Heartrate so inaccurate that my watch is basically useless for training

Ich gebe auf (FW 18.26). Nach vielen Monaten und Berichten über den HR-Fehler (keine Besserung) werde ich die Uhr wechseln. Das Training mit dieser Uhr macht keinen Sinn. Im Winter habe ich nur mit einem Brustgurt trainiert und war nun froh, bei etwas wärmeren Temperaturen ohne Brustgurt laufen zu können (was bei langen Läufen und Intervallen die Haut reizt). Die OHR muss nicht 100% sein, aber was bei meinem letzten Halbmarathon passiert ist, ist für die Tonne. Meine Freundin fragte mich ernsthaft, ob mich jemand auf der zweiten Hälfte mitgenommen hätte. Seit FW 17.24 nur noch Fehler. Zuerst ging es zurück zur FR 245. Zumindest funktioniert es. Ich werde Garmin definitiv nicht empfehlen. Leider hat Polar keine Musik an Bord, aber Coros schon.

I’ve given up and bought a new HR Band. I recommend COOSPO because screw giving Garmin more money! 

In the recent Beta, it might have been fixed.

On a side note, I also have a Polar OH1 which does a great job!

I’m still have the same problem. Watch worked fine when I bought it. Then recently the HR data is shocking when running. Creeps up slowly from around 90 bpm to 120ish bpm and just stays around there. Even when doing a tempo or threshold run. Subsequent data is useless because the watch thinks I’m really efficient when my hr should be up in the 170s.

easy answer is buy a chest strap but why should I? I know the HR data might not be too accurate but at least it should be consistent.

really annoyed at this.

From my side, it looks like the problem is fixed after last beta. Have you installed it?

I’m on 18.27

This watch has been increasingly frustrating since I got it from my wife for Christmas.  I have a 245 that I handed down to my son that was much more trustworthy than this hunk of crap.  

I am 45, coming up on 46 and average 70-80 miles a week. When I do a workout with intervals.  My warm-ups my HR will be super high for the load I am running at.   If I can run and recite the alphabet without any hesitation or gasping for air.  I know good and well I am well below the HR that the watch is suggesting which is in the 135-140bpm range.  But here is the kicker, when I go to a hard effort at like a 5:00 minute to a 5:20 pace this thing will often not read any higher than 130bpm.  It is so frustrating because it keeps lowering my max HR and HR zones and all my other metrics are skewd because of this.  If the sensor is not reading, or software is buggy and isn't computing things correctly why even have the sensor to begin with.  How can a newer watch be this buggy when the 245 was much more accurate?  Garmin needs to own up to this piece of crap and fix it.  I am a garmin fan, but this is changing my perception.  None of the sowftware updates have done anything to be helpful.  To me things have got worse with each software update.

Same for m, HR stays around 120 bpm, when it was always around 150 bpm with my previous FR, on which i never had any issue for more than 3 years!

Somehow disappointed with my new FR 265 :(. 

Version 18.27

I've had the Garmin 265 model for about 6 months now, so I figured I'd leave my complete experience regarding the watch's heart rate monitor and related features for those on here.

Currently I have the watch on Beta software 19.13. While the heart rate under software 19.13 is better than any of the updates to the watch under software version 18.xx, there are still many errors in its tracking. The watch has some difficulty connecting to the heart rate signal in the first 2-4 minutes of a run, despite any warmups done previously. During easy runs (deemed slower than about 7 min/mile pace) after connecting to the signal in the first half mile, the watch doesn't have any future problems with hr tracking. However, on anything close to threshold (around 5:20 min/mile) the watch data can fluctuate. After about 10 minutes of running, the data seems stable during threshold exercises, but even then the data can be inaccurate and can occasionally totally disconnect from your heart rate (dropping from what would be 170-175 bpm to 150 bpm), or the complete opposite and give unrealistically high heart rate readings (although this is less likely). Additionally, the watch can occasionally (roughly 1/10 runs) never connect to your heart rate signal, in which case it reports readings of 120-140 bpm, as previously expressed on this forum, when actual data should be close to 160 bpm. 

The watch heart rate data is pretty much unusable for interval training. On a continuous run like an easy run or tempo the watch is passable, but on any sort of interval the watch is in a different realm of data. Where my heart rate would normally be around 185-190 bpm on a prolonged interval (like a 1200 or mile) the watch seems adamant in insisting that my heart rate was 145 bpm for the entire duration of the interval. This total mistrack makes the VO2 max data unreliable as well. For example, my mile time has dropped from a 4:40 to a 4:27 over the past 2 months, and my threshold has dropped about 20 seconds during this period, but the VO2 tracker has my fitness dropping from 67 to 65. I used to go with a heart rate monitor on all runs, but switched from this mentality about 4 months ago when I decided to focus more on feel than a heart rate number. Still, this inability of the 265 to track anything faster than threshold is frustrating.

Regarding the features not directly related to running, the watch still struggles. The sleep tracking is less than consistent, and while I have found some success with enabling the blood oxygen monitor during sleep in improving the accuracy of sleep data, the watch will still report random bursts of time during the night when I was "up". These errors make me skeptical of the HRV and resting heart rate data as well (although these are likely more accurate, as they seem appropriate relative to where my fitness levels have been). 

To summarize, my experience with this watch has been a roller coaster. After every software update, I become hopeful that the data will improve, but it seems that each update only makes the monitor less accurate. If you're looking for a watch with good hardware features (like the 5 button input system, which I prefer to Coros, or an improved touchscreen compared to an Apple Watch) this is your watch. Ignore the heart rate data and metrics like I have in the past few months and train off of the response from your body and workout times. However, any heart rate training with this watch is almost impossible due to the inaccuracy and inconsistency of the heart rate tracking during a run. I'm pretty disappointed with Garmins lack of action towards this issue. While my experience doesn't speak for everyone, this is what I have encountered during my time with this watch.