Heart rate very high since 5.50

Today I went out for a run. I wore the watch on the outside of my wrist and unfortunately the result was very disappointing. My average HR was 139 with a maximum HR of 169. The problem was again that the maximum HR was not achieved at the end of the 7K run but between minute 6 and 16.After minute 16 the HR dropped suddenly to less than 130. The next run I will wear my watch on the inside of my wrist again.

Its disappointing that Garmin don’t seem to acknowledge there maybe an issue with the HR sensor, I ended up buying a HR monitor and wear that now, so problem solved, but in all my calls to Garmin they didn’t think there was any known problems and just advised that it may not be 100% accurate and to use a strap for better monitoring as small variations may occur just using the watch (fair enough, but 40 or 50 BPM is not s small difference) also asked if I had it tight enough on my wrist, was I hairy around the wrist or tattooed!! Try the other wrist etc, but never a thought there could be an issue here that needs investigating. 

Interesting as well that I suspect many people have the issue without realizing, did ask a colleague who also goes to the gym, does some running and works out a lot, oh yeh he said I regularly go to 170/180 BPM, I must be in good shape! He like me is late 50,s and ive said to him try a heart monitor and see the difference, at my highest using the HR monitor I get to around 140, as like him I was getting the 180 and higher readings with just the watch …….

I suspect that their policy is to never acknowledge there is a problem so that they aren't in a position where they have to do mass refunds. Given that the sensor was OK for me initially, it would seem that the problem is software, not hardware so if they ever take it seriously they could fix it.

In most reviews I've read people say the wrist HRM is good for normal daily use. But as soon as you do a real activity, you need a HRM-strap. Especially running, when you have a lot of bouncing, is bad for the wrist HRM. 

My previous watches - a 735 and a 645 were always very accurate compared to a chest strap whenever I compared during exercise and the 245 initially was OK so I simply don't buy that claim. DC Rainmaker is the only reviewer who knows what he is talking about in my opinion and he doesn't say that they are that poor, simply that they have a lag with rapid changes.

Good to know that. May I ask why you bought a 245 when you already had a 735 and a 645. Did you had problems with them?

The 735 was older tech so when the 645 came out I upgraded and got a good second hand price selling the 735. The 645 was fine until one day a strap retaining plastic post broke so I can no longer use it. Apparently Garmin don't accept that plastic is not strong enough when the advice is to wear the strap tight to ensure good HRM contact.

I suddenly had high hart rate readings with the 245 optical (185 at the age of 51) and in a later run also with the HRM run strap attached . So I'm not sure if it's me or the watch. Yesterday I bought the Polar OH1 (bluetooth and ANT+), which you can connect to the 245 but also has memory to record. So you can read that out later (or at the same time with your GSM) with the Polar app and do a comparison.

I'm gonna try this today.

Yesterday I went out for a run again wearing the watch on the inside of my wrist. The result of the HR measuring was fine, no peaks whatsoever. In my case it is obvious that changes in firmware have effected the sensitivity of the HR sensor, causing inaccurate readings related to my thin wrist. I will wear the watch the next  couple of runs on the inside of my wrist and will then test wether wearing it at the outside again triggers these peaks again..

I contacted support about this issue last week but I got only a generic answer with links to the help-topics. Doh.