When starting different activities, I see different heart icons. In the case of running, it is a solid heart icon, in the case of hiking, for example, it is a heart with two stripes or quotation marks ". What is the difference between them?

You can disable source switching now (since 19.18) and that stops the OHR taking over from the HRM

You can access this from the HR Widget settings 

Looking at my activities the heart symbol looks the same on all

Yes, that's the icon I meant.

Thanks for the info! It also became clear that with ensable source switching and a poor signal from the chest strap, the watch can automatically switch to OHR.

The question of determining the source of the heart rate during training (watch or chest strap) remains open. And after training, in the report, the source of the heart rate is also not indicated anywhere.

I tried to find special fields for running, so that during training it would be displayed from which source the watch receives the heart rate (OHR or HRM) and how the chest monitor is connected (ANT+ or BLE), but all my attempts were unsuccessful.

1183521 said:

And after training, in the report, the source of the heart rate is also not indicated anywhere.

It isn't shown in Garmin Connect, but it is recorded to your activity (FIT) file.

If you export your FIT file using the Connect website (click the gear icon in the upper-right hand corner and select Export File), you can use https://www.fitfileviewer.com to see this information. Open the file you opened and click on Charts. There will be 3 HR-related metrics for you to look at:

- heart rate (activity heart rate, regardless of source)

- wrist heart rate (present if wrist heart rate was enabled)

- external heart rate (present if a strap was worn at any point during the activity.)

The chart can display 2 fields at once, so you could overlay "heart rate" and "external heart rate" (or "wrist heart rate") to see if and when the source switched.

Here's an example of where I started an activity with the wrist HR, but I put on a strap a few seconds later.

Thank you very much for the information, decoding FIT files is a very useful opportunity to see a lot of additional information in the form of tables and graphs.

I managed to identify three different cases of the watch working with a chest heart rate monitor:

1. During the very first workout with HRM, both OHR and HRM data were recorded in the FIT file. I think this is the best option, because I have two graphs and I can compare them. Moreover, the data in the "heart rate" column matches the data from the "external heart rate" column, from which I can conclude that for this workout, Garmin Connect displays data from the chest monitor.

2. During the second workout with HRM, only OHR data was recorded in the FIT file, the chest heart rate monitor did not connect properly, and the data from it was not recorded. This is very sad and I still do not know how to track this moment during the workout in order to understand in time that something is wrong with the connection of the chest heart rate monitor and it needs to be reconnected.

3. During the third training session with HRM, only data from HRM was recorded in the FIT file, since I placed a small piece of reflective material between the watch and my wrist. Therefore, there was no data from OHR, but I could be sure that the pulse that was shown during the training was definitely the pulse from an external source. This is of course a crutch, but I have not found another option yet.

There is also an option to disable OHR during the training through the settings in the watch, but it is possible that with this I will lose some data, but as an experiment, I will conduct such a training session this week to see what will be recorded in the FIT file in this case and what will not.

On Point 2 , with the HRM you can get GCT Balance which you wont if its not connected. So make a data screen with GCT (Or there may be one automatically I cannot remember) , thats one way to see if the HRM is connected whilst moving in an activity.

I always have Source Switching off , and I find the HRM works swell and is (generally) connected correctly.

You may consider unpairing and then re-pairing the HRM

S.M.R. said:

On Point 2 , with the HRM you can get GCT Balance which you wont if its not connected. So make a data screen with GCT (Or there may be one automatically I cannot remember) , thats one way to see if the HRM is connected whilst moving in an activity.

Yeah ground contact balance is the only "running dynamics" metric which is unavailable from the wrist (and the RD pod). You need a Garmin chest strap (or RD pod) for this one, so it's perfect for this use case (unless you're using a 3rd party hrm or you use the RD pod.)

A minor correction, the RD (Running Dynamics) Pod does provide ground contact balance. I know since I used to own one.

Bitti said:

A minor correction, the RD (Running Dynamics) Pod does provide ground contact balance. I know since I used to own one.

Oh my mistake. Thanks!