Ensure absolutely no GPS / movement gets picked during indoor activity

I play ice hockey, and the way I track these activities is this: in the locker room, while wearing a HRM Pro strap I start a "Cardio" activity, take off my watch, leave it there, and then play / train on ice (indoors) wearing only the HRM strap. When I get back to the locker room, I finish the activity on my watch. HR data gets downloaded.

I chose "Cardio" activity because I've read in forums / reddit that this is the recommended activity type for indoor activities with no GPS. I checked the settings several times, and the GPS is indeed set to "Off". Software version is 13.00.

Still, for some reason, occasionally, what looks like GPS signal gets picked up - this is evident in both Garmin Connect and Strava overview (see screenshots):

This leads to misinterpreted stats.

My question is this: how can I ensure (with 100% certainty) that absolutely not GPS / movement gets picked up during these activities? I am only interested in heart rate and related stats (estimated calories, etc.)

Thank you for any guidance.

  • A speed reading does not indicate that GPS was used. Under some circumstances the watch can estimate speed using inertial sensors without GPS.

  • Thanks for clarification! Given that the watch is off my wrist and just "rests", is there anything I can do to prevent these readings?

  • Only now I realized that the watch was off wrist. Somehow I missed that information when I read your post. In that case the watch should not indicate any speed/distance. However, the HRM-Pro strap can provide speed data. So if the strap temporarliy connected to the watch during the game, it could have given a speed spike like the one on the screenshot. To make sure that it won't happen in the future go to the HRM-Pro sensor settings on the watch and turn off pace/distance for the HRM-Pro.