Delayed HR Data Recording with HRM-Pro Plus on Fenix 5 – Any Fixes?

Is the strap moistened before use? When was the battery last changed?

You may obtain better results when you soke the whole front of the strap in water for 10 mins. New straps don't soak up water very easily and they have to be through and through wet (in my experience at least). When the strap has been in use more, soaking just minute or two will do.

Everyone with delayed recording or gap problems on any Garmin HRM needs to use this on the pads:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0837LN9X9/?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

Spectra 360 premium electrode contact gel for EKG TENS, etc.

(make sure it says shipped and SOLD by Amazon, not 3rd party, should be around $7)

and when I say use it, I mean the smallest, tiniest, drop physically possible, you only need a TRACE amount, not a glob, even a matchstick-head drop would be entirely too much

That $7 bottle should last a decade or more, it is huge  (used to be $4 but pandemic "inflation")

The proper amount could even just be s speck on your fingertip and then just super thin spread on the actual inside ring of the pad

DO NOT get any on the strap itself, just the inside of the pad

(if you get it on the strap this is very bad because it can produce electrical contact across both pads)

With even the smallest amount, 100% of your data loss problems should be completely gone, no startup delays, etc.

I have used it for a decade now on all kinds of straps including HRM-PRO-Plus

Wow, I actually *forgot* about Spectra gel! Worked super!  Applying super thin is very very important.

I changed from Spectra gel to soaking because I complained to Garmin about a faulty HRM-Tri and they told me that the gel had ruined the electrodes. I didn't think so, but followed the advice anyway, for years and years...

yeah Garmin and their lazy answers/excuses

do they think tap water is cleaner than specialized pure contact gel made for medical devices?

(HRM strap with HRV is just an single-dimensional EKG, you can now get an EKG that wears like HRM strap)

the HRM-TRI was a nightmare, I went through three of them and they refused to replace it after that, had nothing to do with the contact pads or strap but rather the sensor housing would crack and O-Ring failed from terrible design, in the end it was eating a battery every other day

that's because Garmin doesn't make the strap, only the sensor, the strap is just a licensed Polar soft-strap

Why garmin went to a solid non-removable sensor is beyond me, it's like they want them to fail and have to re-buy every other year.

But zero problems with the hardware on the HRM-Pro-Plus, they finally got it right, but I had to buy that one myself and it will probably be the last Garmin device I buy at this point because now the problem is the software support on the Fenix6 and I suspect all other models.

However the download feature on the HRM-Pro-Plus is totally wrong. Either the time markers or the R-to-R heartrate calculation or something because it gives way lower results than the realtime numbers with absolutely no dropout or dataloss, it's a software bug they refuse to fix or even try to understand.

I think all the long-term developers at Garmin quit over the past few years.

Someone needs to snoop on the ANT+ broadcast from the HRM-Pro-Plus with a software radio or some other ANT+ tool and decode the custom proprietary download commands Garmin invented and won't share, or bug fix.

We'll see what happens when people spend $1000 on a Fenix8 and the HRM-Pro-Plus still doesn't download correctly.