HR accuracy when not in activity

Good day. I am Serafín's wife. You have my permission to email me. you have my permission to access my account and I live in Slovakia.

Just purchased a Venu 2 Plus and have this exact problem. Whilst riding indoors on Zwift my HR as recorded by my strap usually gets up to 180+ and averages 160. If I do not start and activity on my Venu 2 Plus, the HR readings are only around 120 max and 100 average. If I use and activity on my Venu or broadcast HR, the reading are very accurate. What is the solution Garmin?? This is not acceptable for such an expensive watch. Accurate HR readings at all times are surely a basic requirement of a smart watch?

Unfortunately, it is working as designed.  The sensor sits in a low power or powered down mode from day to day.  Once you start an activity the sensor moves into a powered up mode at which point it becomes much more accurate.  This is to help maintain a longer day to day battery life.  This is 100% normal.

Very true. However if you want a more accurate picture there should be an option not to go into low power mode, for people who don't care about 10 day battery life, otherwise you are not getting a true picture of your 24/7 HR. I have a few Garmin devices and they are all equally bad when not in activity mode. A Fitbit tracker even manages this better!

if you do an activity.  Just start an activity and get accurate info.  In a perfect world it would do it automatically.  However, it’s not difficult thing to do. It is plenty accurate enough for daily life. 

Not for me it isn't. I am very active all day so would have to have an 8 hour activity every day. Only time it's accurate is when you are not moving as much. Think it can be improved upon.

If it's supposed to measure heart rate, then let it measure as accurately as it can.

Well, maybe you are an exception then.  However, you could start and activity without gps and get accurate data for 8 hours.  

not the most elegant solution but it would work. 

I have exactly the same problem. I recently switched from the Vivoactive 4 to the Venu 2 plus and the problem has intensified.
If it's the case that the sensor is in power saving mode during the day when it's not recording activity and the accuracy is still adequate, I think that's a great feature to save battery power.
However, I would assume that the sensor would go into "full power" mode when an activity is started or the HR broadcasting function is activated.
Garmin-Kevin confirmed that HR reading will be accurate while starting an activity. But in case of HR broadcasting it looks like the HR sensor stays in power saving mode, same as in case of no activity will be recorded. At least that is the case when I get low HR readings. 
On the rare occasions when the HR readings are fine in that mode, there is a chance that a warning for a high HR (HR > 100 at rest) will be displayed while the HR is being transmitted to my Edge device while cycling.
This indicates that the watch is not entering activity mode while heart rate is being transmitted!

Is there any plan to resolve or mitigate that issue seen by a lot of users?

- Introducing accurate reading while HR broadcasting - switch automatically to full power mode 
- incorporate a setting which disables the low power mode if user desires 

Garmin-Kevin Garmin-Sierra Garmin-Zac