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Heart rate monitor not accurate

bjoel
over 1 year ago

I've recently noticed while on a training run my heart rate is higher than my Max HR. I've used a miniature doctor's HR monitor which is highly accurate and the Garmin 745 watch HR is is out by more than 25 beats. 

I've also compared at home hours later and the 2 devices are different. I also started getting tachycardia (high HR) the reason I have the professional doctor's HR monitor, The Doctors HR monitor is high and the watch is low. Sometimes they are in sync but many times not. Could this be a software update issue? I'm using the latest version.

Any thoughts?

  • 0 over 1 year ago

    FR 745 heart monitoring will never be able to measure accurately compared to a device like the one you are mentioning. 

    But in general it has a really bad HR sensor. For example, my 745 shows 70 bpm while I'm doing steay state, zone 2, indoor cycling, and my edge 530 with an HRM chest strap shows 120 bpm. Always. And that's at steady state, no bursts of effort etc. Go figure. 

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to John Kapel

    Hi,

    Just wanted to offer my thoughts on the wrist optical HRM on the 745 - it actually does a good job for my running (and indoor cycling) workouts.

    I generally use the chest-strap when running outside, but on the treadmill (intervals/steady workouts), I use only the watch wrist-based optical HRM. In the below screenshot I am doing ca. 400m intervals with 1 minute recovery and it hits this solidly. It is a couple seconds slower than a chest-band HRM would be, but not by a lot.

    I do get long delays though, when doing easy runs where it can take up to 7-10 minutes before it locks on the right pulse. But after locking, it usually remains on point.

    Thanks.

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to JS

    Optical HRM can be affected by watch fit, skin colour and arm hair density.

    I have seen collegues at work that use the chest-band HRM with electrode Gel because they have dark and hairy skin. The Optical just doesn't work well for them. Even the chest-band HRM needs a little help with the Gel. 

    My 745 works well for me, however, I am not very hairy and have light skin colour.

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to JonH

    Thanks for your reply, I am hairy and light skin colour, so that probably is part of the problem.  I will try the Chest band HRM in the future. 

    Thanks again.