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The Garmin Mess (my opinion) of Optical HR

gxgene1
5 months ago

Three Visuals included.

1.The first is a 10 miles non stop flat run, on software 22.20. Note that about 10 minutes into the run the HR takes a sudden, unexplainable jump

2. 35 minutes on a stair climber. After the exercise ends I kept the watch recording and over the next 10 minutes the HR peaks twice to a level higher than at any time during the exercise and then drifts down in what looks like a repeatable pattern

3. A 5k run with a stepper hill. At about .4 miles in the HR does a straight up vertical jump from 126 bpm to 150 bpm!

The above is indisputable, below are my opinions and represent my experiences with the watch.

I can't say if these problems affect all users or just a subset. I can say for me the FR 265's Elevate Gen 4 Optical HR sensor is a real disappointment (compared to the FR 245 Elevate Gen 3 Optical HR sensor). To the point of; Garmin, I love the user interface and some of the features of the FR265 but fix the optical HR or just give me my money back.

OR - recall the watches with the Elevate 4 sensor, replace with the Elevate 3 sensor and the software to support the Elevate 3. OK, that's pie in the Sky, the user can't replace the battery in the watch, the optical HR sensor isn't going to be replaced.

OR Replace my watch with an equivalent that actually works! A LOT of the metrics I care about are based off of the HR readings. If the HR readings are bunk, then obviously the metrics follow suite. Again, my opinion but if the optical HR doesn't work reasonably (at least as well as it did in the FR245) then the watch does not meet the advertised standards for it's intended use.

I can live with the HR missing rapid peaks or having to install the newly released software twice because after the first install the watch forgot it had an HR sensor or even the random breakage of some features after a software "upgrade" as long as the core functions continue to work (or are fixed); I can't live with the core function of the HR not working reasonably.

  • 0 4 months ago in reply to ulliH

    Is it possible or has anyone been able to use an older version of software on the device? Watch worked fine prior to updates

  • 0 3 months ago in reply to 2341326

    The short answer is no. Garmin in their infinite wisdom has never provided users with a means to revert back to older software, with the exception that if you are a Beta Tester, you can revert back to the last released version. That has stepped on the toes of many users including myself when a software update to my FR245 bricked the optical HR sensor, which after the update started reading about 20 BPM low.

    In my (limited) view point is should be fairly easy to let a user revert. I was happy with the FR245 prior to the software update which violated my watch by means of an automatic update. Since that point in time, I have turned automatic updates off. From Garmin's viewpoint I would guess it's a little more complicated, there are various components to a complete update, i.e. GPS detection, Sensors, so to successfully revert a person would need to need that the bits and pieces are all compatible. I've down loaded and archived a few of the main software versions but I've never actually tried to revert back. The FR245 was only a few days old when the Automatic software update detonated it so I just took it back and got a different one (and turned off updates). I did allow one update before the warranty ran out and the user feedback on the update looked OK. 

    Even with updates turned off you still have to be careful Garmin software on the PC will still try to update the watch if you connect via the PC, in which case the fix is to delay the update and remove the update file from the watch before it has a chance to install. Working from memory here but I think the file is GUPDATE.GSP in the Garmin folder of the watch. Connected via USB, with no Garmin PC software running the watch just becomes another thumb drive, so the file can be moved from the watch to the PC and archived. It's also how I back up my *.fit files in the watch activity folder for my exercises.

    The optical HR on the 265 I've never been happy and from what I've read from user comments the latest version is worse, not better.

    Again the following is my opinion; Garmin might have rocket science in the newest Optical HR Sensor but in practical use Garmin has now spent two generations of watches the FR255 and FR265 trying to come up with software to fix just how fussy the new sensor is; and they have to this point have failed. For me personally, I love not having to wear a chest strap and I don't care if the optical HR misses some peak instantaneous values, I do care a LOT that it is generally accurate and that the overall average is correct which gives me insight into my overall fitness.

    If Garmin married the ascetics of the FR265 with the HR sensor of the 245 I'd be a happy camper (assuming I had the version of optical sensor software I still have in my FR245)

    I really like the display and the user interface, but the FR265 is failing in the core function of providing a reliable HR reading. Garmin's answer is to wear a chest strap, Sure, so other than I don't want to wear a chest strap that would mean the wiz bang HR sensor that was put into the watch is just a marketing toy. I don't believe that was the intent and I want Garmin to succeed to the point I've sent them my own thoughts on maybe how they might be able to obtain a more reliable average reading with no idea if anyone cared or if they had already gone there. What I can say is I have a lot of Garmins; but in the future I'm not buying another Garmin unless this gets fixed to the point of having a believable HR reading (at least as reliable as my FR245. 

  • 0 1 day ago

    Garmin (),

    What is the latest official state of the 265 (S) heart rate issues everyone is complaining about (stuck on a low rate, then jump suddenly)? I can still experience it with the latest fw (24.12). It is better than the VA6 (that I returned because of this issue squared). But it is still worse than my old VA4 with Elevate 3!

