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HRM and speed skating Blue tooth HRM strap a solution? (loosing signal)

Dear Garmin friends,

I use a vivoactive 4 when speed skating. When using wrist hearth rate (HR) it sometimes looses the frequency and is stuck at about 60%. I understand it is due to the nature of the technique (i find many similar complaints, no solutions). I  have searched the internet (in three languages) not much informations. 

So I took my old ANT+ *** HRM from my old FR405CX, works fine, but something funny happened. When my hand is on my back, the signal gets blocked (obviously due to the frequency of ANT+). With the FR405CX that was not an issue for it would pickup the signal in the bends (corners) and assumed (interpolate) the HR between measurements. The vivoactive 4 does not. It assumes my HR is 80 or sometimes even 0 (and I am pretty sure I am not dead). It results in very interesting HR graphs, and more important, low averages HRs

A solution would be to put the watch in my front pocket so it does not move to my. Back on the straight ends of the ice skate ring. But i would not be able to see my HR.

Asking other skaters,  no luck, they either use another brand (low frequency HR transmitter) or they do not care. But since I do...

I wonder whether a Bluetooth HRM strap would be better. Or does anyone have an alternative solution? Is an other Garmin watch better suited?

Jasper

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  • With the FR405CX that was not an issue for it would pickup the signal in the bends (corners) and assumed (interpolate) the HR between measurements. The vivoactive 4 does not. It assumes my…

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  • With the FR405CX that was not an issue for it would pickup the signal in the bends (corners) and assumed (interpolate) the HR between measurements. The vivoactive 4 does not. It assumes my HR is 80 or sometimes even 0

    Try turning off the built-in optical sensor for the duration of the activity and perhaps you will achieve the same result as with your old 405CX.

    I wonder whether a Bluetooth HRM strap would be better.

    Unlikely.

    Is an other Garmin watch better suited?

    You could try your luck with a watch that has the post-activity heart rate download capability and the HRM-Tri or HRM-Pro hr strap. Those straps can record heart rate without connection to the watch, and after the activity is finished, you can download the collected data to a compatible watch (not the VA4, though).

  • Thanks for your thoughts! To bad about th Bluetooth. Turning optical HR sensor on/off would be an annoyance, but I’ll give it a try. Otherwise, I’ll have a good reason to buy myself an upgrade :)...

  • Hi Jasper,

    I had similar issues as your are when I'm skating. The heart rate measured by the optical sensor is far to low when I'm training above 75% of my HRmax (-> useless).

    The only solution is using a HRM strap. The frequency used to transmit the signal gets blocked by water. Therefore if your hand is lying on your back you won't get readings from your strap. 

    The trick is to move the strap so that the transmitter is on your side (under your arms). By this you watch is receiving the signal from the strap in both conditions (hand in front of you and hand on your back). You might need to play with the exact position of the transmitter and/or your hand a little bit but mostly it is working.

    Best,

    Karsten