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HRM quirkiness

Former Member over 7 years ago

I've had my VA3 for about 6 months and have been enjoying it. Lately, however, I've noticed the HRM doing weird things. During my aerobic/power walking sessions using the Garmin Walk activity, the HRM will seemingly get "stuck" in the 55-70bpm range when normally it should be in the 100+ range. Today I started the walk, the HRM was looking normal, and then in the middle of the walk it tanked to the low range.

Has anyone had a similar issue? I know there have been plenty of HRM issues, but usually it seems it will spike for most people and not crater.

My watch is all up to date with firmware, etc.

0 Former Member over 7 years ago

I've had somewhat similar issue using the cardio app, in that it takes its own sweet time to register the correct heart rate.
like i could go on a treadmill...select the cardio app to test, and it would read my heart rate at something like 90+ when it should be easily over 120-130...only after a couple mins would it show the correct value.
weird thing is that if i select say the treadmill app instead, it shows the correct value without any delay.
so makes me think it is a software issue rather than hardware.

0 Gadams99 over 7 years ago

I had similar issues with my HR. I bought a Garmin HR Monitor Strap and have had no issues since. It was definitely worth the $70 I spent.

0 Former Member over 7 years ago

Just as an update, this is what happens with my HRM. Comical. I haven't done extensive testing, but it seems to drop after some "interruption." Whether it was from me pausing the activity or a lap notification.ciq.forums.garmin.com/.../1390131.png

0 Maz22 over 6 years ago

I get this drop too when cycling.
During a cycle the heart rate drops into the warm-up zone and after a little while bumps back up. Really frustrating.
I thought it was a conflict with my old cadence sensor but I have seen that after deactivating it the issue is still there.
Any ideas?

0 TrippyZ over 6 years ago

Any ideas?

Purchase HR strap.

0 Maz22 over 6 years ago

Thanks TrippyZ, not really what I was hoping for...

0 Former Member over 6 years ago

FWIW, I recently noticed a similar problem as well. On Sept 19 I recorded a 1.5 hour squash session. I know for a fact that my HR goes over 160 for most of that, but despite wearing my VA3 exactly as before (somewhat tight, a bit high above my wrist, underneath a sweatband to protect from impact and to minimize shaking) it never managed to pick up anything over 100 bpm. Even standing still after an intense rally and the bpm counter never crept up.

It's like the watch got stuck in some 'wrong interpretation' of the optical signal, maybe locking in on the wrong pattern? Either way, I hope this was a one-off. I rebooted the watch since, and I haven't seen the issue return.