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Garmin HRM Pro Plus strong offensive odor emanating from the chest strap

3828955
over 1 year ago

Hello fellow Garminians,

I have an issue with the Garmin HRM Pro Plus chest strap. After about 3 months of regular use (running), it starts to smell bad, like really bad to the point where its nauseating. I follow the care instructions to the T, rise after every use, hand wash weekly with mild detergent, rinse, hang to dry. The odor is unique in that it smells like something of a burnt electronic? Not sure exactly how to describe the smell but very pungent and fills the room and sticks to my clothes and skin. At first, I thought it was leaking something internally, Garmin kindly replaced the original unit, however the exact same issue has developed again with a new unit after 3 months of use.

I am wondering if anyone else experiences this. Is there a better way to clean it? Do all chest straps smell like this? Is it me?

I do enjoy using the unit for HR accuracy, but the smell is too much and I don't want to replace it again for a 3rd time only to have the same thing happen.

  • 0 1 month ago in reply to 5980673
    5980673 said:
    Yeah that is called survivor bias.

    Maybe it is survivor bias, but there is some truth in philipshambrooks post, you cannot deny that.
    Most people will say that they did everything by the book (and maybe believe it themselves), but in reality we see a lot of cases where it is not that way.
    That is also a form of cognitive bias.

    5980673 said:
    You think Garmin would replace the straps for free, no questions asked, if they didn't know that this was a real problem.?

    Yes, I do.
    See, I studied business administration and also I have my experiences with Garmin support replacing stuff for free, no questions asked, at least while in warranty period.

    So why would they do that?
    Simple answer: The margin, especially for things like HR straps is extremely high. A HRM Pro+ has a list price of 129,99 Euro here in germany, which is just crazy, because probably manufacturing cost are 1/10 of that...
    So if something breaks and a customer that has bought a crazy expensive watch and a crazy expensive HR strap and maybe also owns an expensive Edge and Varia and so on (which they can easily check in the account) and has maybe also been a customer for years calls and tells them "of course i alway washed it, but the HR strap stinks" - should they really doubt that and make the customer feel like he did something wrong?
    Or should they just replace the strap with another one, make a customer happy and not cause a lot of effort and margin loss (because in production the straps are cheap, remember)?

    So, you have your answer here.

    Anyway, I will join the experiment now.
    My HRM Pro which had problems not with smell, but with the laminated pads losening was replaced for free with a HRM Pro+ some months back. I used superglue to repair it, but now that is over and the laminated part are falling off again.
    So now I started using the replacement HRM Pro+ - if it starts smelling, I will know it soon and report it here.

  • 0 1 month ago in reply to Grumpy from dawn till dusk

    Ok you make a good point from the marketing standpoint, but that’s still not my main issue here. Obviously I cannot talk for others, but I know for a fact how I treat my strap, and as I said, I wash it after every use by soaking in in water and sports detergent, following up with a light scrub and rinse. It still smells! And it’s important to make it clear that it’s not a smell of sweat or dirt. It literally smells like horse/stables. 

  • 0 1 month ago in reply to 5980673

    Exactly the same here. I even tried with one of these kind of fabric "refresher" spray, but with no success. The horse is always there.

  • 0 1 month ago in reply to Grumpy from dawn till dusk

    Not disputing anything here.

    Just wanted to share that I smelled this specific burnt rubber/fried electronics/chemical/horse odor today on a site where a floor cleaning agent (Lysol) was being used. I found that interesting.

  • 0 1 month ago in reply to Data

    Unfortunately the Decathlon detergent only weakened the smell temporarily, it has returned full-blast on the next run (albeit a long 25k run). 

  • 0 1 month ago

    Same here,  has anyone contacted Garmin to report this issue yet. Is this dangerous for your health?

  • 0 1 month ago

    Hi, this update is to confirm that I've used this product and the bad smell is strongly mitigated.

    www.amazon.it/.../ref=sr_1_5

  • 0 1 month ago in reply to 9186962
    9186962 said:
    has anyone contacted Garmin to report this

    Have you?

  • 0 1 month ago in reply to 1402055

    Thanks for the tip! 

    Would you say the product is completely washed out after rinsing? Since it's made for carpets and curtains I'm having doubts about its safety on skin, the ingredients might be industrial grade (hence the efficacy).