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Garmin Heart Rate

7 watchers

chunkywizard Jan 2021 10:08pm, 17 Jan 2021 11,185 posts	0 chunkywizard It’s a known thing. If you have a chest strap, wet it straight before use, but until you start sweating you can get erratic readings. Optical is also affected by cold due to reduce blood flow I think. Again, if your strap is tight then not a lot you can do.
StuH Jan 2021 11:00pm, 17 Jan 2021 4,109 posts	0 StuH Wetting your shirt over the strap too can help.
Kieren Jan 2021 11:40pm, 17 Jan 2021 4,102 posts	0 Kieren I used to put liquid soap under my strap (or shower gel). I prefer it to vaseline and it lasts longer than water - usually till you are sweaty enough for good contact. I prefer optical these days - not as precise but one less thing to power / remember
Big_G Jan 2021 11:55pm, 17 Jan 2021 526 posts	0 Big_G Yeah, I do wet mine and it's tight enough, but it's still erratic in colder weather for the early miles. As you say, not much else can be done really.
Homer Jan 2021 7:14am, 18 Jan 2021 13,857 posts	0 Homer At least it sounds like its not broken
larkim Jan 2021 8:14am, 18 Jan 2021 13,247 posts	0 larkim For reliability of readings, there's a lot of love for the armband worn optical devices over on the heart rate thread. A snug fit in a more appropriate location seems to help significantly.
SteveC NordRunner Jan 2021 8:33am, 18 Jan 2021 400 posts	0 SteveC NordRunner Agreed, Larkim. My SO had a Wahoo Tickr for xmas, to supplement a Garmin Vivoactive 3. After a handful of outings to find the most reliable position for readings, she has almost 100% reliability of readings, even when the weather is well under freezing, with lots of layers of clothing over the arm.
HappyG(rrr) Jan 2021 9:13am, 18 Jan 2021 37,130 posts	0 HappyG(rrr) Homer, I've never found the wrist ones reliable. Others (e.g. K5Gus) gets on fine with it. I think it's something about wrist shape / vein (or is it artery?) position detecting pulse etc. Also, there is software / algorithmy shizzle going on (I think). Which is why it jumps. It thinks, oh you're at about 120 or 130, but hang on, I got a couple of detections there that might have been more beats, oh and you're doing 8.30 min per mile, oh well it must be 160 plus, so I'll just jump up to that. There, that makes more sense. That's just my surmise. For me, the wrist HR is nearly useless. Certainly for tracking pace vs HR.
Rosehip Jan 2021 9:47pm, 22 Jan 2021 19,416 posts	0 Rosehip Does anyone else get a couple of weird spikes up to ~200 bpm from their wrist opticals? I ignore them assuming to be some odd artefact, but they impact on overall numbers and as such are a bit annoying. - OTOH, I might have a heart problem and if so I'd like to know that the spikes that I'm seeing are real!
Homer Jan 2021 7:43am, 23 Jan 2021 13,858 posts	0 Homer That's what I've been getting in the cold rosehip And thinking about how I felt at the time, I know its wrong. Generally the wrist HR is good enough for me though so I'm just gonna live with the blips