Heart Rate Monitor Problems

Hey KC2K,

I've been having this issue for several weeks now and have been working with Garmin support for a resolution (nothing to share on this front yet). At the time of this writing, I believe I am waiting for a response from their development/engineering team.

I have received a replacement watch, courtesy of Garmin, that exhibits the same behavior and did not fix the problem.

I have shared 30+ emails of data that I've collected from external heart rate sensors from strava logs comparing it to what my Garmin app and watch are reporting.

In general, I spend 1-2hrs a day with a heart rate of more than 160BPM that the watch never captures. I get credit for 0 active minutes because the watch generally only records heart rate values of 90-110 on the high side. This makes my body battery, calories and other metrics unreliable and completely incorrect.

I've captured this issue occurring live on video, and if you're interested you can find that here: YouTube - Garmin VivoActive 4 Heart Rate Not Working

I would be surprised if this issue wasn't more wide spread, because the watch certainly did not do this out of the box!

Cheers,

Ryan

Hi Ryan,

Did you get this issue resolved? I have the same problem...Vivoactive 4 wrist heart rate seems to be accurate at low heart rates but won't measure above 120 even when my heart is hammering at 170+.

Not sure whether it is a problem with my watch or all wrist heart rate monitors and my physiology and so don't want to buy an upgrade to have the same issues.

Thanks

Jon

I did not! They essentially told me that Garmin watches can't record elevated heart rate levels unless you're explicitly recording activities, that this isn't meant to be a medical device or accurate in those scenarios.. Essentially it can't do what a lot of their competitors can do (ie: show you accurate heart rate metrics through day to day life) unless you're actively recording activities.

There have been some tests done by various youtuber's demonstrating this issue as well and how competitors compare. Suffice to say, as good as Garmin is at the other stuff, if you want care free, accurate, day to day heart rate metrics, this isn't it.

Perhaps even another level of frustrating on this regard is Garmin Connect's heart rate graphs don't incorporate third party measurements. That is to say, if I record my HR on my external HRM-Dual strap on my Edge 530 cycling computer, the values recorded in that activity aren't reflected in the daily graph (presumably overridden or ignored for my watches values). While another issue, I do think it's foolish to function in this way and isn't useful or an accurate depiction.

Thanks very much for your quick answer Ryan…that is disappointing.

Not sure if there is a subtle difference here: mine wont even record elevated heart rate when recording an activity, unless I have a chest strap on too.

I agree it is a pain that they havent worked out how to combine inputs from various devices recording the same activity…would be much more useful.

Perhaps I’ll have to go non-Garmin for my next one :-(

Tengo el mismo problema con el Vivoactive 4s.. tuviste solución?

Hello guys. I too have the same problem. I also have Fitbit versa which is even worse. The only solution, at least for me, I paired a Bluetooth heart rate band with the vivoactive 4.

I contacted Garmin and sent them two recordings of the same activity.  One from the Vivoactive 4 and one from my Garmin Edge cycle computer with a chest strap.  The Edge showed a heart rate around 170bpm (which felt right as I was pushing myself quite hard).  The V4 only got to140bpm max.  The response from Garmin was that this is in the bounds of acceptable for the product!  I can't see how they think this product (or the underlying tech) is acceptable - 30bpm is the difference between a jog and a sprint for me.  

The simple workaround is I just wear a chest strap for activities, but it makes the value/usefulness of the product a lot less.  

What was the activity type, and what were you doing? I find that wrist heart rate works well for running (except short intervals and sprints), and quite well for cycling. For strength training it is rather useless. The chosen activity type matters too, as different algorithms are used.

I was running.