End of life?

When I used fitbits, withings, misfit, polar and other trackers, NONE of them had that feature. Sees you keep saying Garmin OWES you that feature for a $350 watch! :/

Well now they all have it. Since Garmin has entered the same market with on wrist HR activity trackers, you'd expect to have the basics on a higher tier 'activity tracker'. That doesn't mean I demand it, doesn't mean Garmin owes me that 'feature' . :rolleyes:

Again, stating the obvious. Good thing none of you 'fan boys' work for the company. That'd be something, eh! Build a product forum, then when customer talks about a missing feature, tell the customer to learn coding or take a hike !

Anyway, enjoy the circle jerk...

Where have I ever said that Garmin owes me to implement all the features 'I WANT' ?

You said it's absurd for that particular feature to not already be implemented, and repeatedly implied that the FR235 does not fulfil the criteria for being an activity tracker as marketed. From where I stand as a fellow Garmin customer and wearable electronics consumer, that calls for rebuttal.

This is a product forum to talk about features/wants/needs/hopes etc. I am on the right section of the forum, but are you ?

This is a discussion forum. We are having a discussion. A discussion certainly does not imply that your peers will support the views you expressed, or want Garmin to accommodate your requirements and preferences especially after you have made your purchase decision, and are seemingly unwillingly to return the product and get something else instead to address your dissatisfaction with it.

If you want to make a feature request without open discussion with fellow customers and other interested parties, go to http://www8.garmin.com/contactUs/ideas/.

Well now they all have it. Since Garmin has entered the same market with on wrist HR activity trackers, you'd expect to have the basics on a higher tier 'activity tracker'. That doesn't mean I demand it, doesn't mean Garmin owes me that 'feature' . :rolleyes:

Again, stating the obvious. Good thing none of you 'fan boys' work for the company. That'd be something, eh! Build a product forum, then when customer talks about a missing feature, tell the customer to learn coding or take a hike !

Anyway, enjoy the circle jerk...

If other vendors now do it, it strikes me as a "KPD" feature "Knobs per dollars" was a term I heard with stereo gear - the more knob, the more that could be charged, even if those knobs were never used...)

As I've said in YEARS you are the only one I've ever seen requesting the calories and distance goals on the garmin forums.

(Heck, fitbit also had their crazy "floors" thing that would count floors if a storm front came through! I got a number of "floors" cleaning my fridge, as the cold/warm air was seen as "floors!)

As I've said in YEARS you are the only one I've ever seen requesting the calories and distance goals on the garmin forums.

(Heck, fitbit also had their crazy "floors" thing that would count floors if a storm front came through!)

Good. Someone has to be the first. I'll return my watch and move on. If they ever release an 'update' I'd consider it again. As I am not having any of the problems people are having here. HR monitor is quite accurate for me, and overall I like the watch.

And fitbit still has that problem. But it doesn't affect the calorie calculations or anything. It's just an useless info (like; steps) I rather have useless extras than missing features though.

And fitbit still has that problem. But it doesn't affect the calorie calculations or anything. It's just an useless info (like; steps) I rather have useless extras than missing features though.

There's a difference between useless information and incorrect information. I mightn't care much about my cadence (yes, I know I should) when I'm running, but if a device presents me with cadence information that is inaccurate, then it's definitely worse than not offering it at all in the first place, irrespective of whether I think the nature of the information is ‘useless’ or irrelevant. I don't generally care about the lottery results, either, since I don't often buy tickets; but if I go to the Lotteries Commission's web site and the draw results shown are incorrect, then I take exception to it because the system is defective (and not merely lacking).

