heart rate values totally wrong after update 18.22

I am 69 so these are my personal feelings and may not sit with others who have greater experience than me.

I use a Polar Verity Sense and an H10 chest strap for cycling but rely on the OHR for my overnight HRV reading. Since 18.23 released my overnight reading has dropped continously so it is now Unbalanced. I had the same issue around the Christmas update too but it suddenly levelled out and remained within my baseline, in fact that increased a bit.

If so many of the outputs available on the 955 are linked to each other and are also reliant on the OHR algorythm being correct surely it needs to be sorted ASAP otherwise it is pointless wearing the watch each and every day and just resort to wearing it whilst exercising.

Yes I know changes in HRV can indicate illness but at the beginning of the year I was diagnosed with low grade Prostate Cancer and just after my initial diagnosis my HRV started to climb not fall and has remained good since then too, so for me the sudden drop isn't related to sickness as I am now being monitored. I am going to see if wearing my H10 at night returns a different set of readings.

I know we all become fixated on data but when that data becomes unreliable is it worth the expense of a high end item when we can't trust the output from it.

I've just hit/noticed this on my new 955. Not on every workout, of course, but enough to be really annoying already and I'm only a few weeks into the new watch. Really frustrating and, frankly, disappointing, Garmin! Worse still is that it seems to be approximately in the right range (as in, it's not bottoming out to 80bpm), but you know when something's off as you know your usual limits, as everyone does.

I've been a long time Garmin user, going back to the days of the FR60. Had several watches with optical HR monitors, most recently 235 and 245M. I don't recall an issue like this on those watches.

In two recent runs using 955 (non solar) the sensor appears to be under-reading HR:

The first was a base run, with a sustained under-read for ~40mins, then spike up to what I'd consider normal for the pace. I was running faster than base to try to get it to register during this time. You can even see hard accelerations in the first 40 mins that have zero impact on HR readings. HR + pace graph included below. Activity date: 1 April 2024. Graph below shows the point where the spike back to normal occurs.


The second was today's threshold interval session. 10 min warmup and first interval was fine, then starting the second and the OHR data was bad again. I was going flat out to try to raise it but nope. Then pinged back to normal after a quick stop and perhaps hitting stop/start button on the activity - not sure if that helper or not but clearly not a 'solution'. There is no way I was running sub-4 for that long at my current fitness and not seeing over 160bpm. The first interval looks great. Activity date: 10th April 2024. Graph below shows the point where the spike back to normal occurs.

I'm wearing the watch properly (this isn't my first rodeo), and I've warmed up properly (not that I ever warm up for base runs and have never had a problem) Today's morning temp for the interval run was ~17c.

I'm in Australia FWIW. 18.23 firmware [DFU-44be53].

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Garmin-Sierra

Has any progress been made in resolving these issues? as they are clearly affecting a number of users, that have experience with OHR devices.

Not even 19.09 updated yesterday solved erratic spikes. I had a slow run this morning and on downhill jumped up than drop down few second after. Probably was restarted automatically detected wrong by firmware who knows.....in Speed Intervals is even worse

please create a ticket in the beta topic. Here it seems that Garmin has ignored the issue.

Unfortunately, the same for me! Did a workout yesterday, HR was fine for the warm-up but suddenly dropped below the warm up HR when I started the workout/sprints. Apparently I had a HR of ~140bpm while sprinting (all out). I wish. Removing the watch and readjusting/putting it back on helped, but this was obviously quite an exercise to be performed during a sprint... Nothing you want or need. 

Last week it was the other way around - the watch claimed to measure a HR of 202bpm while I was on an easy run. I've never in my life had a HR so high and was definitely nowhere near that. 

Prior to the update I've had no issues. I'm wearing a Forerunner 955 without belt, measurements are from the optical of the watch.

Anyone had any solutions proposed? I've had an update this morning again, we'll see if they fixed it. 

I am in touch with Sierra. The main problem is that a watch doesn't reflect a smooth linear path for HR but really an up&down with spikes. Same run with a chest band you see instead a linear HR not jumping up&down so quick....hard this can be cured...will see. For the moment the only way is to train using the Power Meter as it is pretty accurate in Garmin watch insteda of HR zones

so Garmin admitted that it was an error? And not a matter of warming up or incorrectly fastening the watch? :)

So what's the point of the new heart rate recording of the watch together with the belt, if we know a priori that the first one is not reliable? Furthermore, the watch data is incorrect even at rest and not only during running, or in any case during a simple walk