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Why does the 3-min HRV Stress activity give me results that are way different from my Stress Widget?

Every time I've done the 3-min HRV Stress activity (with paired chest strap) it's always said Very High Stress.

Whereas the Stress Widget using optical heart rate says I'm low stress (at rest). It's troublesome that these two metrics are so different, but I think the 3-min test is wrong.

I've tried pairing different HRMs and I get the same results. I've been doing the 3-min tests first thing in the morning, I've only done it several times now though.

  • Not that I can tell you why, but I can tell you it is the same for me. Not sure if I am just bad at standing still for 3 minutes ;). The stress widget is really weird in that it does not give you any guidance as how to use the result - Polar has a similar thing (called the fitness test, you do it lying down though), and it will tell you at the end how good your ranking is compared to population data and so forth - not perfect but at least somewhat more useful.

  • What HRM have you tried? i had the same using a wahoo tickr and found out in another post (forums.garmin.com/.../very-different-hrv-metrics) that using this in an ant+ setting doesn't heed proper results. in ble mode i suddenly got completely different results.

  • interesting thank you. I've used the HRM-Run and the Wahoo Tickr but both in Ant+ mode.

    I'll try the Tickr in BLE mode.

    The thread you linked to says "this is not a garmin problem" but I would think that this test would work with a garmin strap.

  • Thats true concerning the HRM Run - i don't own one, but is should deliver real HRV metrics in ant+ mode. 

  • Solution: If you are using a Tickr, make sure it is in BLE mode. If you are using the HRM-Run, you might need a new battery, mine was transmitting BPM correctly but the HRV test didn't behave until I swapped in a fresh battery.