Garmin Fenix 5 — Another Fault, Incorrect 7-Day Resting Heart Rate Reporting (RHR).

by Anura Guruge

Click images to ENLARGE.

Initial 7-day reading, at 7:00:52 am. Shows previous day close to ’60’.

43-minutes later. Reading adjusted by nearly 10 beats per minute — close to ’50’ than ’60’!

My Resting Heart Rate (RHR) due to decades of running and two-decades of being on heart-medicine Toprol XL, tends to be on the low side., especially when I am sleeping. It is not unusual for my sleeping heart rate to be in the 43 — 45 bpm range, sometimes falling to the high 30s. I tend to sync my Fenix 5 first thing in the morning and check my RHR (just to make sure that I am still alive).

But, before checking Heart Rate on Garmin Connect I tend to check in on the Fenix 5 using the widget-loop. Then I hit the on/off button to get the 7-day graph. Invariably it shows this BIG SPIKE that gets me worried! Why did my heart rate shoot up. See figure 1, above. You can see why that would concern someone with heart issues (as is my case).

Then I noticed that the Fenix 5 adjusts this graph in time! So, the SPIKE goes away and it shows that my RHR is GOOD.

I knew that none of you would believe me. So the other day, last Saturday, June 30, 2018 to be precise, I took the above pictures. Now, you can’t tell me that I am just making this up.

Very annoying. I would expect this from a cheap watch BUT not from a Fenix 5.

What do you think?

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by Anura Guruge