I have a question, I recently got a Garmin watch, I am now wondering how it overlaps with each other in terms of heart rate and calorie counting. So when using the Edge for an outdoor ride I normally take off the watch, in terms of the heart rate data I know its held in isolation and doesn’t populate on Garmin Connect HR graph (its just a block of missing data for that time).
However I was wondering if I keep the watch on; am I doubling up on what may be calorie expenditure calculations or does Garmin know that if there is a workout logged for a period of time it ignores the overlapped data being captured by the watch for calorie counting?
Sorry if this sounds really basic but have had a hard time getting this clearly answered.
I have a Fenix 5 that wear 24/7. I keep it on during my bike rides with my Edge 530. Once you sync your ride at the end it will over ride any overlapping data.
I’ve no idea what it does but my Varia optical sensor is rubbish for recording HR, its picked up a high of 153bpm all day and the chest strap on my 1h20m turbo session recorded an ave of 154bpm and a max of 181bpm
I noticed this the other day, during the warm up for the training, strap does register quite a bit higher than I took of the watch for my TR workout. As I wasn’t sure how it would later impact the calories.
Almost makes me consider wearing the strap for 24 hours to at least get a decent view of my resting heart rate.
I find the optical sensor on a watch is fine for lower rates. It’s when you are putting some effort in that things don’t seem as reliable, especially on a bike. Maybe something to do with hand positions.
I recently found this too, unless you put it into recording an activity mode. This increases the sample rate and produces far more accurate readings. Then you can just discard the activity afterwards but it still keeps hold of the HR data.
fwiw I’ve found the Garmin calorie count accurate enough (had expected weight loss using the expenditure) and it’s what I use on my non-power meter rides as it’s much more realistic than my bolt.
Regarding the optical heart rate on my 245, I find it fine on everything bar the bike! And even then, whatever way I put my wrist when I’m on the rivet/ working hard seems to be when it’s affected (it’s fine for easy workouts/ family rides/ commutes). I just put my chest strap on for outside harder rides.
I must try it in recording mode rather than just broadcast!
THIS(!) is exactly the same issue I had with the new Instinct Solar. Garmin just kept fobbing me off with “wrist position, blah blah, the HR wont work on bike properly, blah blah etc.”
But you can literally change it to recording an activity mid TR ride and watch the HR immediately sort itself out.
Will give it a go, as I do have eczema which the strap indoors can exacerbate. Given the last pod mention about recording heart rate, I tried the wrist again and it was obviously not working (see below) - well did the first block, and then didn’t. I had started looking at arm bands, but as I have the watch on and use TR with Ant+…
It worked, and then it didn’t… I had to tighten/ adjust at the start of 3rd, 4th and 5th intervals whatever way I positioned ready to do the work. That was recording it as an activity on my 245, and broadcasting HR.
What I ended up doing is isolating GC from TR; using the watch to record paired to the trainer as a power meter and paired to my HR/CAD sensor. TR paired to all and taking the reigns.
GC only pushes to TR now.
I may end up using the Edge as a remote screen to the watch or just leave it at home (letting TrueUp do it’s thing); want to get the training status effects and associated measures.
So I’ve been using a garmin instinct for a few years now and have always noticed that garmin connect takes a lower active calories than my actual power data would use. However when I wear my watch on rides as well I get a likely more realistic calories burned number however I feel now this is overestimating with the crossover of TR input and wearing the garmin(mind you it’s not recording as if I’ve done 2 workouts)
