After 9 Fitbit surges, I got tired of the poor quality and went with the Vivoactive 3. I struggled with the move, but was managing until...my first workout. Today was cardio day. I spent 30 minutes on the arc trainer and the vivoactive 3 said my average HR was 99, with a peak of 119 and I didn't earn any intensity minutes. I do hard cardio on the arc, the arc said my HR was 168, the surge normally would range between 155-173. My polar F7 averaged around 168. So, a 99 average was a bit of a shock and a complete disappointment. My wrist placement appeared to be correct (not much different than a surge), cam anyone advise as to what I might be doing wrong?
Since I was very disappointed with the internal heartrate measurement, I was remembering myself of the good old strap! My old HRM was sold with my VA 1, and I really regret that. So I bought a new old one.
Did the first run yesterday and was overwhelmed by its precision and accuracy!!! A new (old) way of running!
Min.-Max.: My Max-heartrate went to crazy numbers, which I haven´t reached since middle school. 189bpm during a regular, no comprehensive run, was no curiosity. Now, it seems to be reliable without any outlier.
Rest-HRM: The decreasing rate after an activity (1,5 minutes,if I remember right). It was between 12-30 since I used the internal sensor. Now, just after the first run 49, like I was familiar with in the past.
Recording: There is not much to say Internal: " />"> HRM-Strap: " />">
Same run, with HRM I had to stop twice (traffic lights). There are small risings, but nothing edgy or unnatural. The internal recording seems very edgy and more like there is much data missing, and garmin just draw a line between. Then there are may peaks, which can be seen better with a different zooming scale. At the beginning, there are drops, where I didn´t stop or anything.
Conclusion: What can I say? I´m happy! Yes, it is annoying to not forget the strap and have a sweaty thing hanging around somewhere, after a run. In winter, I´m able to wear my jacket as it is supposed to be, and not "blank" at the watch-area. The watch can now be worn over the jacket again, like I did with my VA 1.
From my perspective, it is nice to have the internal sensor, in case I forget the strap. The sleep and allday-measurement means nothing to me, so I could possibly turn it of and save a lot of battery. Even if it is a little step backwards, I´m confident with that solution. Btw. an "old" unworn strap starts at 15€...
Hi, I found that I need to clean the back of my vivoactive before every workout and even between transition cause the sweat is doing a kind of « curtain » on the heart rate glass and then... incorrect reading...
I also kept it clean all the time and tried it with a loose or tight wristband. There are not many hairs on my arm, which possibly blur the measurement. Nothing did the deal, to come close to the HRM strap.
Maybe it is just my history, that I did around 300 activities with a strap and compared to that, the internal sensor-result (~50 activities) is very bad. Yesterday, my resting heartrate was 55. I´ve never ever got more then 35-40 with internal. Aside from all the peaks and edges.
55 minutes of cardio today, 88 heart rate. When I got sweat, the watch read wrong. 100 calories burned.... it’s just impossible. But before the last update, it was more accurate..!!?
I'm pleased I am not the only one struggling with this. Cycling up my normal hill ride today and sitting on 150bpm and pushed hard for the top for the last 200 m and looked down to see my heart rate was 80...:-(, which is lower than my apparent resting pulse rate now as I type this. It is also practically useless for my kayak paddling training too. I have shaved the hairs off my wrist, and seemed to make no difference, tight or loose. It seems to be OK when walking or runnng. Whilst I dont expect medical diagnostic grade equipment, for $500.00 you might expect it gets close to the mark for the activities it is sold for. Oddly enough the Forerunner 235 was really good at the Heart rate thing...until it froze up.
Looks like I will now need to invest in a chest strap...
I have also noticed recently the same problem with OHR firmware 5.30 , I did bike indoor during 15mn, hear rates stuck at 80 BPM instead of 120 , 150 and more ??I was surprised because I did several tests with OHR during some treadmill, elliptical when I was at the hotel and 3/4 months ago the results of OHR were very closed with the treadmill and elliptical HR sensors usually when I'm not traveling i'm using a HR strap (polar H7,) : the connectivity with VA3 is excellent....
There is certainly something wrong with this. I have been walking almost the same route, same pace, same HR for about 6~7 months. Then I noticed that during my last Fridays walk my HR dropped to around 60 at about the 20 minute mark. After the 20 minute mark, the HR would RISE when I stopped for the traffic lights. You can see that at the 34 and 54 minute areas. Strange. Today I hit the treadmill at the gym and after about 20 minutes I noticed my oHRM was about 80 so I used the grip sensors on the treadmill and it read about 112. 112 was what the oHRM was reading until about the 20 minute mark. I have also had experiences with the 20 minutes into the activity on the spin bike. Something about 20 minutes that Garmin should look into. While it does not happen every workout, it seems to be about 1/4 to 1/6 of the activities. SW Version 5.0, GPS Version 4.40, TSC Version 2.10, Sensor Version 6.00, WHR Version 20.03.31, Connect IQ 2.4.4ciq.forums.garmin.com/.../1370708.png
On a related note I'm curious as to whether there's a difference in the accuracy of, say, the Vivoactive 3 and the Vivoactive 3 Music or Forerunner 645. The HRM on the Vivo 3 is almost perfectly flush to the back of the watch unlike the sharply protruding one on the Vivo HR; the HRM on the 3 Music and 645 are in between the Vivo 3 and the Vivo HR, protruding by just under a millimeter. I get the sense Garmin had a pretty workable, if at times uncomfortable, arrangement on the Vivo HR, went flat for comfort with the new sensor on the Vivo 3, then had to backtrack slightly. Is that a correct perception?
