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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? 

  • Just got a confirmed status from FB cross country skiing thread. 100% of now 7 people who have tried the 945 with cross country skiing says OHR give about half ot 60 bpm less then true when skiing. 

  • That is quite disappointing. Can it be that the heart rate sensor is picking up your rate of “staking”?

    but when I think about it now, I will probably choose to wear my watch on the outside of my xc jacket so I can see it. So then I would need to use my heart rate chest strap anyway if I’m doing langrenn. 

  • No. Does not find right HR even when resting. Takes about 2min with no flexing hand for OHR to show right HR.

    This is not so on Fenix 5. The OHR works more or less great om gen 2 OHR with cross country skiing. 

  • For Garmin team:

    Ive now had contact with 26 people with Garmin 945, Venu and VA4 who have done cross country skiing the last week on 2.80 or 3.30 firmware with the 945. 100% of them that used the OHR have invalid HR data. The HR seems to be stuck at around 100-110 bpm for most during the entire workout. So thats 100% of every one I could get a hold on. Seems OHR is broken for cross country skiing on the newest iteration of the OHR. This "bug" seems to affects all the Garmin watches with the newest OHR hardware no mather skin tone or if skin is warm/under the jacket.

    Generation 1 and 2 of the OHR seems to not be affected and is more or less true when cross country skiing. 

    For data and FIT files: comment with email.

  • Have you contacted Garmin Support?

  • Yes Ive contacted them. They say that this seems to affect all sports where you hold or use something with your hand with the OHR v3. Garmin Support says that the newest OHR cant do HR tracking with cross country skiing and recommended older models (pre F6/945) or use HR strap. Support says that this affects all Garmin watches with same OHR hardware (newest version) and will prolly not be fixed with software patch. So tennis, racketball, paddle, cross country etc you will need F5/935 or HR strap with the 945.

    To bad when newer generations of hardware are worse than the the last one. 

  • To bad when newer generations of hardware are worse than the the last one. 

    It is unfortunate, but the advances for the other sports are clear, at least for me anyway. To be fair, while the older watches did do something for actions with flexed wrist the recommendation was still for a chest strap to be worn. And that recommendation is till there even with the latest OHR.

  • Today I forgot my chest strap during XC skiing and I can confirm that OHR tracking is stuck around 110 bmp.

    With chest strap I normally stay between 155-165 in heart rate.

    It’s a shame, it should perform better on a such high end device

  • Yes. This is 100% of all users on the Forerunner 945 unfortunately.

    You can use last generation (ELEVATE V2) on the Fenix 5 or Forerunner 935. Its OHR works great when XC skiing.

    According to Garmin support this i a confirmed bug for all new Garmin watches with latest OHR HW build and it wont be fixed. To bad.

  • Bear in mind that Garmin officially sponsor the Swedish XC Ski team with watches Grin