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Heart rate totally wrong on vivoactive 4

Former Member
Former Member over 5 years ago

Hey there,

Found few old posts on this issue, but no viable solution. Just got new Garmin Vivoactive 4. Which in many case, both during activity and not, shows totally wrong heart-rates. And I mean like 30-40% way off, compared to sigma chest-belt or training machine sensors, not just few bpm.

In my case it's usually way above, compared to in-house training machines and chest-belt. What's even worse - it's wrong even during single continuous load, when say cycling or rowing machine (and old Sigma belt) under the same load/speed etc. shows continuous ~120-130, Garmin vivoactive 4 jumps around, while alarming about maximums, from 150 to 185 bpm...

Also there is another strange bug: if I start cardio - hear-rate jumps within 10-15 secs from 60 to 100+ without even a slightest move as if "anticipating future pulse" :) Is it suppose to be this way or is it another hear-sensor related bug? 

Are there any software updates or other fixes for this? 

p.s. Current built ver.4.25.3, ver.code 5197

  • 0 over 5 years ago

    I’ve returned 3 Garmin’s for the same reason.

  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 5 years ago

    All these complaints about VA4! My VA3m seems to work fine. (Maybe there used to be a lot of complaints about them.)

  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 5 years ago

    I have noticed a lot of HR artefacts as well. Prior to this I owned a vivosmart 4, which is meant to be a lower end watch, but it was way more accurate with HR. I've noticed that whenever the battery on my vivoactive is below 50% there's a higher probability of erroneous HR spikes, but it happens sometimes even on a full charge. Rebooting the watch during the artefact seems to fix it. Very frustrating as I use my watch to monitor a heart condition, and can't rely on it to give me data that's even in the right ballpark which makes the HR alert feature almost useless. I know that watch oxymeters aren't medical grade devices and one can't expect them to detect rapid changes in HR, but these artefacts aren't just a data smoothing/averaging issue - it's literally inventing data spikes that aren't there.

    UPDATE: after some testing, have found that these erroneous spikes seem to be associated with the Cycling activity and do not occur with the Running activity (I haven't tested any other activity types).

  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 5 years ago

    UPD month later.

    Got watch replaced with the new one. No difference nevertheless. With belt it could 100 bpm, watch shows 140 or whatever it want's to show. 

    As for workouts - workaround is to connect to the watch a belt as an external sensor.

    As for the rest, well... 

    All or most other metrics are based or involve BPM values, i.e. VO2, stress, Body Battery, calories etc. If BPM - is wrong (and it is totally wrong during workouts) - then all related parameters and metrics are wrong. 

    So apparently this semi-smart sport watch is only able to show correct time. 

  • 0 over 5 years ago in reply to Former Member

    That stinks :(

    As you say, what is the point of any of the metrics if they are all based on potentially faulty data.

  • 0 over 4 years ago

    I have the same problem. When my HR is 160 with a proper Polar chest-band, my VA shows 105-110... Is there a solution to this? 

  • 0 over 4 years ago

    Same with my watch.  Cardio and the Plyometrics app for jumping take my HR to a whole new level - dangerous zone, when I am just jumping really softly on the rebounder, am not puffed out and can easily talk.  Been jumping for years, so this HR monitor is soooooo wrong!!

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to George

    Been working fine both during sleep and the day, but lately during training i get loooow values, hovers 96-114, and I'm guaranteed in the 160-180ies. Ive always used hole 9 on the strap for day use, and hole 8 when doing cardio. Restarted it, no change, do i need to reset it? The lights on the bottom doesnt blink as they normally do, but shine continuously.