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Heart Rate slow to acquire after switching into run/activity mode

After getting a 235 for my wife, I decided to take it out for a run along with my 910XT to see how they compared. I strapped it to my wrist and wore it (in activity tracker mode) for a while before starting the activity, and the HR worked immediately. From the time I put it into run mode, I had a couple of minutes before starting the activity. The HR never picked up. I moved it to my other wrist, rotated it to the underside of my wrist, and nothing got it going. After a slow mile of fiddling with it, I decided to power off/on the watch. Quickly afterwards, it picked up HR.

We've now had the watch several months, and have been keeping up with updates (while hoping one of them would fix the problem), yet it still persists. My wife has gotten to the point that she'll put it into run mode 10 minutes before even leaving out house. Sometimes it will pick up HR, but often she'll have to restart the watch to get it to read HR. It quickly picks up GPS, and it shows the HR reading in activity mode prior to selecting the run mode. But for some reason, the process of changing it to run mode disconnects the HR reading and sometimes it doesn't come back.

Is this a common/known problem? I purchased it at REI, so I'm trying to figure out if it's something that doesn't require "jiggling the handle" to get to work, or if I'm going to have to exchange it for a new one.

0 Former Member over 9 years ago

Yes, this is a common problem for people who don't wear the watch all day as an activity tracker. Myself and a couple of others posted about it in this thread: https://forums.garmin.com/showthread.php?356349-Software-version-5-07-Beta&p=876936

These days I just always power cycle the watch immediately before a run, unless it's fresh off a charge, which is the only case where it always works.

Maybe 5.4 will fix it.

0 scottj2 over 9 years ago

I wear my watch daily and still encounter this issue, so I don't necessarily think it only effects people who don't use their watch as a daily activity tracker. It effects everyone I know who has this watch.

That being said, the latest firmware definitely speeds up the HR lock for me. It was very bad for me with version 4.70, but much faster with 5.07 beta and up.

0 seeverist over 9 years ago

Interestingly, I made sure everything was up to date (5.4 now, may have been 5.2 before), and everything went further south. She said it picked up the HR quickly (which it did right after I installed the update on the watch), but it kept disappearing and giving weird readings. She did a jog with it today and she said it was very low and would keep losing the HR. I may take it out myself and see how it works for me. The primary reason for getting this watch for her was that traditional straps have not worked for her. After multiple attempts, I gave up. Then I got her this watch on the May sales and it worked right away - although the acquiring HR thing was a problem. But it sounds like we're not alone and it may not be something that's been figured out yet by Garmin. Hopefully it will get attention instead of them just dropping updates like they tend to do on older watches when the new thing is released. I was looking towards replacing my grusty 910XT with the 735 next year, so I'm wondering if it has the same issues.

You can see her HR on a run from a few weeks ago above the one that was duplicated today. Obviously, all is not well at this point.

0 Former Member over 9 years ago

I decided to upgrade from 4.2 to 5.4 and the problem persists. However, the difference is that I now see a seemingly-valid HR immediately after opening the "Run" activity (that even increases/decreases) as opposed to a blank field in the previous version. If I hit "Start" and run, the number is clearly wrong. So I continue to stick with my old routine of power-cycling the watch before each activity unless it's coming off a full charge. In either of these cases, the watch works flawlessly and I get the "Optical HR Detected" message within 15 seconds.

Garmin, if you're listening, there is almost certainly a variable/flag or something that gets reset during a power-cycle or USB-charge that is not getting properly reset in between closing an activity one day and starting one the next. I've seen at least 50 times now no HR detected on a second/third activity, followed by restart of the watch and an immediate HR detection.

0 Former Member over 9 years ago

I would like to add that I am also experiencing this issue — have been since I got the watch. I do not wear it as a full-time activity tracker. I bought it specifically to use for GPS mapping and HR tracking of specific running & cycling activities. The only time I can get it to reliably pickup and lock-in my HR before a run is to power-cycle the watch prior to starting the activity. (I had not noticed whether or not 100% charge had anything to do with it.)

I suppose a short-term solution to the problem is just to turn the watch off when it's not in use and power it on just before logging an activity. But shouldn't something at this price point be able to handle use cases where the wearer just wants to use the device to train not as a 24x7 activity tracker?

0 wsslater over 3 years ago

I have the Garmin instinct watch and experience the exact same problem. I wear it all the time, so it should certainly realize the difference between my heart rate as I begin activity versus standing or sitting. It seems after 10 to 15 minutes, the watch does accurately depict my heart rate.