HRV status in the red since 14.68

I have the same problem. In my case, I come from stable measurements with the fenix 6 pro and after changing to the fenix 7 PRO with version 14.68, the trend is downward for two weeks of use due to night measurements. something strange happens

MANUEL said:

something strange happens

Yes, indeed, winter is coming!

Take it easy, we can see this kind of posts each end of autumn here on the forum:

• HRV Drastically Lower since 13.15 and Continues with Latest Updates
• How accurate is the HRV status? After 6 months of use, mine has suddenly dropped and despite drastically reducing my training load, has not improved more than a point or two?
• HRV Status in 13.15 is wrong
• HRV Falling and constant 1 Training Readiness
• HRV Status-Anyone seeing a downward spiral?

Whether this is a change introduced in 14.68, or it is indeed naturally occuring seasonal changes in human HRV, the real problem here is that the Garmin health apps are not accounting for this change. So are we to ignore the health apps in Garmin Connect until our HRV normalizes? Or should we take it easy (as the apps suggest) until a new HRV baseline is established?

KMO said:

the real problem here is that the Garmin health apps are not accounting for this change

They do exactly what they are supposed to do. If your HRV drops, it means your body is under a bigger stress, and it does not matter whether the reason is the training, stress in the daily life, disease, alcohol, coffee, lack of rest, age, or the seasonal change. The baseline will slowly adapt to the new level, just as your body does. Well, perhaps not perfectly in the same rate, but there is not way to make it perfect. Changing the baseline immediately whenever your HRV changes would completely defy the sense of monitoring the HRV.

In my case overnight HRV dropped 10pts the day after I installed 14.68. And on average it has remained 10pts below my 13 month baseline. 5 weeks now and the Garmins apps are still telling me that I need more time to recover. Meanwhile, EliteHRV + Polar H10 (I take a reading every morning) tell me I square in the zone for training readiness.

You probably see yourself that the overnight measuring is not the same as one spot morning measuring. Make an overnight measuring with an alternative device, and make a Health Snapshot with your F7 in the same time as you do with the EliteHRV, and then compare apples to apples, and oranges to oranges.

I think you could be missing the point whilst making a good point. I'll agree with you that there could be seasonal adjustments but I can't agree that these would be so drastic that they would drop in the way shown by the OP and on the day of the FW release install. Further corroborated by others. Surely any seasonal stress would be gradually mapped as the days shortened, temperatures dropped and shorter days encourage changing training patterns. I'd also imagine that the baseline would also change with the gradually changing season so most should not notice. What we're seeing here is a cross watch anomaly outside of season changes and causing unrecoverable low HRV readings. I'd add whenever my HRV dropped in the past I could tie it back to an activity or a feeling of being unwell or over tired.

To verify whether the firmware is behind the changed HRV, you can either downgrade the firmware, or use another device for the overnight monitoring. There are not many other ways to exclude or confirm it. Garmin is unlikely to comment here, and the changelog does not mention any such change. 

Your opinion and what your think compared to science/studies are very different I guess- HRV is highly affected by seasonal change. If you dont want to believe whats already proven why even bother take the time to make a topic about this? 
Also there are way more viruses during winter and some of them may be asymptomatic to you even tho your body is fighting.