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Issues with wrist HR during intensive activities

DavidC
over 6 years ago
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[TD]Problem Description[/TD]
[TD]I am having issues with my HR monitor during activities. Whenever my heart rate gets near 170, the watch appears to be unable to distinguish between cadence and HR and sticks at very high HR levels. For example, yesterday it showed excessive HR levels for most of my run, including almost no HR difference between a 7 min mile hard mile and an 8:30 warm down mile. This has been a consistent issue since the last firmware update, although this also coincides with me starting to do more hard training so I may not have noticed it earlier. The watch is recording easy runs correctly.

Weather has been mild this week so that is not an issue. I’m wearing the watch tight and higher up from my wrist than in day to day usage. I previously used a TomTom Cardio Runner for 3 years and never encountered any of these issues so I know that wrist HR tech can absolutely work for me. I don’t need to track immediate changes for short intervals, but without the ability to monitor average HR over mile splits, this watch does not allow me to track fitness and monitor my training load, which is the main reason I bought it.

Has anyone faced similar issues and found any solution, other than buying a different manufacturer’s watch that is fit for purpose?[/TD]
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  • 0 over 6 years ago
    I found wrist-based HR to be lacking on the VM3, and my previous Samsung GearFit 2. I purchased a Polar H10 which pairs perfectly with the VM3 and has the accuracy that I was looking for.
    Just wanted to add my 2 cents in the event it helps someone else out.
    -bk
  • 0 over 6 years ago
    DavidC you say approximate HR is good enough for you - I don't really understand that statement (I've seen it before from a number of people - often in regard to erratic or incorrect Wrist based measurements). What is approximate 5 beats out 10 out - and what do you want to do with the data. Surely if you are using to train by even if you are only looking to measure trends the data still needs to be reasonably accurate for it to be of any value.
  • 0 over 6 years ago
    Mine works pretty well at getting intense HR readings.
    Below is result for soccer (with lots of sprint-walk-sprint action but I recorded as a "walk" on watch):
  • 0 over 6 years ago
    I am also having issues with HR monitor during intense activities. The problem is common for any type of indoor/outdoor activity (biking, elliptical etc.). The HR gets stack and hovers around 90-100 bpm while the real HR is expected to be in the 160 bpm range (I verified that multiple times with HR monitors on ellipticals). I had a few instances that it stayed flat 90-100bpm through the entire activity, but most of the times it suddenly jumps to the correct value in the middle of the activity and starts showing the correct readings after this sudden transition (see the attached HR graphs). This is my second VA3M, which I replaced due to exact same issue, but it seems that it is not a hardware problem (unless I was unlucky to get VA3M with the same HR sensor issue). If this is not fixed by Garmin software update the VA3M is rather useless for any serious activity tracking. I will give it a couple more weeks and if the problem still exist my second VA3M will be also returned.


    I have the same issue
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 6 years ago
    I have the same issue


    Me too unfortunately....
  • 0 over 6 years ago
    Chest strap is the only way for most people to get accurate readings for most (particularly intensive) activities - this is not just a Garmin phenomenon it's a fundamental problem with wrist based HR
  • 0 over 6 years ago
    Chest strap is the only way for most people to get accurate readings for most (particularly intensive) activities - this is not just a Garmin phenomenon it's a fundamental problem with wrist based HR


    i do a crosstrainer and a indoor bike workouts and i have problems on both. if i stop the workout and restart it, the hr was correct. So its no wrist movement problem - its a software problem. In the past i had no problems with this typ of workouts and wrist based HR.
  • 0 over 6 years ago
    Omega - It may be a software problem causing the issue for you but the software change may well have fixed a problem for someone else on a different activity - there's no escaping from the underlying issue which is that Wrist based HR won't be reliable across people and activities
  • 0 over 6 years ago
    JSRUNNER_ i give up with the vivoactive 3 music, i buyed a fenix 5 (for navigation with bike, better battery and design) and use a hrstrap.
  • 0 over 6 years ago
    Omega OK unfortunately I think strap is the only way to go for overall accurate HR - hope you enjoy the Fenix