Any experts in here on this, first proper mountain bike ride with the watch yesterday and the HR often dropped out on the toughest climbs where I knew I was close to maximum HR. Little wrist movement or shaking on these climbs so that wasn't the problem, it just struggled to get a reading. Anyone have any thoughts on whether this can be improved with a software update or are we going to have to wait for Version 2?
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Can HR Monitoring be Improved Through Software?
- Thread starter snomys
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Make sure the band is tight enough... if the watch is too loose and/or moving around a bit then that can definitely make it hard for it to get a lock. Also, the watch has the ability to pair with a bluetooth HR monitor. If you're serious about it you might want to invest in a good HR monitor chest strap and use that for your rides.
place the watch a little higher on your arm away from your hand. That is where it reads the most accurate for me.
This is exactly the kind of use I'm interested in. Like the guy above me said try moving it more proximal on the forearm. From what dcrainmaker says w watch HR monitors it needs to be on a flatter section of the arm and tight to get a good read.
How does the HR data look post-ride? Can you use it for training analysis?
How does the HR data look post-ride? Can you use it for training analysis?
I know you can pair a chest strap, I had one of those and it was a pain, I was hoping the watch could provide sufficient data on its own.
It was tight, it wasn't moving around, even after stopping it took a while to get a reading. Maybe a different location higher up would work better, i'll try that next time.
In terms of analysis, its not too good, I leave it on the heart rate screen so I can check at any time whilst riding just by raising your wrist, assuming the watch can read it! It would be nice if you could also set heart rate zones in this view. I feel like the watch is setup for the average person rather than those who exert themselves a little more and its more focused on achieving daily goals rather than being in the right HR zone say. An athlete mode with more detailed settings and analysis would be useful I think.
In terms of analysis, you can view the heart rate history in table form, i.e. heart rate readings with a time stamp, seems to be about 6 per minute saved during a workout, its cumbersome to look through, it should be in a graph format really and against distance, altitude like on most existing apps, along with a map of your route.
If position on wrist (or improvements to detection) sorts out the missing HR numbers, and there is an export option to Strava with all data, I would be very happy with it.
This seems to be the trick for me as well. I've had an issue where the HR readings would just drop. I have been wearing my chest strap most of the time as well and the AW HRM readings would drop to about 65.
Yesterday I did two laps instead of one. On the first lap I wore it where I normally would and the readings would drop out now and then. On the second lap I wore it higher up on my forearm a couple inches and didn't miss a beat!
Now I'm torn. The HRM was one of the features I liked and one of the ways I was justifying the cost. Now I know I can just wear it higher and get better readings. But then I think "what about all my non-workout readings during the day?" Those are going to be off and with as much as I'm spending on this thing I don't want to settle. So not sure what I'll do. But I do hope they can do some software adjustments to correct the issue.