Fenix 6 new HRM has not worked well for me. Big bummer when that was one of the selling points of this new, expensive version of the watch.
I seem to get fairly accurate much of the day but NOT when running. From 1 day to the next I can have an easy run read anywhere from 130s to 170s (same route, same pace).
Wearing the watch correctly above wrist bone etc.
It seems many of the other stats seem to key off of Vo2 Max which of course starts with the HRM. For example the race predictor has me at a 20:29 5k despite the fact that I have run 19 flat while wearing the watch (during a 10 mile workout). Similarly ran 41:11 for 10k that had a net gain in elevation (as part of a 15 mile workout) and the race predictor is giving me 43:36 for the 10k. Naturally the half marathon and marathon numbers are way off as well.
I am 50 years old and the max heart rate it seems to have assigned seems to be working off my age rather than the watch data. I have watch data showing my repeatedly hitting 195HRM and had me averaging 185 on several threshold runs, yet I had to go in and manually update my Max heart rate from 170.
So how is the watch determining my Vo2 Max?
Obviously the Heart Rate data is then used to determine the Heart Rate Zones which then determine your aerobic and anaerobic levels and so on. But even after I have manually adjusted my Max Heart Rate, LTHR and Resting HR, I am still getting very inaccurate reads on a workout.
So beyond the fact that the Heart Rate Monitor on the watch does not seem to work well for me, I am trying to determine what Garmin is using to determine my fitness, rates of recovery etc. Is it just starting with a simple age table? Does it evaluate any input from the Heart Rate Monitor or does it simply key everything off of Max HR? And for that matter does the Altitude Performance Acclimation information do anything more than used tables based on average elevation readings over time?
I am afraid to give any of this data my attention if I don't know how it is determined or calculated. I don't need to know how the sausage is made but for there to be any value to the data there needs to be some information about where it is coming from.