AWU2 .. as I lost weight HR misses

[mtbdudex]

I truly love using my Apple Watches for many things, including activity tracking.
AW7, AW9, now AWU2.

I use it all the time for Mtb biking, lifting weights, hiking, walking, etc.

Mtb 3-4x week, lift 2x week.

I’ve noticed as I lost weight, got skinner, the HR at times loses signal.

The HR will stop updating on watch and iPhone for 4-5 seconds, sometimes not startup and I have to jostle the watch to get HR going again.

It’s only biking, I mitigate it by making sure watch strap is nicely snug and watch just back of the bone lump.
Still, I have goal of losing 15 more lbs by spring, I’m 63 and 5’9”, 210 now 195 lbs is my spring goal. I was 225 in June.
I’m worried the HR “misses” will happen more often.

I do use the HR for Mtb zone on long rides, staying in zone 2 / 3 for first 2 hours before zone 4, can do 4+ hour mtb rides this way.

Anyone else notice this?

Typical located like this, snug.

Mtb fattie bike 3 days ago.

Weights tracking

 

[PatrickNSF]

I’ve experienced HR dropouts with every AW I’ve had (including the AWU 3 and S9 currently). My former Garmin and current Coros running watches work fine.

I mitigate it with the AW by wearing a Polar Verity Sense when running. I’ve also noticed that the AirPods Pro 3s do a good job for me in filling in the HR gaps that the AW misses.

 

[Psdn]

I use a Garmin HRM600 strap.
No missing HR any more 🙏

 

[tcuprof]

What you are describing can usually be fixed with a tighter band. With my Ultra 1, I have to tighten it an extra notch to prevent HR dropouts.

 

[Howard2k]

Yep, make it tighter.

It's also affected by temperature so as we head to the colder weather you'll want to ensure it's tighter AND consider sleeves/gloves.

 

[Jackbequickly]

No matter how tight or loose my Apple Watch has been it would lose HR when I worked out in cooler/cold weather. This happen year after year with multiple Apple Watches.

Solved the problem with the Polar Verity Sense arm strap. When paired with the AW, the built in sensor quits and all HR data comes from the Polar strap. It is rechargeable and bullet proof when it comes to your HR data. Awesome device!

 

[mtbdudex]

@tcuprof @Howard2k
Hmm, well I use a cloth easy snugging strap as show in my original post and here.

For non exercise use it’s on snug and leaves slight impression mark as seen in the top 2 images - top of wrist and side of wrist

The bottom 2 pictures, the bottom right is daily usage on position, for active activity (Mtb biking, snow skiing) I cinch it more as shown bottom left.

My whole point of this post is simple, and hope not to offend others.

When my body has more fat, the HR never missed. As I got leaner , more bony to say, it seems to miss at times.

These sensors tuned for … people above certain fat % amount??

@Jackbequickly

Hmm, I used a polar HR chest strap 1996 - 2005 .. now it’s good to see other options.
But ugh, just 20hr battery life
Another device to charge .. I’ll hold off on it for now

 

[MickeyVee]

Can the AW connect to a HR strap? I have a Garmin chest strap and would love to connect it. Just as a side note, when cycling, the Garmin strap is within a beat or 2 of my AWU.. pretty impressive.

 

[mtbdudex]

Can the AW connect to a HR strap? I have a Garmin chest strap and would love to connect it. Just as a side note, when cycling, the Garmin strap is within a beat or 2 of my AWU.. pretty impressive.

This is a good read on HR accuracy

Apple Watch's heart rate monitor is accurate to 5bpm 89-98% of the time

Studies validating the accuracy of Apple Watch's heart rate monitor.

empirical.health

 

[Falcon_64]

Can the AW connect to a HR strap? I have a Garmin chest strap and would love to connect it. Just as a side note, when cycling, the Garmin strap is within a beat or 2 of my AWU.. pretty impressive.

Depends which Garmin HRM you have. Their older stars are ANT+ only so they won't, but the newer ones with bluetooth do work. I have the Garmin HRM-Pro Plus and it works perfectly with AWU.

 

[Lihp8270]

Not just AW, I’ve had issues with all wrist based hr trackers whilst cycling. Just ended up going to a chest strap for cycling.

 

[Jackbequickly]

Not just AW, I’ve had issues with all wrist based hr trackers whilst cycling. Just ended up going to a chest strap for cycling.

I have used the chest based HE sensors. They work great. But there is nothing wrong with the Polar wrist sensor and it is more easy to use. I have used it over 125 workouts and it is worked without a single dropout in accuracy. You can actually track your HR during a workout and if there was even a momentary dropout you would be able to see it.

The Apple Watch is so smart that while connected to the Polar wrist sensor it turns it’s own HR sensor off!

 

[mtbdudex]

^^^ @Jackbequickly
I’m not a racer dude anymore, just a 63 year old guy who loves MTb riding.
I do love how “smart” the AW is


The original intent of this thread:
Trying to see if others were experiencing same 0.1% HR “drop out” (actual issue is ‘stuck not updating’ ) issues as I have. More an annoyance than a real issue for my situation. On a long ride it has happens a few times, and other rides no drop outs - with watch same cinch down and location.
Hard to pinpoint it really.

Yea, if I was into serious HR accuracy, truly HR zone management (along with crank power meter and watt zones) without skips I’d get the Polar arm strap.

For context, my Wednesday 10/29 ride

44 miles in just over 4 hours

FWIW I also have a SRAM crank power meter - that shows up on my AW fitness activity real time - and now know my watts usage vs HR zone effects, it’s geeky really.
I may be recently retired, but still an engineer at heart.

