I have purchased the vivosport and have similar problems. As an example I was on crosstrainer for 30 minutes and over the whole time my BPM on the vivosport never exceeded 100, while the BPM on the crosstrainer was something between 145 and 170. As soon as I finished and concluded the recordered activity my BPM on the vivosport increased to 120.
Does the "recorded activites"-function decrease BPM values?
I can agree with all the comments above. Points of contention with Garmin:
Local service in Johannesburg without interest and merely point to the standard warning about how awfully bad their optical HR readers are.
At no point is it indicated that there is no Indoor Cycling Activity mode.
The "lock on" experience oft cited above has no regular pattern. Hence one has to enter a trial and error pre-exercise warm-up.
I suspect that the HR monitoring is subject to an override i.e. the GPS function needs to be ectivated or the swinging arm when walking before the monitor "seee's" the pulse.
But overll, as evidenced above, the Vivosport is an incomplete fitness tracker - Garmin will you choose to fix it?
Had mine about 2 months. From previous experience with a TomTom running watch I had to use a chest strap to get accuracy. I therefore know that the Vivosport is accurate. I would say that the device will need to be sitting comfortably on the wrist and be reasonably tight, but not uncomfortable. If light enters the underside this will prevent a good reading.
My problem is the intensity minutes. Whilst the HR within the zones is correct it puts an inflated incorrect total in on My Day.
Same here. Have mine since July. The hr measurements while weight training are way off. On an average shows 90-100, while my hr during the training session is on an average 120 - 130. I have contacted garmin repeatedly. Their replies as I have told them can be characterised at best not sincere. I have made a formal complaint mentioning that they should state that the hr monitor cannot be used in weight training. No sincere reply again. I could not imagine that a company with Garmin's brand image and exposure, would show such an unprofessional face.
+1 here: My vivosport seems reasonably accurate when running on gps mode (~155bpm average over 6 miles), however the HR capability on any 'other' sport, cardio workouts or strength training is consistently 50-60bpm lower than i would expect, and when compared with in-built machine HR monitors, or just beat counting, it's clearly well out...
I am experiencing this problem with my vivosport as well, 2 years after this was first reported! It is very intermittent. Seems the activity that is the most inaccurate is the "other" category, which I use for general strength training and group classes. I have compared with Polar HRMs that use the chest strap, which record my accurate HR. I don't have a furry wrist so shaving it will not solve the problem. :) Is there a solution to this? It is quite annoying.