HR Accuracy when cycling

I went cycling and wore my 165 and Vivoactive 5, one on the left wrist, the other on the right. Both connected to a Polar H10.

The VA5 had better HR accuracy than the 165 this corresponds to what I've seen in reviews from DC Rainmaker for both watches. It's a bit strange and surprising as they have the same HR sensor, so the difference must be in the software? Do they use different algorithms? Can the Forerunner devs please copy the code from the VA5 team?

FR165

VA5

For running the Forerunner seems to be a bit better as it takes less time to 'warm up' and to start matching up with the external HR strap, but from then on they're fairly similar.

0 Jacquers 15 days ago

Had better results with the watch on my right wrist. There are still some sections where the watch doesn't detect the drop in HR fast enough, but overall it's better. I don't have the VA5 anymore to compare how it would have fared on my left wrist. Would have been interesting to see. Garmin, feel free to send me one to test with

Will try again with it on my left wrist. Maybe it just gets a better signal on one wrist that the other.