Fenix 6 pro and HRM Pro strap have never worked correctly for me.

jasonluckett said:

I can tell it doesn't work as ever now and then (1 in 30) it works correctly and I see the heart rate I would expect.

Expectations are not the best mean to see whether the watch or strap works correctly. Instead of judging by feeling, rather see some hard evidence. You have couple of options:

• Take the watch and the strap(s) to a sport lab, and record an activity simultaneously on the watch, and then compare it with the data from the lab
• Record an activity with the strap connected simultaneously to the watch, and to an alternative phone app (for example the Strava app works perfectly for this purpose), and then compare the results
• Since you seem to have multiple straps, you can even record the data simultaneously from several sources, which would give you even more data to compare. You can pair one of the straps to the watch (recording to Garmin Connect) and to the phone (recording to Strava), and the second strap can be connected to a PC with a desktop app (for example the Tacx Training app is able to do it).
• You can also export the activity FIT file and inspect it with the FIT File Viewer - it can show you whether the watch really uses the data from the strap, or whether it was disconnecting, and using the internal wrist sensor instead.

Many thanks for the reply.

I've ran for the last 13 years and have had the fenix 6 pro for 3.5 years, it's never worked properly, I know my heart rate zones and what to expect, it's worked on other watches. As I've mentioned it works 1 out of 30 times, go figure. Speaking to someone in my work, he has a Tactix 6 delta and has 21 day battery life compared to my 4-5 days max, his watch is 5 years old and he uses it more than me. I also checked his wrist heart rate recordings and they are way more accurate than my wrist or heart rate strap.

I want to be able for Garmin to fix something which is obviously faulty. I have tried different straps to no avail. I've checked the .fit files and they read exactly the same for heart rate (red) and external heart rate (blue), this is across the last three exercises including the one that worked correctly from the weekend. The fit files are both way lower than my effort, excluding the one that worked.

I originally bought the watch because it had great reviews and a reasonably ok wrist heart rate sensor, I would of been happy with this, alas even this doesn't work properly.

Jason

Recording both the HR data from the watch, and from the strap separately will help you to pinpoint why the discrepancy happens. It can confirm or exclude faulty strap, dry electrodes, improper fit, lost connection, low batteries, etc. And if you send the hard data to Garmin showing that the HR on the watch differs from the HR reported by the strap, they may be able to fix it. Or possibly to see the way to fix it yourself. Telling them that according your experience you should have higher HR cannot help them to investigate it at all.

jasonluckett said:

I've checked the .fit files and they read exactly the same

The watch should disable the whr when a strap is connected. Or did you use a ciq Data field to record the strap hr independently? 

jasonluckett said:

he has a Tactix 6 delta and has 21 day battery life compared to my 4-5 days max

The 21 days are the value the tactix will show as expected runtime in smartwatch mode with the default settings, charged to 100%. You should get a expected runtime value of 14 days with the Fenix 6 pro (if it is not a s or X model). But it is important to know that this is without recording any activities. And when you change battery consuming settings like backlight or activate pulseOx, the expected runtime value will change. 

Thanks for these detailed answers, very helpful. I tried the FIT files and these never differentiate between the wrist and external HR, even when both are available, so even when they are both active the lines appear exactly the same. 

I've gone through every exercise over the last 3.5 years and for the first two years of use the wrist heart rate was accurate enough for my needs, not perfect but near enough, I got the watch in Aug 21. Approximately 20 months into owning the watch I started getting serious doubts about the readings from the wrist and did some research and eventually bought a Polar HR10 strap to sync and hopefully get accurate readings. From day one the wrist HRM produced erractic results but this was about 15-25% of the time. The Polar HR10 gave me approximately 10% correct readings, the rest were worse than the wrist, I tried resetting the watch to factory defaults, new strap batteries, you name it. 

After getting frustrated using the strap for about a year I thought the only option now is get a Garmin HRM Pro, this has proven to be even worse than the Polar, I will get a correct reading about 1 / 50 times, I have tried turning of the wrist HRM and forcing the external to be the only visible heart rate, again, no better.

Both straps from new were performing poorly, multiple battery changes never helped, the only problem can be with the watch.

I will reset it one last time and test it again, the general consensus now is that the wrist heart rate monitor is better than both the straps.

The battery problems I can live with, the watch's capabilities are briiliant but the inaccurate recordings less so, it's a shame but I won't be buying a Garmin again.

I'll contact Garmin but they are flakey as.

Jason

If even Polar strap shows HR that you think is wrong, how is that fault of Garmin? As I wrote, record the activity simultaneously with the strap connected to the watch, and to a 3rd party app on the phone. If it shows that the data differs, then contact Garmin. If not, then your HR is probably different than you think it is.

I've had the HRM-TRI and now the HRM-Pro-Plus  (which is just the HRM-Pro and better battery compartment)

The fact you had the same problem with another brand is a dead giveaway it's the contacts

Some people have bad skin PH or other contact problems with straps

Get this $7 tube of electrode gel from Amazon or other place, it will last a DECADE or longer

You only want to put the tiny tiniest bit on each of the two contact parts

I mean super tiny amount, like a pencil point, and spread that ultra thin

All you need, any more will damage the pad eventually, do not get it on the cloth strap part

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0837LN9X9/?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

I get pristine, perfect readings every single time with that, right from the first second of contact

jasonluckett said:

Anyway I will try someone elses watch for comparison next week and take it from there.

I do not understand why don't you simply pair the strap with the phone, as I suggested. If you record the data from the strap simultaneously with your watch and with a 3rd party app, you can see immediately whether the problem comes from the strap or from the watch. 

If you have a HRM-Pro that means you can force it to download the HRV data from the strap afterwards and recalculate the activity.

I strongly caution to first let the watch upload the activity completely BEFORE you go into the activity and tell it to download the HR data, then it will upload the new data as a new activity and you can go into Garmin Connect and compare the two results for the same activity.

I used to have a lot of ANT+ dropout on the previous Fenix5 series, especially as the watch got older

It's not impossible that the antenna connect on your Fenix6 somehow got broken, some solder point or connection

Note the HRM-Pro can work in either ANT+ or Bluetooth, you just won't get running dynamics in bluetooth mode (or ability to download afterwards)

But you can force it to use bluetooth mode which communicates differently