So, I’ve been using a Garmin Vivosmart 5 for about a year now and really like it but I decided I wanted to switch to one of the hybrid smartwatches. I ordered the Vivomove 3s and it seemed great except it seems unable to calculate my stress score accurately. It’s always too low, maybe by 30 points. I thought perhaps the watch was defective or just outdated, so I also ordered the new Vivomove Trend to try instead, but I had the same issue.
The inaccurate stress score means a lot of other metrics are off too, like body battery, sleep and wake time, etc. Just to see how far off it is, I’ve been wearing one of the hybrid smartwatches on one wrist and my old Vivosmart 5 on the other wrist. The strange thing is that my heart rate is measured pretty consistently across both devices but the stress score is not. Since the stress score is calculated using HRV (heart rate variability), this doesn’t seem to make much sense.
Has anyone else had this issue? I’m wondering if I’m being too impatient and it just takes a few days for the watch to be able to calculate stress score accurately…?
I’ve gone through Garmin’s troubleshooting page for heart rate accuracy and followed all the steps. I also called Garmin customer support and they had no answers for me. The guy suggested that maybe the watch just wasn’t right for me. I do have very small wrists, so I’ve been wondering if that was somehow the issue. The watch has perfectly good contact with my skin though.