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HRV is Still Garbage

I can't pinpoint which update started this issue with HRV, but it's clearly wrong. It went from being in the 80-90 range to 50-60 range overnight, and has been steadily declining seemingly nightly for months. I'll have high sleep scores, with an avg HRV being in the 40s, which is ridiculous. At this point, I think my HRV would be higher while awake than it is during my sleep. Like many of the 955 issues, this feature is integral to how the rest of the data is utilized making the watch more of an inconvenience than anything else. 

I've posted about this before and keep waiting for updates that explain or provide a fix to no avail. I bet more users are experiencing this than known as most people don't understand the data they're looking at in the first place. Beyond frustrating. I was happier with my 935. 

EDIT: I commented this within the post, but figured I'd add an edit as well:

Ok, so, to anyone here having a similar problem and not just here to get off on telling people what they think HRV is (thanks for that btw), the factory reset seemed to work.

It is true: with the new update Physio True Up saves your HRV data and a factory reset won't erase this data, but it did seem to fix the problem. In the days after the reset, my HRV trended back to normal, above what has become my "baseline" due to months of incorrect numbers, and it now has a normal relationship to stress, HR, etc based on training. Again, nothing else about my training or daily life has changed - this was 100% an issue with a previous update. 

If you're having this problem, or may think your HRV numbers don't accurately reflect what you're experiencing, try a factory reset. Hopefully that helps you out.

  • Hadn't paid attention to the recent Amazfits but that one looks nice and "dirt cheap" compared to the Garmin watches. A review says you can't export HR data ? Seems odd, it's visible in Strava surely ? As for me I sold my FR955 and went back to my Venu, has all the useful metrics and I don't need the dual band for 99% of my running or biking activities.

  • HRV is probably the most important metric I pay attention to regardless if I let it guide my training, so let me be clear in that I would be upset if it was very wrong. I gave you a process to figure out if it is a bug in the watch, or if your HRV has indeed dropped.

    Since I bought the watch my HRV would dip ( go unbalanced in the lower region) and recover once every 4 weeks. After my last dip, I made some changes that have made great impact on my nightly HRV. The last 8 weeks I have been balanced, and my HRV has been increasing. So much so that it may go unbalanced in the upper region.  

  • I don't need a process to see if it's wrong. It dropped from 80-90s to 40-50s literally overnight with no change in training or any other life habits. To be fair, you didn't give me a process, lol, you just threw out some obvious and generic life choices you made that raised your personal HRV. Any life choice you make (negative or positive) wouldn't have the drastic / swift effect I'm experiencing according to the watch. I was never asking how I could raise my HRV, I was posting because Garmin should be aware that this happening to a lot of their users. I'm not the only one posting about it, and I'm not the only one even in this thread experiencing it. 

  • What is your resting HR average? Has it changed (increased) together with night HRV drops? 

    Have you tried doing health snapshots right after waking up to compare the HRV to the night measurements? 

    Just some ideas that might help to indentify the problem.

  • At first I explained HR and HRV are inversely correlated, then I wrote "If for some reason HR and HRV are not inversely correlated for you I would imagine a hardware issue and just ask Garmin for a new watch. This can easily be seen in the data." You could figure it out yourself. Look at the night it switched, was your HR higher the next night or not? If it is higher, that means either the sensor is broken (could be a bug), or your HRV has indeed dropped. If your HR is generally the same then I would imagine a bug in the software calculating HRV. I know you are convinced it is a bug, perhaps it is, you should have contacted garmin support already and they could also do this for you and send you a new watch if it is broken.

  • Hello, I also experienced an important decrease of my HRV after a software update end of 2022, without any baseline adjustments, it was getting unbalanced. So I decided to reset the watch beginning of the year and 3 weeks later, everything seems fine again. Not ideal.... But just to share. 

  • Reset as in a full factory reset?

  • Good sleep doesn't mean a good hrv. My hrv dropped low for a few weeks recently but I was recovering from illness. My hr and stress levels were also increased during the day. After I fully recovered a couple of weeks ago hr is down as is stress level and hrv is back in normal range. 

  • I just did a factory reset and my HRV data must have been imported from GC back to the watch. So this was pretty much just a waste of time for me. I know it was a true factory reset because literally all of the settings needed to be changed, I had to repair the watch to my phone/GC app, etc. 

  • You mean you did a factory reset and your HRV baseline was not reset ? not what I exeperienced. It took about 3 weeks to rebuild the baseline, but at least was it consistent with HRV measures and training intensity.