so I take watch off and it continues to read same bogus rate indefinitely and no green lights from watch. Other times it reads crazy heigh, but when I take watch off the light is on but keeps reading high indefinitely. Other times it gets stuck with no reading --. If I restart device it works, but only for a few hours, generally by hour 4 it's broken again. Have tried:

    • Cleaning
    • Tightening/loosening strap
    • Swapping wrists
    • Factory reset of watch.
    • Turning off/on heart rate sensor via app
    • Turning off/on tracking via app
    • Contacting Garmin support in the US as Australia support is closed on weekends

    This is actually my 3rd Fenix 6x as the last two also died around the 10month mark. It's okay if the warranty works but pretty terrible given the premium price.

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to Sam

    I'll answer Sam since nobody answered to my questions and i did open a few topics. In my case when i hard pressed on the side of the HR sensor the lights turned on so i figured it was something related to a loose contact. Unfortunately my watch was just out of warranty although i had this problem for several months, i did not send it to be repaired.

    If you still have warranty i suggest you send it for service but if you don't have, the fix is kind of easy. It seems that in my case the contacts for the HR got loose(maybe because of mountain biking, i don't know) so i dissembled the watch, and meddle with the contacts in there. It's easy to dissemble, not too many parts but you can find a video on youtube to see what screws you have to take out. 

    I did have your problem for a long time and as you i got frustrated because i thought it was something related to software because it did work for a few days if i did a factory reset. But doing factory reset every couple of days is a pain. I hope it helps. 

  • 0 over 1 year ago

    Hi the same issue with my Garmin Fenix 6. No logic in its behaviour for having active heart rate measurement. How did you finally resolved this problem ?

  • 0 over 1 year ago

    Hello, 

    I am experiencing the same issue with my Garmin 6 S Pro. 
    I think it come from a software issue because it first appeared when I connected my watch to a PC for the first time. 

    @Garmin could you fixe your software updates please. It is too bad that a premium watch is facing this kind of issues... 

  • 0 over 1 year ago

    Hello. I also had a bad heart rate sensor reading, but then I switched to the other wrist where I don't have a tattoo. Now I have no problems. I also had no problems with my old watch (645 music) on the arm with the tattoo, but the Fenix 6 Pro obviously has a worse sensor to be able to reach through the tattoo?

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to 6804037

    @GARMIN PLEASE FIX THIS. THIS IS NOT FAIR.

    I also am still having this issue. Considering that we are experiencing it around the same time frame, I would imagine it could be a software issue.

  • 0 over 1 year ago

    After I save an activity, stress and body battery are not tracked anymore. One thing I found out to help is to restart the watch. The problem occurred a few days ago. Not sure what caused it.

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to 3405068

    I have to restart watch regularly. Otherwise I have many issues. For instance for HR readings - HR is not tracked, unrealistically low HR during activity etc. Some of them can be hard to identify if you do not have comparison with other device. My guess is that is the property of F6 given by insufficient HW (SRAM, cache, ..) for firmware provided by Garmin.