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Issues with newly purchased watch: No respiration rate, stress tracking or training effect

vegard.djuvsland
over 5 years ago

Hi. I recently upgraded from FR935 to the 945 bundle.  
My primary motivation for the upgrade was to get an insight in my respiration rate. 

After having the device for a few days I've noticed that several features do not seem to work: 
1) all day stress tracking - whenever I use the widget to gauge 30s stress I get "check watch fit".
- body battery seems to work correctly. 
- pulse ox also works.

2) respiration rate during exercise - the field remains blank.  
- I have added the data field to the exercise and tried two separate heart rate monitors that both support HRV (one of them the HRV-tri that came from the bundle).
- I have turned on HRV logging in physio. metrics (perf. condition and trueUp also on).
- I have tried restarting the watch, but have not tried a factory reset.

(3) no training effect / load: 0 .  I assume this might improve once I've done more sessions with the watch, but I mention it in case it's relevant for the abovementioned issues)

Are there any obvious settings or tricks I could do to remedy these issues, or is it more likely that something is wrong with the watch/hardware? 

Thanks in advance.

--
Vegard

  • 0 over 5 years ago

    What software version is the watch running?  The reason I ask is that there are known issues with the Pulse Ox messing up heart rate data in v. 2.60 (which is for the newer units).  If you're on 2.50, then it might just need 7 days.    

    Respiration rate - as far as I know, this requires the use of a chest strap - HRM Run, HRM Tri, etc.  

    I know the training load/effect takes 7 days to kick in (unless it uses some data from your 935).  I got the 945 after gifting my 245, and it loaded some training data from the 245 (not all).  Kind of tricky there - but it ended up working right after a few days.  Also, if you go into Garmin Connect and to the training status, I have found that all watches I've had show their end result in a drop down menu - why Garmin doesn't allow you to merge this data is beyond me.  You might need to select the 945 from that menu if it is still confused.    

  • 0 over 5 years ago

    Make sure there's no leakage of light coming from under the watch.  Maybe it's on too loosely.  Not sure about that.

    You need a chest strap to get respiration rate.

    You won't get training status metrics until you have run several times over the course of about a week I think, and I believe they have to be running or biking activities with GPS.  I think.

  • 0 over 5 years ago in reply to chrissg81

    Hi, thanks for answering.
    Software version is the current 2.50, I'm sorry I didn't think to provide it in my original post. 
    I'll wait 7 days and see if there has been any improvement. 

    Regarding respiration rate: as I mentioned I have tried the HRM-tri chest strap that came in the bundle with no luck.   Is there some obscure setting (other than enabling HRV logging) that is necessary for respiration rate to be measured?  

    Thanks for the tip about training status in garmin connect.  I did transfer some training data from the 935, but I suspect most of that didn't stick, so I suspect I'll just have to do more exercises with the 945 for T/E to be generated. 

  • 0 over 5 years ago in reply to lindajm22

    Hi, thanks for replying.
    Watch isn't on too losely - I am wearing the 945 the same way I was wearing the 935 (with perfect stress measurement). 
    There is no light leakage. 

    As I said, I did a test with HRM-Tri (the chest strap that came with the bundle) without getting respiration rate.  Apart from making sure HRV logging is on, is there anything else needed for respiration rate to get measured? 
    Do I need to do a certain number of exercises for respiration rate to get calibrated, for instance?
    I did a 1h45min bout today, one would think the watch/chest strap could calibrate in that time.  :/ 

    Regarding T/E, that's what I suspected.  Thanks for confirming. 

    --
    Vegard

  • 0 over 5 years ago in reply to vegard.djuvsland

    There is an on/off setting for Log HRV in the Physiological Metrics settings on the watch.  I would think you would need that to be on in order to get respiration rate because I think I read that the respiration rate is based on HRV.  The HRM-tri should be fine.  Check that setting and turn it on if it is off.

  • 0 over 5 years ago in reply to lindajm22

    Log HRV is on, as stated in original post.  I am beginning to suspect some fault with the device, but I'll give it a few more days.

  • 0 over 5 years ago

    Brand new Garmin watches usually have a learning phase during initial week after switch on.

    You may want to try the following:

    - wear the watch permanently for about one week on your wrist (remove it only for charging)

    - perform two or three runs, if possible during one week, each run should be 30 min or more

    - wear your watch during sleep

    One week later these metrics should become available. If not, there is either something wrong with your watch or possibly with your skin:

    - tattoos are known to cause issues with optical HR tracking

    - very dark skin also may cause issues sometimes

    - try to wear the watch on your other wrist to see if that helps

  • 0 over 5 years ago in reply to vegard.djuvsland

    To clarify, Training STATUS (the screen that tells you whether your training activities are productive, unproductive, maintaining, peaking, etc) sometimes takes a couple weeks to have enough data to work. That said, I believe all the data that it needs to work should have transferred directly from your FR935. This isn't the case with older devices like the Fenix 3, FR630, etc, but it should be transfer from your FR935. 

    Even assuming zero training data was transfered from your previous device, Training Load and Training Effect feedback should be displayed, no problem. The feedback you get might not be quite dialed in for you personally, but there should be something there. I specifically mean things like your TE scores might be a bit too high or too low and the optimal zone for your Training Load might be a bit too high or too low. 

    None of these things requires a chest belt, they all work using either the chest belt or the optical hr sensor.

    Respiration rate DOES require a chestbelt - but it doesn't need any historical data... so it should be working straight away. 

    To my knowledge, turning LOG HRV Data on only impacts whether HRV is recorded in your FIT file vs being used in the analysis and then discarded. This was kind of a big deal back when watches were much less powerful and storage space was much more limited. These days I'm not really even sure why that option is available. The important thing is that having it on or off doesn't impact the analytics engine itself, only what is being saved in the file. 

    I would probably contact Garmin Support. 

  • 0 over 5 years ago in reply to HermanB

    Hi.  Thanks for the thorough reply.  The features I had trouble with (respiration rate, stress tracking) started working after about a week of daily use.  This also coincided with the software update to 2.70.  I can't really tell which made the trick.  

    To summarize: I now have access to respiration rate, stress tracking and training effect. 
    A slight caveat related to stress tracking so far: I have to restart the watch after a training session to regain this.  I am aware this is a somewhat known issue, I'll deal with it when it bothers me enough. :)

  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 5 years ago in reply to vegard.djuvsland

    I was having the same issues as yourself with my new 945. I decided to wait until at least the next firmware upgrade before I went through warranty and 2.70 fixed my issues as well.