Heart Rate Way Off after 13.17

This is from Strava, but it's the same data. If it's not clear, the heart rate trace shown here is just the highlighted section on the profile graph at the top (transitioning from flat to climbing), not the whole rise.

From GC:

quad.pe/.../iUdduxp5JK.png

I did a reset and seemed to solve the issues i was experiencing. It was a bit of a hassle to re sync the watch. I'll provide more updates throughout the week but so far it did the job.

I hope all of you figure it out. I say all of you cuz after about 7 years with Garmin watches, I moved on while I can still get worth out of my Venu 3. Not only the sensor issues, the texts, the phone features, assistant, all breaking with every update. Decided to try another brand..

Exactly the same issue for me. It actually started on Venu 2 plus. I upgraded to Venu 3 and experience the issue on almost every run. The watch shows my heart rate too low during a run. I remove the watch and put it back on (while running). Heart rate is fixed immediately (jump 20-30 beats higher). I have many recordings of this bug.

I started having problems after the last 2 updates and would like to be able to roll back to what the firmware was when I first got the watch. It tells time ok though. However, the heartrate, stress, and sleep values seem to have shifted noticeably. It also occasionally can't detect wake time successfully and does not even prompt for it.... Edit: The other additional anomaly was a couple of days with false stair-climbing detection. Notably, one day I climbed 4 flights and never came down (according to Venu3) as a result of running a short distance to catch a bus. 

Garmin-Tracy said:

 I understand why you are frustrated and I am sorry that you had an experience with customer service that left you feeling like we aren't concerned. That being said, we are concerned. However, we are not seeing this consistently amongst Venu 3 / 3S customers and have been unable to reproduce the behavior in house. We are hoping folks can help identify the variables needed to reproduce and understand the behavior, hence the list of questions.

Sorry, I don't buy it. People, including me, have been having this identical problem on multiple Garmin models for more than a year. It has been traced to various firmware updates. On the Epix Gen 2 like I have, it's usually 15.77. But since mine was an early version, it's (according to ChatGPT) 13.22. And there's been no fix despite numerous updates. 

As many others have noted, other watch brands do not have this problem, even the cheapies. Garmin is going to kill themselves by delivering unreliable fitness watches -- their bread and butter. I'm currently making do with an armband, but my next watch is one that works or I don't buy it. It seems like Garmin is determined I should look elsewhere.

Here is a typical view of the heart rate issue with Venu 3. It is complete wrong and when I take my watch off during the run it corrects again.

Identical to my experience. It ruins my runs and has been doing so for 6 months or more, and I then just don't trust the rest of the data either if I am honest. 

Yup, basically my experience too. I now wear an HRM-Pro strap which gives consistent and accurate readings. I've done a few experiments, wearing the strap and the watch together (but not paired, so I can see the readings from each independently) and the watch consistently reports lower - often not just a bit lower, but daft, random numbers. e.g. 80bpm when the strap is reporting 150bpm! 

Frankly, I consider the HR data from the watch to be more or less useless now which is pretty disappointing. The step count information is accurate, which I guess is nice, and the watch works well as a GPS logger, but it makes for a very expensive, glorified pedometer! I now wear the strap and my Edge 830 when cycling, and leave the watch at home. If hiking (and I care enough to want the data), I'll wear the strap paired to the watch. The rest of the time I just assume that the watch data is incorrect.

I'm a little disappointed that, after an initial contact to offer to work with Garmin to diagnose this and improve the product quality, they never replied to me or followed up. Seems a missed opportunity as, I suspect, there are a lot more people out there with this issue that are simply unaware that their watch is not accurately reporting their heart rate. If anyone from Garmin is listening - I'm still here, and still willing to help!