Just been on a sedate Eastern moors ride on the outskirts of Sheffield on my own.
Chilled and singing etc!
Garmin reckons I spent most of the ride at 138bpm!!
Also reckons that 20% of today whilst awake I've been highly stressed 🤣
How accurate is this data??
There's no reason that the HR data will be massively inaccurate over the course of a whole ride, though I find all the watches slower to react to changing HR than a good chest HRM.
As regards the Stress number, I see mine in Garmin Connect as Minutes, as well as a Score. Does that help?
There's an article here:
https://www.runnersworld.com/training/a36520796/heart-rate-tracking-technology/
TLDR; Pretty good (assuming they're worn correctly etc)
What is "worn correctly" though
Stress is based on heart rate variability above. If anything for me it under-estimates stress, I have to be properly agitated or really tired before it will register a rise.
Regarding actual HR, mine is not very accurate just going by the wrist sensor, so I use a chest strap.
which forerunner
i had a 735XT which was pants at optical HR and would frequently either have me in Z2 breathing out my arse or in z5 cruising along.
i have a fenix 6 pro now which is like night and day and i trust it for my needs now.
Not all optics are equal it seems.
I have the 735xt and it needs to not be loose for hr on the bike although it's just fine when running. On the bike I use a strap with it now.
Yeah mine's a 245.
45
My Forerunner 55 can be an utter ballache to achieve an accurate HR for the first few minutes of a ride: put it on, it reads fine initially but as soon as I start riding it continues to record a low HR despite blowing our my arris. Stop, take it off, put it back on, sorts it sometimes but other times it needs frequent stops and take off/on to start recording properly. Tried it tight, tried it loose - no difference.
It records perfectly when swimming or on a cross trainer or rower though.
Tempted to go back to a chest strap for the bike but I previously gave up on those due to constantly breaking them.
I have a Fenix 6 and don't find the HRM accurate at all. It's OKish over a longer period of time (sometimes) but I use it as a rough guide at best.
Pretty good, but sometimes if worn a bit loose it'll over-read strangely. Tighten the strap and it'll often drop ~10bpm while running back to what it should be reading.
New ones are pretty good usually (I have a FR255), need to be worn reasonably tight one the wrist. Mine sometimes churns out nonsense for a while when I start out but then settles to the correct value, cycling is a bit worse than running I think probably due to wrist position etc.
The stress measurement lines up very well with chess matches when I'm playing a serious game!
Wrist HR does seem to take a wee bit of time to catch up with what is actually happening. If you have hairy arms, this can cause a bit of oddness with the readings and you need to have the strap tight enough so the sensor isn't being affected by ambient light - needs to be properly dark, so the strap should be tight but not really tight (as you tend to expand a bit when you warm up so if it is too tight to start with, it'll be very uncomfortable once you are doing your exercise).
Saying all that, I've found a chest strap is far more accurate so just use that now when exercising.
Can anyone comment on the durability of the cheapest Forerunner 45? At £85 after the member's discount I'm considering it as an alternative to my Apple watch, which I've already managed to smash and replace once in a crash.
If I bash the forerunner on a rock, is it going to shatter or is the screen some kind of tougher glass or plastic?
My 265S already has a light scratch in it after only 5 days 😞 I think it was my mate’s mouthy dog that must’ve done it. So not very had in my limited experience.
I’ve got a protector on the way but it hasn’t arrived yet.
My old Vivoactive(?) has a scratched and battered screen but it never smashed, and that’s pretty old now.