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So disappointed in 235 - can you help?

Former Member
Former Member over 9 years ago
I'm so disappointed in my 235. I've been using it for about 3 months and spend more time trying to make it work than I have used it. Emailing garmin got me an auto reply with a quote from the manual (which I've read and re-read too many times).

- at first I was using it just in a cardiac rehab environment - either treadmill or stationary bike and it took forever to start getting the heart rate recording.

- sometimes the heart rate jumps to a very high reading, sometimes it drops by half. I've tried all of the suggested fixes in the manual (changing arm, placement, resetting, resetting to factory setting etc). It now seems to work fine about half the time; the rest of the time it either never starts monitoring (sometimes I can see it monitoring when I click the down arrow in time mode and then it will not pick up heart rate in bike mode - I use bike mode without GPS on the stationary bike). The only way I can get this to correct is with the 15 second reboot.

- When I first started using the watch there was an app for indoor biking. When I did the reset to factory settings, I lost this app (not the end of the world since the only biking I do is indoors, so I just changed the Bike app to GPS off, but it's strange that I would lose an app and I'm wondering if there isn't some voodoo here? in the present app not seeming to work for heart rate when the system of the watch does seem to be working).

- My latest gremlin is that the DATE is off by one day. Does't the date and time get set from either my Mac when I sync or from the GPS satellite info? this is the weirdest yet...again not a big deal but this makes the damn watch a time sink of tinkering.

Any ideas? It's too late to return the watch to the seller and Garmin has only answered one of my emails and that only with some boilerplate that didn't help.

thanks in advance

Tom
  • 0 over 9 years ago
    I have 4.60 and 2.70. I wear the 235 snuggly, about 2-3 inches above my wrist bone nub. Thinking more about it, it does seem like once my heart rate nears my cadence (160ish) that it becomes less responsive as if it measuring cadence. It would also explain why my heart rate going up hill, sometimes is slower than after I crest and I am descending. A garmin tech told me cadence lock was not an issue with the 235, but then he noted in my case.


    Lol, a garmin tech should not lie...

    Cadence lock has decreased a lot with 2.7/4.6 but before that it was almost a sure thing... And still it happened a few times with me on 2.7/4.6. But those times tightening the watch a bit more helped get rid of it but yeah, it is really user dependent.

    But saying cadence lock is not an issue with the 235 is nonsense.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 9 years ago
    for the guys with HR problems during activities (strange jumps and so on) give a try to uninstall all third part apps and some default garmin apps (meteo, virb....): know it's weird but for me it has worked increasing dramatically the hr accuracy
    let me know if works for you
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 9 years ago
    for the guys with HR problems during activities (strange jumps and so on) give a try to uninstall all third part apps and some default garmin apps (meteo, virb....): know it's weird but for me it has worked increasing dramatically the hr accuracy
    let me know if works for you


    You know, I experienced some weirdness, clock faces changing at startup, trouble rebooting, trouble finding HR, things like that, so I removed everthing, too. Not sure if it helped w/HRM, yet, but weirdness is gone.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 9 years ago
    Lol, a garmin tech should not lie...

    Cadence lock has decreased a lot with 2.7/4.6 but before that it was almost a sure thing... And still it happened a few times with me on 2.7/4.6. But those times tightening the watch a bit more helped get rid of it but yeah, it is really user dependent.

    But saying cadence lock is not an issue with the 235 is nonsense.


    Good to know I'm not nuts. Is the problem more prevalent when your hands are cold? I seem to have more issues when mine are cold.
  • 0 over 9 years ago
    Cold has always been the biggest factor when I get cadence lock. In warm weather I have very few problems.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 9 years ago
    Oh, my bad.

    Max


    Sorry Max, I think that's my bad!
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 9 years ago
    Cold has always been the biggest factor when I get cadence lock. In warm weather I have very few problems.


    Good to know, seems to be my experience also.
  • 0 over 9 years ago
    Oddly enough it seems to be more important to keep my hands warm than the arm above the watch. Maybe the capillaries in the hand work as a radiator and slows the return blood flow down.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 9 years ago
    Oddly enough it seems to be more important to keep my hands warm than the arm above the watch. Maybe the capillaries in the hand work as a radiator and slows the return blood flow down.


    Have you found a solution to warm the hands? I wear gloves, but it seems like they really don't help that much. It's like the blood pools in the hands and no warming occurs.
  • 0 over 9 years ago
    Gloves work well for me. I actually have to make sure I take them off before they get too wet with sweat and become useless if I have to put them back on. That's at temps down to, or slightly below, freezing. If it gets much colder than that I'm getting on the treadmill.