Anyone using wrist based HR on 735xt or similar?
I usually have a chest strap, but for weight and such I though I’d do without. The wrist based HR is miles off. I’m doing squats with a HR well above sub threshold. HR is reading 70bpm. Never went above 90 for the full 1 hour session, and I know from previous experience my HR reaches 140 plenty of times during this session.
I have it on the Fenix 5. It’s mostly junk. It’s fine for a resting measurement, but activity wise crap.
I cycle to work and used to wear a HR strap. One hill I would hit 160-170 all the time near the top. My wrist has never recorded anything over 145.
Any proper training I wear the strap
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My Fenix 5 HR is actually surprisingly good when running - ran a load of runs without noticing that my HR strap battery had died (I think I replaced the wrong one when I had the battery warnings) and the HR was actually generally not completely unreasonable. But it’s pretty poor on the bike, and I think any sort of variable activity.
Always use a chest strap but sometimes if it doesn’t pick up properly then my Fenix 5 uses wrist HR and it is all over the place a reads really high when running to the point I have to switch it off!
My Suunto wrist HR was miles off…but I’m finding the Apple Watch is about where I’d expect it to be, for steady/easy sessions
my fenix 5 is pretty good also. dont use it on bike so cant comment but run is fine
Weight?! Do you weigh 5kg? 
Wrist HR is mainly pants, but it has been thereabouts for me on steady runs. Best way is a tight fit, and have the activity pre-workout screen ‘fired-up’ for a good 10 mins before you start, so it can get its eye in, so to speak.
Personally, I find chest HRMs pretty cack these days too; certainly Garmin & Wahoo.
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Does anyone know if there is a way of seeing where HR data came from in a workout?
I noticed recently that my laptop & bike head unit were no longer picking up HR from my old “hard” chest strap but I didn’t take much notice as was still getting figures form my watch which is what I upload from
It only just occurred to me (yes I know!) that my watch would have been using the wrist based HR in the absence of the strap so it may have packed up ages ago.
The strap is donkey’s years old so I can’t really complain and will try a new battery before binning it. I had one lying around which didn’t make any difference but it may have been dead itself so worth trying a new one.
Ps. I’ve got a Tri HRM strap that I use for running because of the extra metrics (that I have no idea what to do with) but carried on using the old one for the bike.
Not 100% sure, but I think the DC Rainmaker analyser tool will potentially give you device IDs.
He previously worked out for me which power signal an Edge will prioritise if you have it connected to both a smart trainer, and a power meter (answer was the power meter, which is logical):
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I think he actually means he uses it for weight training
Really? Have you seen him 
No, it just won’t die!
New battery and it’s fine. (The one I had lying around must have been a dud)
Say what you like about the new Garmin straps but the old ones keep on trucking.
I only wrist based optical HR these days off of my 935 but I hardly ever use it in training. I have a look after and it’s usually where I thought it should be, except on very long/easy runs, it’s always seems on the high side.
I really take very little notice of the actual number nowadays, just go on feel.
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This has happened a couple of times recently, where Garmin shows a huge power spike at the start of a session. It isn’t reflected in the numbers as max power is still 300 not 20k and it isn’t visible on Strava either.
I always calibrate the PM before each session, any other ideas?
PS. The rest of the graph is there on Garmin Connect it’s just that the scale is so massive you can’t see it, it’s almost a flat line as a result.
To partially answer my own question, I found a trim function in the desktop Garmin Connect that has let me snip the offending few seconds from the activity and it now looks normal.
NB. In the Android App the time has changed to reflect the trimmed version (and it gives me the option to restore original) but it hasn’t changed the graph so it still looks like the one above.
Anyone experience issues with Garmin chest straps? I have the new std HRM and I’m getting really high BPMs (150bpm after 30 seconds warm up) for the first 10 mins or so. It settles down after a while and then performs great.
Spit on it - indeed the pictures on the new one show you too?
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Yep, I have to wet mine, or it gives odd results until I’ve sweated a bit!
As well as making it nice & wet, I find that if you have it in ‘pre exercise’ mode i.e. recording your HR for a few mins before you start, that often helps. They reckon for as long as 10 mins if you’re using optical HR.
I also find in cold dry weather they can play-up too, before you start to sweat. I reckon it’s static interference when synthetic tops rub against the HRM chest strap.
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Wetting and making sure it’s tight enough usually sorts the problem for me when I can see it’s reading too high.
Occasionally mine will start dropping out though, where just goes too low. Usually only occurs on turbo. Haven’t found a way to salvage that in-session yet. Came with 910 so might just need replacing, but occurs only handful of times a year so putting up with it.