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SW or HW fail with latest Garmin OHR - cross country skiing

Ive now tested both Garmin 945 and Garmin Venu and the last generation OHR on the Fenix 5X. Both the Venu and 945 fail on OHR for three different people when cross country skiing. The OHR is little less than half compared to HR strap, so completely useless.

The Fenix 5X works great and is +- 5 from HR strap for all three of us. Thats the same result for three different people with different skin tone no mather where we place it on the arm. Something is messed up on latest OHR from Garmin when doing sports where you hold something in your hand in cold weather. SW or HW? 

Has anyone tried cold weather cross country skiing or paddle on the 945 or latest generation garmin OHR? Same results? 

  • Here are my results from my first skate ski outing of the year (the XC area just opened the other day)...

    Blue is an HRM-Dual chest strap.  Brown is a Polar OH1+ optical armband worn on the tricep.  Purple is the Fenix 6s Pro.

    I hope the chart is legible enough for people to see.  I've never pasted a chart into the Garmin Forums before, so I just did a cut and paste and I'm hoping for the best!

  • I just remembered that my first roller ski runs this summer was without chest strap.

    21st of July I skied 22 km without chest strap and the OHR worked great, maximum 176 bpm and 156 bpm average heart rate.
    Firmware was 2.50.

  • I saw that to om firmware 2.50 om rollerskis. Not perfect but better OHR or close to HR strap.

  • And, I assume this was on older hardware?

  • No, same hardware that I am using today.

  • ohr is a pile of crap on fr945. even when running of riding the bike. with swimming i did not have many expectations. downhill skiing or xc are completely off. the only time ohr work is if you're standing still. the sensor is way worse than that on the 935. i've no idea why i've upgraded it in the first place. maybe i'll return to my old 935 and sell the newer piece of rubbish anyways :))

  • Did you try with a different activity type than XC skiing?

    I have Swim 2 with the SAME OHR sensor than FR945, and I had zero issues with downhill skiing. Sure, different pole usage, but there is a pole, there was cold weather, and making short turns and bumps makes a lot of pole work. Compared to snowboard HR (first half of the day) and ski HR (second half), it was about similar, and it was in the usual range, so I would say spot on. Swim 2 does not have skiing activity, only general "cardio", what I could rename to skiing afterwards.

    So the sensor is fine, the issue is 100% software related. I would guess activity type issue...

  • Has someone tried it with the new firmware 4.10 (FR 945)?

    I confirm this issue on previous version 4.00 – HR is too low during cross-country skiing. I record XC skiing as ordinary Run activity (renamed) and HR is OK then. So this is definitely software related problem.

    Any hope for solving?

  • I recently bought a Garmin solar intensity and get the same poor results when cross country skiing. My heart rate never registers above 110. I confirmed that it is significantly under counting my workout metrics compared to my Apple Watch and other devicted.