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Heart rate is unusable

Former Member
Former Member over 5 years ago

I have apple watch 5 i am pretty happy with it but the health and activity app experience is not great. I do not like 2 separate applications for activity vs health. Additionally thee is no web version and easy way to export. no sleep tracking and ox monitor. 

I recently got vivoactive 4s, my primary reason to go for this device was activity tracking. I like the application its one page that give you summary and details if required. Additionally you have a web version that lets you download the data look at graphs on bigger screen.

Sleep tracking and the pulse ox is definitely a bonus over apple watch, that being said i have come to realize the accuracy of the device is very questionable. 

The heart rate on vivoactive4 is very low for activity tracking, i have checked my heart rate on apple watch 5, my wives fitbit versa 2 and i also calculated it manually, for an activity heart rate of 145 on apple watch and fitbit garmin shows 95 may be 100 at times, i have seen this on several occasions. 

if i run its the same, if i do yoga its the same even for cycling its same. i am about to return it, not sure if others are experiencing the same issue

btw i am on latest firmware 4.50, another thing i have noticed is if you stop tracking ox the heart rate gets a little better, for 145 ion apple watch it tracks 110 over 95 when the ox monitor is always on. 

Also the distance is inaccurate. i have done the same measured trail 00s of times and i know it is 1.2 miles for a fact, apple watch is mostly spot on, garmin is 1.1 or 1.15 so it is understating the distance. I do wait for gps before i start and also do multiple laps but the result is same. i thought gamin was leader is gps they should get the distance right 

  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 5 years ago

    Am i the only one with this problem or people have not compared it against any other devices or optical heart rates are not acceptable either way. I got a second copy and it has the same issues 

    May be my wrists are not made for Garmin Slight smile

  • 0 over 5 years ago in reply to Former Member

    Don't worry. I also have an AWS5 and V4S and have the exact same problem. When walking up 300 stairs my heart rate was between 160 and 170 on the AW and 90 to 100 on the V4S. I'm in bad shape so I'm guessing the Garmin was over 50 BPM off.

    When resting or just walking it's almost identical to the AW. This is a serious issue and it would be sad to leave Garmin because I love their app and battery life has been great.

  • 0 over 5 years ago

    I´m getting the same issue. Comparing with an Polar M600, same training each of them in each wrist, the Polar measures like 20-40 more pulses than the Garmin, and the Polar is quite precise in several tests I did.
    It i a pity, I guess I´m returning it back to Amazon.

  • 0 over 5 years ago

    Today my Forerunner 235 simply stopped tracking my heart rate during an exercise. I'm quite worried, because I have just got and started using it. If it doesn't work anymore, what should i do?

  • 0 over 5 years ago in reply to 5437492
    5437492 said:
    Today my Forerunner 235 simply stopped tracking my heart rate during an exercise.

    Post in the Forerunner 235 forum instead of the Vivoactive 4 forum.

  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 4 years ago in reply to 7713368

    Has garmin ever acknowledged the issue or they just ignore it ?

    I am going to return mine and stick to Apple watch, even tho i do not like the activity and health app, the stats are at least accurate 

  • 0 over 4 years ago

    I was installing yesterday the beta firmware and I needed to retirn back to the official one because the beta version drained like 35% of battery in one night. One I returned back to the official firmware I went today to walk with my child and I wore the Vivoactive 4 and the Polar M600 that I have tested and is quiete accurate, I can say that both showed quite similar data, so not sure if it is because it works fine walking or is because the factory reset I needed to do. I´ll try tomorrow with a HITT session wich is when I noticed it showed the heart rate really wrong.

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to 7713368

    vuelve a probar la beta , tu consumo de bateria no es normal , dale otra oportunidad

  • 0 over 4 years ago

    I´ve done a new testing today, vivoactive 4 vs Polar m600 (wich I konw is quite accurate). It was for a HITT session and this time instead of using a custom activity profile called Gymnastics, I used the Strenght training profile, and It made a huge difference, it was all the time close to the M600 numbers even some time higher. So I´m happy that I figured this out , it seems to be related to the activity profile in my case, it looks like the Strenght profile calculations take into account the repeats movements and correct the hear rate quite good.
    I´ll test more tomorrow.