    Are you planning to make further updates to the 265 software? Are you still trying to fix this particular issue? Everything else seems so good with this watch, but this one glitch is very annoying! Of course, for "important activities" I will pair it to my H10 chest strap. But I refuse to wear it when just walking or hiking. And the aforementioned issue is present during these activities as well (e.g. uphill section).

  • 0 1 day ago in reply to mihu86

    Def still isn't fixed lol. same issues as before 

  • 0 1 day ago in reply to 6887522

    As a software engineer, I just can't get one thing: they say the regression was introduced in version 18.22 (or around that). Before that it was good / better. 

    Why can't the FRX65 team revert just the HR algorithm to the old version that was working well enough? And if they still wanted to do a new update for some reason, why don't they release it only if it has been tested thoroughly (I have doubts given 570/970 are out)?

  • 0 1 day ago in reply to mihu86

    Maybe it's not a binary thing? Like maybe there were other changes to the HR algorithm that they want to keep? Kind of a specific instance of the general question "Why doesn't Garmin let me (easily) rollback to old firmware that worked great for me?" Because even if the new firmware / algorithm has bugs, there are things in the new firmware / algorithm that Garmin wants us to have.

    I'm not defending them, I see ridiculous regressions and recurring bugs from Garmin all the time. The worst is when the same bug or the same type of bug happens again, sometimes years after the previous bug was fixed. It's like nothing is being learned. Either that, or the overall architecture / testing methodology is so fragile that these things are inevitable. And/or there's a ton of fragile legacy code that can't be rewritten.

    Yeah, I know it's impossible to prevent bugs in general, but I find it frustrating to see the same bugs over and over again.

  • 0 23 hours ago in reply to mihu86

    Optical HR is still unreliable on my FR265. Occasionally I forget my chest strap when going to the gym so I will be stuck with the optical HR and it will be clearly inaccurate and erratic. I just think of the optical HR as not even there.

    But that’s not the only remaining glitch in my experience. The Bluetooth connection to my earphones constantly and randomly cuts out during runs. Unfortunately there’s no work-around for this. So music is another useless “feature” of this watch. 

    I thought I was upgrading when I bought this watch as a replacement to my FR45!

  • 0 20 hours ago in reply to lytleric

    BT to eatbuds has always been a problem. Sometimes it is perfect and then same setup is broken.

    What gets me is vast majority of users have the Garmin on the left wrist, and the earbuds BT transmitter is almost always in the right ear, so the body is interference. Putting the Garmin on the right wrist almost always solves the issues, but that is stupid.  Why not make some cheap a$$ BT earbuds for running with the BT transmitter in the left ear. Boom, no more issues.

    The BT transmitter in earbuds is always where the touch controls are...they are made for our right hand to touch control. Thus the dilemma.  If a compromise must be made between watch wrist location, and earbuds control location, I'd rather have the earbuds on the left and then just get good music connectivity. 

  • 0 14 hours ago in reply to chris_in_cal
    chris_in_cal said:

    BT to eatbuds has always been a problem. Sometimes it is perfect and then same setup is broken.

    Yeah, Garmin issues with earbuds are super annoying. At one point AirPods were having a lot of problems and, eventually, an Apple update seemed to solve some of them. But I still see some issues every now and then with:

    - static

    - controls suddenly not working (have to disconnect and reconnect to recover)

    - playback glitching (sometimes can recover by stopping and starting playback)

    I also use other types of earbuds and they all have problems.

    chris_in_cal said:

    BT to eatbuds has always been a problem. Sometimes it is perfect and then same setup is broken.

    What gets me is vast majority of users have the Garmin on the left wrist, and the earbuds BT transmitter is almost always in the right ear, so the body is interference.

    I think cadence also makes a difference: the faster my cadence, the less problems I see.

    If you run with a faster cadence, your arms swing faster and the watch on your left wrist is seemingly in line of sight of the right earbud [*] more often than it would be with a slower cadence. 

    [*] or either earbud, in the case when there's BT transmitters for both the left and right earbud

    Anecdotally I noticed more static if I'm either walking or running slowly. If I'm running with decent cadence, then the problems mostly go away.

    None of this is to defend Garmin, but I wonder if they tested with a wide range of cadences.

    I think someone mentioned that the BT radio on Garmins is underpowered (to save on battery life), which might contribute to these issues.

  • 0 12 hours ago in reply to chris_in_cal
    chris_in_cal said:
    The BT transmitter in earbuds is always where the touch controls are...they are made for our right hand to touch control

    But how many earbuds in 2025 have touch controls on right side *only*?

    And even though some older earbuds only work with the right earbud when you use only *one* earbud, a lot of newer earbuds let you use the left or right earbud alone. 

    So that may be the historical reason for only having the BT transmitter in the right earbud, but idk if it applies now.

    For modern earbuds that support left-only or right-only use, each earbud must have its own BT transmitter. 

    For this kind of earbuds, a quick search seems to indicate:

    - when you use both earbuds together, one of them is the primary transmitter (this makes sense)

    - some earbuds will automatically switch the primary earbud from left to right, based on signal strength

    - some earbuds actually let you change the primary earbud (by explicitly pairing your phone with either the left or right earbud). This seems pretty rare

    I would guess that maybe some earbuds also hardcode the primary to the right side? Not sure though.