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Pulse Ox not working + Heart Rate not working when Pulse Ox is turned on

Former Member
Former Member

Hey!

Got my 945 yesterday and set it up. Everything seemed to be working fine initially.

During the evening I went through some settings and turned on HRV Logging, Sleep/All-Day Pulse Ox, etc.

After this I noticed all heart rate data started displaying "--" with maybe one value every few minutes at best before going back to "--". Stress measurement started showing "Check watch fit" when trying to do a measurement and I was unable to get a single Pulse Ox reading during the whole evening. I went to sleep thinking it might just need some time to adjust.

I woke up with absolutely no sleep data or HR data for the night. After not getting more than a few blips of wrist heart rate data all morning regardless of restarts, different clock position on wrist, band tightness or even wrist side, I went back into the settings and tried turning off the Pulse Ox sensor. After this the heart rate reading updates reliably every few second and everything seems to work again.

I have now tried this multiple times to make sure. Turning on Pulse Ox in the Sensors menu makes all wrist heart rate measurements disappear and turning it off makes them work like normal again. No Pulse Ox readings have been captured at any point and can't be captured manually either.

Anyone have any info on this? Some known software issue, a faulty sensor, something else?

Software version 2.60 (2fa11e6). (EDIT: upgrading to 2.64 beta or downgrading to 2.50 does not help. Neither did 2.70.)

Lights on the back of the watch seem to work quite differently when Pulse Ox is on, cycling through a blink pattern if that is of any value, but I have nothing to compare to. (EDIT: took a video of it since it looks like the sensor in an endless reset loop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYEoq9d9KQ8 Local Garmin support said it does not look like what their test unit looks like)

Cheers!

  • Thanks for the quick response!  

  • Incredible that this issue is also on the Fenix6...

    I feel your pain !

  • which is your country?

  •  I have just got a new watch which I received this week from clever training in the UK. It’s a revision D. It upgraded to 2.8 yesterday. 

     I tested out the heart rate and blood oxygen settings today and everything is working completely fine. 

  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 5 years ago

    Confirming updating to 2.80 SW and sensor 2.50 doesn't help.

    Garmin continues to refuse accepting my return, saying its a software problem =(

    I don't think I´ll ever buy Garmin again, quality control and support sucks

  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 5 years ago

    I have a new fenix 6x and have same f-ing problem. I thought both the pulse ox and hrt rt monitor were bad until i read this. Turned off pulse ox and HR works...wtf! Garmin. This is BS. Im calling them monday. I have so many garmin products: fenix 5x, fenix chronos, kids with forerunner 35s, dash cams....this is unacceptable.

  • Sad and frustrating. Hope you get a good resolution to this. 

  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 5 years ago

    I actually held off on ordering a Fenix 6 to replace mine since it uses exactly the same sensor and I was guessing it might have the same issues for batches manufactured in the same time frame! Interesting to hear this ended up being the case. And a bummer since I don't want to risk it with a Fenix 6 now either.

    It would really raise confidence in Garmin if they could come out with at least some official statement about this or even a proper recall stating there is a batch of sensors with a manufacturing defect instead of just keeping silent and hoping not enough people notice to warrant a recall I guess...

    A shame to make users have to deal with it individually to varying success like seen in this thread and keep everyone guessing about if a software fix is even possible and if they should just wait.