Giving up my FR235 oHRM ( at least for now..)

I would consider every time you use it pretty much a constant factor... No it does not disfunction continuously, but it does seem to disfunction almost constantly.

For me it happens somewhere just about every run, steady pace or not. I put it tight and higher up my arm, it starts out fine (I usually walk for <5 minutes as a warm up, during which I let the HR settle) but somewhere during the run it usually locks to my cadence (between 170 and 180 spm). Sometimes it snaps back, most of the time it doesn't.

I feel this might actually be caused by the watch maybe slipping a bit afterall during the run or something? But can't really put it tighter to be honest without being really uncomfortable. Wearing it lower, actually around the wrist, seems to only make things worse. Wearing it on the inside or other arm is uncomfortable for me...

Also yesterday, sitting behind my desk the HR was suddenly around 110 bpm... about double the amount it actually was (measured with S7 fingertip sensor and compared to the rest of the time sitting behind the desk, usually a HR between 48 and 58-ish). This also happens fairly regularly, but not as often as the cadence lock.

The reality is between the ones saying it never works and is useless (although, depending on the type of use and user that might actually be true) and the ones telling it is perfect (or even not) but still perfectly fine for use (again, even though this might be true for some). It is usable, depending on the type of use, but not trustworthy because it disfunctions too often for many people.

But in the end it IS a pretty nice watch, I love the flexibiliy (connect-iq and configuration options), design, battery life, etc. The one and only gripe for me is that damn OHR which, FOR ME, doesn't work in a way I can actually use it for any HR based training.

No HR Training for me either

Unfortunately for me even at my easy paces i have a cadence of 180-190...so on many many runs the OHR gets to 180+ even at easy pace. Plus if sprinting or tempo runs, my HR will display 190-220! (cadence...)

MY MAX HR IS 194-198...

Also experience the 'stair step' up down HR all day while at work resting.... 50-85+....

Oooh, might be able to buy the tomtom music cardio + headset for a way reduced price (180 instead of 340 or so). Really tempted, although I like the FR235 more as a watch I am very curious about the ohr.

Ugh, was hoping they would have a deal on the non-music one but this one IS pretty good...

My experience of the 235 is that the GPS provides consistant data, same runs produce near identical distances and any races on measure courses have been very close to the race distance.

The heart rate monitor unfortunately is as accurate though, for steady runs it's usually good, although cadence look does appear, mine is also fine when cross training either on the exercise bike or the elliptical trainer. however mine simply doesn't work when doing interval training, the heart rate data produced bears no resemblance to my actual heart rate.

That said given the choice again, I would still buy the 235 again as I don't like the wearing the chest strap and for any runs where I want to be sure my heart rate is accurate then I will wear the chest strap but for any other time I'm happy with the OHRM.

I do hope that Garmin will provide us with a good update to make the data more reliable on all types of runs. Fingers crossed

My experience of the 235 is that the GPS provides consistant data, same runs produce near identical distances and any races on measure courses have been very close to the race distance.

The heart rate monitor unfortunately is as accurate though, for steady runs it's usually good, although cadence look does appear, mine is also fine when cross training either on the exercise bike or the elliptical trainer. however mine simply doesn't work when doing interval training, the heart rate data produced bears no resemblance to my actual heart rate.

That said given the choice again, I would still buy the 235 again as I don't like the wearing the chest strap and for any runs where I want to be sure my heart rate is accurate then I will wear the chest strap but for any other time I'm happy with the OHRM.

I do hope that Garmin will provide us with a good update to make the data more reliable on all types of runs. Fingers crossed

Agreed, GPS was pretty much spot on with my race (HM) with the exception of a glitch at the end... Even though I ran with the TomTom Cardio Multisports and the Garming FR235 this evening (5k) and the TomTOm seemed way more smooth.

Did interval and the FR235 actually traced it reasonably ok the first half, then switched arms and while the tomtom managed to do fine the FR235 lost it completely. But yeah, I'm as clumsy as hell when putting the watch around my right arm so that might be the thing.

Noticed the lights from the TomTom OHR are way brighter then the FR235 ones btw...

Oooh, might be able to buy the tomtom music cardio + headset for a way reduced price (180 instead of 340 or so). Really tempted, although I like the FR235 more as a watch I am very curious about the ohr.

Ugh, was hoping they would have a deal on the non-music one but this one IS pretty good...

I had a Tomtom Cardio Runner and found the OHR to be a bit dicey. Got confused by HR spikes (e.g. hill reps) and always seemed to take 4-5 minutes to warm up (even if I warmed up with the watch on!) during which it would shoot either far too high or far too low. I believe they use a different OHR in the latest model, which could be better (or worse). Hopefully they've changed the strap too - I found the strap very hard and uncomfortable.

Overall I've been pretty happy with the FR235. There is the odd little HR blip (typically at the end of a hard effort rep) but even with chest straps one occasionally gets blips and overall it is pretty solid.

most unreliable HR-monitor ever

I have had a lot of HR-monitors, starting with the Polar Sporttester in the 1980's. When the Garmin Forerunner 305 arrived I started using that. GPS-accuracy was great, and HR-monitoring most of the time very reliable. Is was very, very enthousiastic about this device. Then Garmin started with the more comfortabele straps, and HR reliability dropped somewhat in my Forerunner 310XT. Then came the Forerunner 620. It was in GPS-reliablity less, and HR-reliability the same as the 310 XT.
Than I started using the 225 with its optical HR monitoring. HR-reliabilty dropped even more: sometimes it was OK, sometimes it was horrible. So you couldn't depend on it anymore in training, controlled by heartrate monitoring.
And now the 235: completely unreliable HR-monitoring, and GPS is not more accurate than the 310XT despite the extra glonass satellites. Yesterday I did a bike ride of 22km with it, and it was 2 km (!) shorter than with my 310XT and 620!! In running mode the difference is less and acceptable.
The 235 has features, which are meant for seriously training athletes: intervall-training, heartrate variablity measuring, VO2max,etc. But all this features are use-less. EVERY training I have done with this 235 gave completely insane HR-graphics. HR higher when resting, and in warming up, and lower during intervals(!). Today I did a 5 k temporun. I have to run this with a HR of 170. My 310 gave a nice smooth curve, and reached the 170-171. The 235 stuck at 149! And in cooling down my heartrate rose. So you just cannot use HR-monitoring in your training. And this is really bad. You just cannot argue, that you have to use a strap. It's far too expensive for that. Garmin, you should be ashamed of yourself. I am a reseller of this device, and I will NOT sell them, and send them back. I'm very disappointed. This HR sensor is probably only suitable for cheap activity-trackers. By the way, I have also tested the TomTom runner 2 cardio, and it's new sensor is far better than de 235, and slightly better than de 225.

Well I'm adding myself to the list, did pretty much all I could think of to rely on the oHR and after a rough start in 12/2015 it seemed to be working decently until v5.40 but then things went south again with v6.10 and v7.10 didn't fix it.

Got a new $5 strap on eBay, slapped my Viiiiva with a new battery on it and I can depend on the HR again, what a change !

Thanks to a CIQ DF called "Auxiliary Heart Rate" https://forums.garmin.com/showthread.php?370580-Data-field-Auxiliary-Heart-Rate you can display both the oHR and the external strap at the same time in case you want to have some kind of "backup". I did a LR yesterday and sure enough the oHR was more or less accurate at steady pace but was completely useless for the first 1k of a 2k interval and then for recovery.

I wonder if Garmin's elevate oHR is any better on the FR735 or F3HR ? It seems at the end of the day that there's no oHR you can really rely on at this point, even the Scosche is problematic for some users.