4 ms·

There’s nothing new here, most athletes are aware of these issues, and there are plenty of discussions on Reddit. For instance, you can check out the Garmin sub

by wslh 2y ago

There’s nothing new here, most athletes are aware of these issues, and there are plenty of discussions on Reddit. For instance, you can check out the Garmin subreddit. I've even had problems with fitness bands like Polar. My recommendation is to be cautious with extreme inaccuracies and interpretations, especially for health-related reasons. It's also helpful to develop greater awareness of your body as part of your training.

jlarocco 2y ago
I agree, and IIRC, Garmin has a warning and disclaimer in their documentation stating the HR isn't guaranteed to be accurate, and it's easy to see in a graph that it's using a moving average. I still use mine a lot, because I'm not too worried about the exact numbers while excercising, and I feel like it's probably okay for comparing against previous activities. That's to say if the watch shows ~180 bpm for 10 minutes on a run, it's probably similar exertion to the last time I hit ~180 bpm for 10 minutes on a run, but I don't trust that it's exactly 180 bpm, and I definitely don't trust the "ramp up" and "cool down" measurements from 180 bpm. As you said, everybody I know who cares about accuracy already uses a chest strap.