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What is going on with the HR readings since 14.13?

Former Member
Former Member over 1 year ago

I am getting very weird HR readings both from normal Run activities as well as Swim activities.

So what I'm experiencing is that the HR is much lower than it should be compared to all activities I've done since I got this watch (955 Solar) in the summer of 2022, and compared to how I feel.

It started with 14.13 where I was going out for a normal 5km run but the HR suddenly started to go down after about 1:30, instead of go up, and then after roughly 4:30 it dropped like a rock to 60. When this happened I watched it closely while running and it just sat there, in the low 70-80 and after about 7:30 I stopped the run because I thought the watch was bad.

Here's what it looked like:

Then I checked the forums and at the time some people was experiencing similar HR reading problems. After 7:30 my HR should be somewhere around 160 for me, so I understood that something fish was going on.

Here's an example of a swim activity with Firmware 13.22 back in November, 612 meters in a 12m pool at around 28 C temperature, and 148 HR average and 83% in Swim HR Zone 4:


Here's the same activity today with Firmware 14.15, same pool and same length, same temperature. Even with a slightly faster pace than the one above, now it says the HR average is 113 and 86% in Swim HR Zone 2. What??

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to Steve

    I can understand why (they're tracking regressions) but it doesn't look good when it gets shut down like that.

  • +1 over 1 year ago

    All, 

    I'd like to reach out to some of you so we can further investigate. Please respond to the following: 

    1. May we, if necessary, have permission to email you?
    2. May we, if necessary, have permission to view/access your Garmin Connect account?
    3. In what country do you live?
  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to Garmin-Sierra

    1. Yes.

    2. Yes.

    3. Australia.

    Examples below:

    30/03/23

    5k Race – Heart rate recording sitting around 140-150, before correcting itself after 3.6km.

    Activity link: connect.garmin.com/.../10798988816

     

    30/03/23

    2k Race warm up – Heart rate rises to 140bpm after 1 minute of activity and plateaus. No movement on heart rate on strides which typically boost heart. Warm up included drills such as butt kicks and high knees which have always increased my heart rate during an activity.

    Activity link: connect.garmin.com/.../10798986883

     

     

    See workout from day before (29/03/23) which included strides. 
    connect.garmin.com/.../10791819491

     

    21/03/23

    Easy low heart rate run – controlled easy heart rate run, keeping to around 130bpm. Heart rate shot up to 150bpm during activity around 24min in for no reason. Slowed down and eased the effort but heart rate reading wouldn’t come down. After about 28min, heart rate dropped to 70bpm for a minute before correcting itself back to the 120bpm range.

    https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/10738014731

    28/03/23

    Easy Run – Heart rate shot up to 130s at the start of activity, did not correlate to the effort I was putting in, then corrected itself after 8minutes by dropping 30bpm.

    Activity link: connect.garmin.com/.../10798988816

     

    02/04/23

    Heart rate basically flatlined at the end

    connect.garmin.com/.../10816170408

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to Garmin-Sierra

    1. Yes, you may email me

    2. Yes, you may access my Garmin account

    3. I reside in USA

    Here is an example from yesterday while running at a steady pace and effort in approximately 50F temperature:

  • 0 over 1 year ago

    I made my own thread about HR problems during my runs, I'm gonna copy it over here.

    My HR seems to spike up when I stop at a red light, which seems illogical to me. It then seems to go back down to where I think it should be when stopping. It seems to happen whether I pause the activity at red lights or not, and also whether I use a chest strap or not.

    This is my last run that I did yesterday, you can see the worst example around the 30min mark:

    I upgraded from a Forerunner 645 in January and my old watch never showed anything like this. Do you guys think this is a bug or maybe a defect? I'm on the latest beta right now but this has been happening since I got the watch.

    Additionnal info from comments:

    I stand still when stopped at red lights and my HR doesnt lock with my cadence.  It seems to spike roughly between 5 and 10 seconds after I stop and goes up around 8 bpm.

    Permissions for :

    1. Yes

    2. Yes

    3. Canada

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to Garmin-Sierra

    You probably already know this but there's zero improvement in beta 15.11. See below data from today's run.

  • 0 over 1 year ago

    For HRM during activity, I use a Polar H10 connected via ANT+. Here's a comparison of two fartlek treadmill workouts I did. The first was about two weeks ago on 14.15, and shows what the HR should look like. I overlaid cadence on the HR graph so you can clearly see where the surges are versus where the recoveries are.

    The second was yesterday, on 15.11, and shows HR dropping out several times before spiking back up again. The 9th through 12th intervals were pretty much garbage, while the 13th through 16th were better bust still not great. Since the dropouts occurred well into the workout, it's not a conductivity issue with the HRM.

    Both workouts were identical (in terms of length of surges/recoveries as well as speeds and gradients used).

    Is there a way for the FR955 to beep/vibrate when the HRM connection is lost?

    UPDATE: I think the problem might have been HRM conductivity after all. I started wearing my chest strap a bit tighter, and haven't had any problems with readings for a couple of weeks now. Still, having an audio/visual indicator of HRM connectivity loss would be very useful.

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to Garmin-Sierra

    1. Yes

    2. yes

    3. Israel

  • 0 over 1 year ago

    I'm on 14.20 sw version and HR readings are crazy.

    Today I tried a running training and it was showing a lower HR than the real I had in that moment. This was dangerous for my safety as I was running with a real higher HR than planned with the training while the watch was showing a slow HR.

    Garmin are you able to fix this super bad bug?

    ty

  • +1 11 months ago

    All, 

    Thank you for your participation. We are actively investigating and when we know more or have any updates to share, I'll post to this thread. Thank you in advance for your patience with us while we conduct this investigation.