I've had multiple issues with the wrist HR acting inconsistently at times. Sometimes the HR will jump up 20bpm for as long as 4 mins before settling back down. Other times, the HR will remain too low by up to 30bpm before suddenly jumping up to the correct HR. I always wear my watch on the same wrist at the same tightness. Here is an example where my HR increased and decreased by about 15bpm suddenly for about 1 min even though my pace or effort has not changed.
Please review this Support Center articles:
- The Heart Rate Sensor on My Garmin Watch Is Not Accurate
- Optical Heart Rate Sensor vs. Heart Rate Chest Strap
If you continue to have concerns about either…
i do not understand why you would have both strap and wrist values displayed. if you wear a strap, it is to get more accurate data.
The purpose behind having the wrist HR sensor enabled…
So the value used is the one from the hr and not the value seen on the wrist ? But then, if you do not have a way to see your hr from the strap, you need to have another app to see it. When…
Update April 19, 2024:
Our engineering team is wanting to further investigate concerns with the Wrist HR accuracy since the latest 16.22 SW update. So they are requesting, anyone experiencing this to please…
I have the same issue - heart rate suddenly drops to 50-60 bpm when walking - for up to 20 minutes - then jumps back to normal - arbound 100
There is definitely something wrong with HR data alter update. My Fenix is paired with Polar Verity Sense and the problem is excatly the same. HR data are useless now.
Hi,
this weekend I ran with my F7 and an Apple Watch. I would compare HR values.
result: Garmin has sometimes high or low values when apple stay normal.
that’s happen 4 or 5 time during the run.
please…
I am wondering when there is the big jump in HR data if the previous data could be adjusted accordingly. That's assuming the end for run is the accurate section of data recording (I'm on EPIX PRO 2 so same sensor). 
I wanted to post a comparison between two long trail runs on the same terrain - one with Polar H10 chest HR sensor vs. another with the built-in optical HR sensor. I think this demonstrates really well that there is some sort of adaptive algorithm in the software for the WHR sensor which in some situations makes it quite wrong.
Let's start with yesterday's run where I used the WHR. This graph shows both HR (red) and Power (purple), as well the the elevation.
What is interesting about this is that the WHR sensor seemed to work reasonably well for as long as the high HR wasn't coupled with the high cadence. You can see that the HR went up 3 times while I mostly hiked steep uphills and ran everything else with easy to moderate effort. So it was completely fine for the first 2 and half hours of the run. Then around 2:15h there was a 12% uphill segment of the run that I forced myself to run. You can see that both HR and Power went up during that segment, which was correct.
Then there was a short break around 2:30-2:40h, after which I started a long descent. What's interesting is that the watch seemingly remembered the coupling between the high running cadence and the high HR, so when I started running downhill the HR went back up, and mostly stayed there, and kept gradually increasing towards the run as the terrain became easier. I remember at the time noticing that it was definitely too high for the level of effort. I am fairly fit, and during that downhill I was definitely in zone 2 - below 140. I kept chatting to my friend the entire time. There is no way my HR was in 150-160 range. Actually, by the end of the run it kept going further up and exceeded 160, which is nonsense, because for me that is where my lactate threshold is - I have to put a very considerable effort to be there, which wasn't the case at all.
For comparison, here is a run that I did just one week earlier on the same terrain. That time I was wearing a chest sensor - Polar H10.
You can see that at the end on the downhill my HR was mostly in 120-130 range while the estimated power output was around 200 Watts. For comparison, during my yesterday's run shown above, HR was in 145-155 range for the same 200 Watts output.
Another thing you can see how relatively even my HR in the second graph with chest HR sensor compared to fairly volatile HR in the first graph with the WHR sensor.
