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Vivosmart 4 heart rate is a pinball machine since the update 12 days ago

RickAmortis
over 4 years ago

My friend who sits next to me in spin class has her heart rate jumping all over in class.  She just texted me she got 190 walking through the mall.  It is anything but accurate since the last update which just happened to contain a new heart rate algorithm.  It was fine before this update.  The update was automatically loaded onto her watch from Garmin Express.

  • 0 over 4 years ago

    I'm having the same issue.  The HR sensor gave reasonable readings before the last update.  Now it's way off, which effects how the sleep stages and body battery are calculated.  disappointed.  I hope they fix this soon....

  • 0 over 4 years ago

    I'm suffering from the same problem and it still exists within the newest firmware 4.20 - most likely firmware 4.10 introduced it.

    Vivosmart 4 suddenly start counting much higher heart-rate beats per minute (+20 to +60bpm) for no reason while doing no sport other exhausting activities. If I then reboot it (plug into charger, unplug) it instantly counts correctly again. My source of truth here is the Fenix 6X + HR belt.

    Vivosmart 4 worked very reliably since January 2019 and never had such HR measurement problems. The Garmin team implemented HR improvements within the 4.x firmware and now we have this massive problem.

    It causes the following problems for me:

    • Usually I don't realize that the device started to measure incorrectly and so hours of data is affected
    • Much higher intensity minutes for no reason
    • Much lower body battery values for no reason
    • Sudden stress spikes for no reason
    • Massive amounts of calories burnt for no reason / effort invested / sport / activity

    As we cannot delete these miss-measurement it affects overall data quality a lot. Historical analysis will produce wrong results.

    Basically using the vivosmart 4 currently is more harmful than useful. All affected users should report this problem to Garmin support as otherwise they won't be investigating it.

    A workaround might be a daily reboot via plugging / unplugging the device to it's charger. The problem usually appears to happen for me after the device ran for longer than 24 hours.

  • 0 over 4 years ago

    Quick update from my side: After contacting Garmin they sent me a new unit within a few days and the problem is completely gone now. Same 4.20 firmware, same configuration but no more hearth-rate spikes and resulting issues with intensity minutes, stress, body battery values.

    So in my case the problem apparently resulted from a hardware issue. Not too impressive after one year of 24/7 use but the warranty replacement was pretty perfect I've to admit (5 days for the whole replacement, no discussions, 100% solution).

    Everyone experiencing this specific problem should contact Garmin support and get a new unit - that seems to be the only solution.

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to fcsmobile

    Good to know!!  Thank you for sharing this information with us.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to fcsmobile

    Thanks for the info, but it did not change my situation.  As of early Dec 2020, the intensity minutes began accumulating whether I was active or not, about 10x more per week.  I typically record only about 180-200 minutes/week because my primary activity is swimming and my minutes come from from cross training. 

    The website offered some rebooting and reinstalling advice which did not fix the problem.  They offered to replace the unit and I complied.  It came yesterday..... and today I recorded 359 minutes (and counting).  No other functions or data seem to be affected for me.  I believe it's a software glitch and I am not inclined to return the unit again.  I'm just going to ignore intensity minutes which I barely watched anyway because I'm a swimmer.