There's a difference between useless information and incorrect information. I mightn't care much about my cadence (yes, I know I should) when I'm running, but if a device presents me with cadence information that is inaccurate, then it's definitely worse than not offering it at all in the first place, irrespective of whether I think the nature of the information is ‘useless’ or irrelevant. I don't generally care about the lottery results, either, since I don't often buy tickets; but if I go to the Lotteries Commission's web site and the draw results shown are incorrect, then I take exception to it because the system is defective (and not merely lacking)

well put
this is exactly the way i feel about the optical heart rate monitor on the 235

well put
this is exactly the way i feel about the optical heart rate monitor on the 235

Except that the optical heart rate monitor is not information.

I hate it when the HR readings it returns are (apparently) incorrect, but more often than not they are correct. Obviously, any average value that included incorrect data points will most likely (but not certainly) incorrect. The resting HR, being the lowest value while I'm awake and doing an absolute minimum, could theoretically be discerned visually from the daily HR line chart, although taking readings at intervals of any duration (as opposed to recording every beat, then applying a rolling window of fixed duration) arguably has the potential of missing the lowest actual HR value. We can only know when the information is definitely incorrect, such as at one point yesterday, the Heart Rate widget reported that my RHR was 40, which was definitely not an accurate reading based on my physiology since my RHR is generally 51±4 bpm.

Speaking of incorrect information, on maybe a third of my runs, one or two cadence outliers of ≥225 spm would be recorded; I have no idea why, when I can't get above 190 spm while running even if I tried. I'm certainly not going to conclude that all cadence information reported by the FR235 is incorrect, though, even if the accuracy or reliability is definitely not 100%.

Now, if the watch and/or Garmin Connect is/are smart enough to automatically filter out the obviously incorrect HR and cadence values, and just return something that means we-don't-know-the-value-at-this-point in their stead, I'd be happy.

Except that the optical heart rate monitor is not information.

I hate it when the HR readings it returns are (apparently) incorrect, but more often than not they are correct. Obviously, any average value that included incorrect data points will most likely (but not certainly) incorrect. The resting HR, being the lowest value while I'm awake and doing an absolute minimum, could theoretically be discerned visually from the daily HR line chart, although taking readings at intervals of any duration (as opposed to recording every beat, then applying a rolling window of fixed duration) arguably has the potential of missing the lowest actual HR value. We can only know when the information is definitely incorrect, such as at one point yesterday, the Heart Rate widget reported that my RHR was 40, which was definitely not an accurate reading based on my physiology since my RHR is generally 51±4 bpm.

Speaking of incorrect information, on maybe a third of my runs, one or two cadence outliers of ≥225 spm would be recorded; I have no idea why, when I can't get above 190 spm while running even if I tried. I'm certainly not going to conclude that all cadence information reported by the FR235 is incorrect, though, even if the accuracy or reliability is definitely not 100%.

Now, if the watch and/or Garmin Connect is/are smart enough to automatically filter out the obviously incorrect HR and cadence values, and just return something that means we-don't-know-the-value-at-this-point in their stead, I'd be happy.

My main issue is that it is acting weird/incorrect often enough to not be able to count on it. Most of the times it works ok (as I run at a steady pace currently most of the time, no interval training), even though it has periods in the run where it locks on the cadence afterall... But perhaps 2 or 3 out of 10 times it's acting weird and that makes me afraid to count on it when it really matters. During a race it doesn't really matter actually, I just run based on my pace and not HR. But during low-HR training it does (even though now I can kinda guestimate my HR by feel).

Perhaps the watch slips a bit more towards the wrist or something during a run causing it to work fine for the first part but go bad in the latter part? Read in the FR225 thread (wondering how that OHR was performing, but apparently just as crappy) about someone wearing a tennis-bracelet thingie (one of those soft things against sweat) below the watch and that helps. I image this is because the watch is now higher up and can't really slip down.

the OHRM provides incorrect information which as you so rightly pointed out is worse than no information at all

I have no doubt it WILL get better. Right now, Garmin has 4 devices that use WHR (including the high-end f3-hr). It could very well be that Garmin is getting things fixed on only one of those devices before it rolls out changes for the others, as that way they aren't finding/fixing issues on 4 devices at the same time. It will happen!