Made Up Wrist Heartbeat!

My post is not really about a bug, but rather a misunderstanding of Garmin's software strategy. Since version v18.x the wrist heart rate sensor works simultaneously with external heart rate chest strap. Ok, I understand the Garmin Pay story. Honestly, this software advancement comes at the expense of the real usefulness of the watch.

Where I live, it's still a bit cold and wear my watch over my jacket with an external heart rate monitor (Polar H10). Surprise! Garmin decided to invent a wrist heart rate to make shopping easier!!!! Sorry to say that there is no logic in making this choice and especially when my entire country (Canada) is poorly served by the Garmin Pay service. :(

I understand that the external heart rate monitor will be the only data used for all the metrics, but as soon as I stop the activity, the watch, even if it does not touch my skin, continues to invent values. Additionally, the recovery heart rate is wrong at the end of my activity.

No Jacket Mode either!? This mode is designed for when you may not be wearing the watch directly on your wrist.

Why Garmin???

Here's an example of a light run while wearing my watch over my sleeve. Software v18.26.

0 NickMN 3 months ago

I want Garmin pay to work while using the watch when I don't have a payment option otherwise. So sounds good for all users... makes GP work, and gives good HR data to the activity as expected. Really is working as expected and no one would ever know without doing some deep investigation to pull data from a file that is hidden.

The BUG#1... is that it messes up the data (it sounds ilke) after your workout is done (messing up the limited use and hardly looked at Recv HR)...

Bug#2(?) Keeps this virtual calculated HR after saved and exited into normal watch mode also?? How long? Isn't ANT/BT stopped after save?

Bug#3(?) WHY would this virtual HR be different then the strap HR??!?! little hard to tell with the Y-axis different

0 pxl 3 months ago

Virtual HR...

I am not sure how anyone at Garmin would think these kind of nonsensical algorithms make any sense.

0 NickMN 3 months ago in reply to pxl

well if they are NOT using them for anything besides behind the scenes... that's fine (maybe to keep the data separated in an obvious way to programmers)

HOWEVER... as you are point out it appears it is used for Recovery HR??? And is continued be recorded as 'all day HR' when NOT in activity recording???

Right? That is clearly a bug if so, they need to either MATCH strap HR to equal 'virtual HR' lol so that all day data is correct (which IMO is great, use strap if watch is not reading right due to jacket or not wearing it or broken...)

0 1361468 3 months ago in reply to NickMN

NickMN said:
I want Garmin pay to work while using the watch

It's always been possible to use Garmin Pay, only now it's easier, because the user doesn't need to tap pin every time.

NickMN said:
The BUG#1.

It's not a bug, it's by design Garmin said! And yes, at the end of the activity the reading of recovery hr is false.

NickMN said:
Bug#2(?) Keeps this virtual calculated HR after saved and exited into normal watch mode also??

Yes and no, at the end of the activity, the external Ant+ strap is disconnected and the only reading available is from whr. Remember the watch doesn't sit on my skin, untill I reposition my watch correctly I get false reading. That's a well known behavior from optical hr.

NickMN said:
Bug#3(?) WHY would this virtual HR be different then the strap HR??!?! little hard to tell with the Y-axis different

It's different, sorry forgot to select same Y-axis. Pretty self explanatory the reading from the wrist can't be obtained.

My complaint is about Garmin who fix something by introducing weird behavior. Garmin Pay is legitimate and useful for people who have support from their bank. I think they should introduce like the Epix/Fenix series the option called Jacket Mode.