HR accuracy issues

Not to resurrect an old thread, but I was having this exact issue. It works great reading throughout the day and when running, but when I XC Ski, it would not read above 130, and was always 30-60bpm off. When I ran, it would read an average of 150's which was accurate, but the cadence of skiing is so much lower that it would regularly read around 100bpm. Garmin uses a cadence fallback on their heart rate systems i believe (could be wrong no the technical info). Basically, if you are doing an activity that does not have a high cadence ei running, DO NOT use a running activity. I figured I'd record my ski workouts in trail run, as heart rate should be heart rate regardless of the activity the garmin thought i was recording. Not true. If you are not doing a workout that measures steps, don't use a step oriented activity. I now record my skiing, weight lifting, etc in cardio because it reads heart rate without taking cadence into account. It reads my heart rate perfectly.

My 245m updated today to version 4.10, so I thought I'd give it another chance on my bike ride today. I was shocked that the HR was spot on...FINALLY! I don't use my 245m for running anymore since I can't run, but I do use it to broadcast my HR to my Wahoo Elemnt when I ride like I used to before Garmin broke the HR. It only took Garmin 4+ months to get it right.

Having the exact same issue. I can be going straight up a mountain as hard as possible and my heart rate remains between 90-110, when it is actually more like 170-190. It is so inaccurate that there is no point in wearing the watch. It is an expensive watch, and I am utterly disappointed with the HR in it. It is just so wildly inaccurate and I have also tried everything, cleaning it, using it on a different wrist, updating it, switching it on and off, tightening it, loosening it. I give up!

Hi, I also had the same poor experience, the 245 never read my HR correctly. In the manual Garmin admits the wrist-based HR monitor is only an estimate. The best thing I did was to buy the HRM dual strap. The watch auto-detects the strap and the HR accuracy is amazing.

Try to downgrade back to firmware 3.10. My assumptions is that all the elevate 3 sensor watches got their ohr screwed up after they introduced the respiration rate. Before that, everything was fine. The only 2 watches you can downgrade are the 245 and 945. Fenix and 645 do not have this option. 

Same issue here, the harder it gets the lower HR drops. When I walk a mountain it drops to 100 HR when it should be around 135-140. I've just found this app https://apps.garmin.com/en-US/apps/a461bc0d-828d-47c8-a4a5-8d014b5fedc9
that allows recording both oHR and chest HRM simultaneously, so now we can get a better picture of oHR accuracy.

Thanks for that link. After reading the app info on the garmin apps, seems like a great data field to try.

Exactly what mine does and my assumption is that it locks onto cadence, not HR. It actually does the opposite of what I’d expect, HR decreases when going up hills and increases when going down or on flats.