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FR255 HRM switched to counting half rate?

I was doing some strenuous chores and looked at my watch during a brief pause. This was just on the watchface without an activity app running. My heart was really pounding, but the watch was showing a heart rate fluctuating in the 70-80 BPM range.  I suspect it was counting every two beats as one beat. I double checked that the band was snug. I even removed the watch and wiped the back to make sure the sensor wasn't dirty. When I put it back, it continued counting in this way.

Looking at the heart rate widget later, I think it tracked my pulse into the 120 BPM range and then started counting every other beat while my pulse was climbing further. The chart showed this sudden drop and lower level in the 70s until jumping back up to 110 which may be when I was recovering and it started to count every beat again. For reference, my measured resting hear-rate seems accurate around 58-62 this week, and I think it has properly tracked my pulse to a peak around 160 during hilly walks, when I had the Walk activity running.

I've also had the watch annoy me a couple times assuming I am "stressed" and should try some breathing exercises just because my heart rate climbed to around 100-110 while doing something mildly strenuous around the house. Between this and my other posting about the floors climbing metric ignoring walking up slopes, I am puzzled. Are you expected to run an activity app every time you might be exerting yourself? Does the watch assume you will have mostly idle stats when on the default watchface mode, and somehow bias its sensor readings differently than in activity?

  • I think the answer to your questions in the last paragraph is yes.

  • Thanks. That's a little disappointing but I guess it makes sense.  I've never used a fitness tracker before, and was originally interested in the GPS and ABC functions for hiking. But it is sort of an attractive nuisance to start looking at these 24x7 tracking features once you start wearing the watch...

    Does anybody actually start using activities for daily life? Maybe garbage lifting, vacuum yoga, high-intensity gardening, or laundry intervals?  Or just a household chores multisport...?  Thinking