 

[mtbdudex]

And did I jinx myself by posting this thread

Yesterday’s Mtb ride had 2 HR monitor “pauses”, where it stops and dim on watch and iPhone display, .

This was a pretty casual Mtb ride, exercise moderate 4 level and I’m typically 6-7 level, so this surprised me.
Nearly all zone 1 HR.

Yes of course watch was snuggly tight as discussed.

Again I’m asking others:
Not to “solve” my issue, rather are you experiencing same as a leaner body fat % person

 

[mtbdudex]

I’ve heard of this, $350 is not cheap.
For what it does, and 8 days between charging, might be a supplement to my AWU2. Especially for sleep tracking, I’d definitely rather wear a small ring than even a small AW in bed.

 

[goldmac2006]

I truly love using my Apple Watches for many things, including activity tracking.
AW7, AW9, now AWU2.

I use it all the time for Mtb biking, lifting weights, hiking, walking, etc.

Mtb 3-4x week, lift 2x week.

I’ve noticed as I lost weight, got skinner, the HR at times loses signal.

The HR will stop updating on watch and iPhone for 4-5 seconds, sometimes not startup and I have to jostle the watch to get HR going again.

It’s only biking, I mitigate it by making sure watch strap is nicely snug and watch just back of the bone lump.
Still, I have goal of losing 15 more lbs by spring, I’m 63 and 5’9”, 210 now 195 lbs is my spring goal. I was 225 in June.
I’m worried the HR “misses” will happen more often.

I do use the HR for Mtb zone on long rides, staying in zone 2 / 3 for first 2 hours before zone 4, can do 4+ hour mtb rides this way.

Anyone else notice this?

Typical located like this, snug.

Mtb fattie bike 3 days ago.

Weights tracking

I did have this issue too, despite that I went to gym a lot during the summer and I continued to go running more frequently (on the treadmill).

But on my end it’s more of software. My straps I make sure I wear appropriate Apple Watch bands and its on properly before running.

Sometimes on long workouts my Apple Watch Series 6 on watchOS 26.1 beta would still show that it’s trying to update the heart rate when doing fitness+ or Apple workout app workouts. Even the app would crash and I had to pick up where I left off.

But after 26.1 public release it stopped.

 

[mtbdudex]

When I was in 6th grade, broke both my wrists, well left completely broke while right was a green stick fracture.
Anyways I now wonder if my wrist bone structure healed is slightly non-normal, causing me more issues possibly?

Typing this just now was the first time I thought of it as a possible contributing factor.

I was starting fastball pitcher prior to that, afterwards I totally lost my pitch .. sucked.

 

[goldmac2006]

When I was in 6th grade, broke both my wrists, well left completely broke while right was a green stick fracture.
Anyways I now wonder if my wrist bone structure healed is slightly non-normal, causing me more issues possibly?

Typing this just now was the first time I thought of it as a possible contributing factor.

I was starting fastball pitcher prior to that, afterwards I totally lost my pitch .. sucked.

Dude here’s the link on wearing Apple Watch with metal plates and screws after recovering from broken bones:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/apple-watch-with-metal-inside-arm.2458391/

 

[tom2517]

I’ve heard of this, $350 is not cheap.
For what it does, and 8 days between charging, might be a supplement to my AWU2. Especially for sleep tracking, I’d definitely rather wear a small ring than even a small AW in bed.

This is what I use too for daily step tracking and sleep tracking, but for activities it’s terrible.

 

[hgfjhbvytjdnb]

It's common knowledge that AW has an amazing HR tracking algorithm... when it doesn't decide to stop tracking just because. That's how you get those almost perfect HR metrics, that all YouTube grifters love to cream about. If you can disregard what's inconvenient you're a superstar, unlike Garmin which tracks everything.

 

[tom2517]

It's common knowledge that AW has an amazing HR tracking algorithm... when it doesn't decide to stop tracking just because. That's how you get those almost perfect HR metrics, that all YouTube grifters love to cream about. If you ca

disregard what's inconvenient you're a superstar, unlike Garmin which tracks everything.

But for me AW follows chest strap more closely than Garmin, so even if it doesn’t track every second like Garmin, it’s still more accurate for me than the Garmin, which will lose track of HR more often than AW.

 

[hgfjhbvytjdnb]

But for me AW follows chest strap more closely than Garmin, so even if it doesn’t track every second like Garmin, it’s still more accurate for me than the Garmin, which will lose track of HR more often than AW.

Once you compare the data points you'll see that AW will be missing quite a few of them, they are simply massaging the data leaving what the algorithm deems good enough. Consider those missing data points as 0bpm and then think about the real accuracy of AW HR monitoring.

 

[poorcody]

You have pretty hairy arms -- given the sensor is optical, might stray hairs get in the way on occasion? Probably a long shot, but might be worth shaving your wrist once to see if it helps... Just a thought...

Also curious what your blood pressure is like -- low by any chance? I could see lower pressure might be harder to measure through the skin...

 

[mtbdudex]

You have pretty hairy arms -- given the sensor is optical, might stray hairs get in the way on occasion? Probably a long shot, but might be worth shaving your wrist once to see if it helps... Just a thought...

Also curious what your blood pressure is like -- low by any chance? I could see lower pressure might be harder to measure through the skin...

Hmm, I’ve never considered my arms “hairy” per say, but heck I’ll shave that area and see.

BP is typically 115/72 .. basically normal

 

[tom2517]

Once you compare the data points you'll see that AW will be missing quite a few of them, they are simply massaging the data leaving what the algorithm deems good enough. Consider those missing data points as 0bpm and then think about the real accuracy of AW HR monitoring.

For me Garmin missed more data points, so technically that’s a 0 bpm too.