HR drops suddenly in the middle of activity

My VA3 does something similar. For the first 15 minutes of a 75 minute indoor treadmill walk, it will typically max out around 100 or so, then drop to 0, then jump up to the correct rate for the rest of the workout.

It has been doing that since I purchased it at the end of Sept, through multiple firmware updates including version 2.9. I have tried wetting under the watch, tightening it, restarting the activity, and even power cycling it.

I emailed support, and they replied that I should make sure the firmware is up to date, and to make sure the red heart icon is solid before starting the activity. I am pretty sure it is since I wear my VA3 24/7 and the HR does increase from rest up to around 100.

I have a similar problem with my vivoactive 3. It usually suddenly drops to around 70 or 80 bpm and gradually rise back to where it was. It seems to always happen at the beginning of a run, at least within the first 10 minutes, but after it does the weird drop in heart rate it doesn't do it again. I can tell when it does it because once it drops to 70 bpm it buzzes and tells me the phone is connected. I'd love to see this issue resolved.

same here. clearly VA3 itself has problem

I Have the same problem with indoor rowing, the first15 minutes the HR bpm won’t go higher than 88, is been doing it for the past week, I have to usually stop workout and hard reset watch, once it comes back up the heart rate is usually at 140+ bpm where it should be not sure what’s going on.

When walking normally in an activity I get around 100-110 Bpm
when walking Briskly close to jogging it goes down to 83 and just stays there,..? Going up steep hills is worse starts at around 95bpm at the bottom and after reaching the top and nearly out of breath it’s registering around 80
for a reference my fenix 3 never had this problem

Having same issue when I am doing cardio workout. I seems like heart rate "stuck" half workout showing 50-80bpm, then suddenly back to normal 120-160bpm. It is for sure a software bug, earlier I did not have any problems, heart rate measure was perfect. Wrote an email to garmin about this problem, but did not get any answer. Please do the same, maybe that will get garmin attention to fix that problem.

Same issue/problem. HR showing 70 to 90 bpm when I'm really out of breath... and stays too low during the whole activity. And the resting HR is also too low, shows about 40 when I have 60 bpm. And "yes" to all of that: Waiting for Heart-Symbol, Hard-Reset, different wearing positions tested,

Just to chime in here...I’m finding that the Vivoactive 3 oHR function is horrible when measuring in an activity - whether indoor or out on my bike. It’s almost always 30-40 BPM's low. And I’ve tested it against a chest strap and against the hand held HR monitors on the elliptical and Lifecycle. In fact, after I’ve finished my workout, I usually get higher readings!

As for broadcasting your heart rate to a cycle computer...fuggetaboutit! The broadcast feature works for less than 5 minutes. I’ve even tried broadcasting while in an activity by starting a cycling activity. It still cuts out within a few minutes. I bought the VA3 because I don’t like a chest strap, but I certainly expected more than 5 minutes of data...or risking life and limb by fiddling with the damn thing while riding.

By the way, the VA3 also drops sensors that send info to it. That includes data from a cadence sensor, a cadence/speed sensor, and a heart rate chest strap.

FYI, I contacted Garmin with a detailed list of issues and was told that the sensor pairing/dropping issues were well known and that they should be corrected in the next update...but no estimate on when that will be. I, for one, and very disappointed in the VA3...and in Garmin.

JonBike

Heart rate also drops during push-ups. In my case heart rate starts dropping when laying down to 70-80bpm and stays without a change when doing pushups. Mode: training, cardio. Watch strap is not tight. Friends who have fenix watches do not have this issue.

I've found Garmins do not track indoor activity particularly well. If I'm out for a run, sure, they do fine. I've seen this behavior on two different units. It has a very hard time locking on and staying locked-in. A few things that seem to help like shaking the damn thing ( I'm serious, shaking my wrists for 30 seconds usually gets it to realize that I'm active ). The only true fix is to use an old-style chest strap presuming the unit will stay connected with it ( questionable, even less that 2 feet away I get dropouts on occasion ). I've switched to the chest strap ( old-old wahoo from the iPhone 4 days ) and it's FAR better in tracking.