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Inaccurate Exercise Load using Polar OH1

jiakaili
over 4 years ago

Hi everyone,

So I'm using Polar OH1 as an external HRM for my Forerunner 945 when running and cycling. I have noticed the training load is significantly lower when compared with Garmin chest strap or Wrist HRM even when I'm running exact same route with same effort. 

Specifically my load is roughly half of what it should be on Wrist HRM or Chest Strap, which is problematic. 

I've included two pictures of same route, similar efforts and you can see the loads are significantly different.

A similar issue has been spotted by other users: https://forums.garmin.com/outdoor-recreation/outdoor-recreation/f/fenix-5-plus-series/163817/incorrect-training-effect-and-training-load-when-using-external-hrm

I've been communicating with Polar and they believe there might be some issues with Garmin mis-calculating training load when using third-party external HRM. 

Any one who has experienced similar issue?

Thanks. 

Run with OH1

Run with Garmin Wrist HRM

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to Fabio

    Hi Fabio yes I did and it’s good. Use BLE instead of ANT+ and problem fixed

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to jiakaili

    with BLE do you still get lactate threshold updates, and are able to do standalone lactate threshold tests?

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to Fabio

    Unfortunately I haven't got any LT update after switching to BLE, I have to use HRM to update LT if I need to. Garmin never came back to me on this issue though.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to jiakaili

    thanks a lot for your reply. As I specifically need it for LT, I won't be buying it. I'm glad I checked here first

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to jiakaili

    Hi, I can confirm that, using OH1+BLE provides quite the same results as using ANT connected chest strap (did some tests like FR945+OH1/BLE and Edge 530+Polar H10/ANT). Could be down to OH1 providing HRV in ANT mode as unlike in BLE mode also breathing is recorded. As we know optical HRV can't be accurate.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to xkarel

    both garmin's HRM strap and polar oh1 should both be near-identical if they are charged and worn properly. almost everyone should find that unless there is a fault or user error. you need to get a 3rd device to figure out which one is wrong.

    there is no point in talking about the algorithms applied to the HR data post workout unless your source data is near-correct.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to the5krunner

    They solved via using BLE rather than ANT+, more than one person. Might actually be a bug either in the Polar or Garmin ANT software.

  • 0 over 3 years ago

    Have you downloaded the new 2.1 release?

  • 0 over 3 years ago

    Hmmm, never noticed... might go for an easy run this afternoon and will try to remember using the cheststrap instead of my OH1 then... 

    *EDIT* And done

    Today with Garmin HRM Run (10.4k @ ~4:50, no pause with avg HR of 144. Exercise load 146

    h ttps://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/6171247712

    Sunday with Polar OH1 (9.5k @ ~4:46 and sitting for ~5 minutes in between with avg HR of 143. Exercise load 134)

    h ttps://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/6159120199

    Seems equal enough to me...

    Polar OH1 has been updated to the latest firmware btw (added this after reading xkarel's post) and was connected through ANT+.

    And ok, wtf can't I paste links... Using the insert link or direct copy-paste turns them into non clikcable text/titles (even though the preview window shows them as link) and pasting as text in edge messes it up in the forum as well. Sigh, please remove the space between h and ttps if you'd want to check the activities

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to the5krunner

    Check the entire thread, there is also comparison of bike activity with Edge530+H10/ANT vs FR945+OH1/ANT at the same time, 1 bpm on avg difference. OH1/ANT gave noticeably smaller exercise load. It's on par then OH1 is connected using BT. I've also tested using some older Garmin chest-strap and that was the same as H10.

    I was mid-way digging in fit file to unravel what's the difference between BT vs ANT (still betting on HRV as with OH1 in ANT mode Garmin Connect records breathing, BT does not), however priority became too low after the workarround was found. Moreover when contacting Polar support the outcome was to Contact Garmin (betting that Garmin would suggest to contact Polar):

    "I'm afraid we still cannot help the customer. The only difference between the sensors is the measuring technique. H10 uses ECG and OH1 optical heart rate measurement. And afraid we cannot give the customer any further details of the algorithms that we use. 

    Because the problem is with the Garmin EPOC values he needs to contact their support. Garmin devices can interpret the incoming data differently from the sensors and we don't know their algorithms so we cannot comment on that. "

    Last but not least, I did not test with latest Polar OH1 update neither with recent Garmin Edge530/RF945 updates. Things might be already ok.