terrymorse 

Facts do not care about entitlement. Facts are facts, and they are stubborn.

The facts I reported: my wrist-mounted GARMIN sensor worked poorly on the bike, my upper arm-mounted Polar sensor works well on the bike.

I am not the only person to report the same facts.

prj71 reports the ability to use a wrist-mounted sensor without problems. That experience is not universal.

Anecdotes are valuable, but controlled studies are better. Studies report that the accuracy of a wrist sensor drops as the exercise becomes more vigorous. This is not surprising, as it’s plainly clear that an optical sensor can’t do a good job in the presence of vibration.

prj71

You probably didn't have the strap tightened enough. Or maybe you had one of the earlier models when the technology wasn't perfected as good.

I wear mine for both road and mountain biking. Mountain biking produces way more vibrations than road biking and my wrist device still works great.

PeteHski

Fair enough, looks like your FR55 might be an option. But in the review he does say "In general, I don’t find many wrist-based optical HR sensors that do well road cycling, especially with any intensity changes. The FR55 actually does relatively well here compared to the FR945LTE"
From a convenience point of view I do like the idea of a wristwatch HRM if it is consistent. The problem with the Fitbit is that it doesn't obviously drop out, it just records low readings with intensity changes and by varying amounts. Tonight it was running about 10 bpm lower than my Polar during some MAP/AC intervals where I was hitting my threshold HR.

prj71

I wouldn't put Fitbit in the same league as a Garmin product.

PeteHski

Have you run it back-to-back with a chest strap to confirm it is actually good, consistent data? I'm not trying to disagree. In fact I'm looking at buying something like this and wondering what expectations I can have. I'm not looking to replace my Polar sensor because I think that's still the gold standard of optical sensors, but there are times when I would prefer to just wear a watch and my Fitbit Charge 3 isn't cutting it. Mountain biking being one of them.

PeteHski

Me neither, but they appear to be all using the same generic optical sensor. The Polar sensor looks quite different to anything I've seen on watches - much bigger with a full ring of lights.
The Charge 3 I have is okay until you start cranking up the intensity - like what DCR keeps mentioning in the reviews I've started reading of higher end watch HRMs.

prj71

I have not run against chest strap...

But like I said earlier...Close enough...Check this out...

PeteHski

Thanks. It does look promising and I would be very happy with that result. Unfortunately my Charge 3 isn't performing anywhere near close to that level of accuracy when doing intervals etc. But it looks like the latest Garmin watches could work much better.

jrhoneOC

use the Strava App for the watch instead of the fitness app. Has auto pause and a few more cycling benefits. Automatically syncs with all your health data.

The one thing no one is talking about here is the fact tge Apple watch can call 911 if you are unconscious because of a fall, heart attack or severe medical emergency. Google “Apple Watch saves mountain biker/hiker” and read the many times its saved a life. How much is your life worth? On top of tracking soooo many other health related pieces of data. ECG, Blood Oxygen Level, etc. Can alert you for erratic heart beats as well as low heart rate and high heart rate. The list goes on.

PeteHski

An Apple Watch is quite tempting as a do-it-all device. But again I’m wary of optical wrist HRMs for intense exercise. I don’t want something that is hit or miss like many wrist HRMs are widely reported to be. The Garmin watches appear to be getting better, but I find Garmin UI and software unintuitive and buggy - based on my experience with their GPS head units. So I would prefer Apple in that respect if the HRM is as good.

prj71

Can't say I'm disappointed with my Garmin Watch. Last 2 days was Amazon Prime Day. I just purchased the Garmin Instinct Solar. Little more battery life than my Forerunner.

Mark Stone

I'll join the chorus for Apple Watch. I use a series 5, and have found it to be very accurate for tracking HR. I used to use a Fitbit but it was not very accurate, especially measuring HR, and especially when HR is high.

Here's my last Trike ride using the Apple Watch, screenshots from my Eye Phone. It includes HR recovery that doesn't appear on these screenshots. Yeah, it was a short ride lol

prj71

Have to say I'm impressed with my Garmin Instinct Solar. Was delivered on June 22nd and has yet to be plugged in to charge. Every time I go outside the sun keeps charging it up.

Murf58

Thanks everyone for the responses and sharing experience.
I have ended up buying a Fenix 6x, primarily based on very good reviews and the battery life (compared to the Apple Watch).
I should receive it in the next few days.

Hermes

Late to the party and congrats on the Felix 6x. FWIW, I have an iWatch 6.0 but the primary reason is that all my other electronic equipment is Apple - iPad, Computer and iPhone. The watch integrates with the other equipment.

I have a sleep app and wear the watch at night. The iPhone 6 has the ECG app and SpO2 app. I have played around with the ECG and SpO2 and the information interesting but I have not found any useful training / living benefit to apply to making any changes. Wrist motion and watch band tightness seem to impact accuracy. N=1 in my study.

I link my apple HR data with Garmin Connect so that my Garmin 830 may use all HR data for its predictive performance calculations. At the start of a ride, my Garmin MAY provide a performance prediction score for the ride. I do not find those an advantage but are interesting and sometimes humorous.

I do not find HR data that useful and quite frankly stopped using it in 2008 when I switched to power. It is a great tertiary measurement of aerobic output but may be quite misleading and erratic for many types of efforts. As cyclists, we are fortunate to have a mechanical device that converts our effort to motion and hence allows us to measure power.

prj71

Congrats. While the battery life will be better than Apple keep in mind the Garmin Instinct has a better solar charger than the Fenix. Instinct uses the whole watch face. The Fenix is just a small ring around the outside of the watch.

PeteHski

I find power and HR together much more useful than power alone. I actually ride more to HR than I do to power, especially at sweet-spot to threshold efforts. For example if I’m riding at FTP target and I see my HR creeping above LTHR I know I might need to back off the power a little to avoid blowing up.

tomato coupe

I bought an Apple Watch for one reason -- it eliminates the need to carry a phone when I ride.

PeteHski

Now that’s something I hadn’t considered. Do you find the signal strength as good as a normal phone?

tomato coupe

I'd say it's not as good as an iPhone 10 but better than an iPhone 5. My carrier doesn't have great coverage where I live, however, so the difference likely wouldn't be as noticeable somewhere with better coverage.

PeteHski

Thanks, that’s useful info. I have an iPhone 6S and local coverage is weak. So the watch might be marginal for me, but probably no worse than my current phone.

Terex

I love mine too. I'm getting more familiar with the various features. When I'm Zwifting, I use the Zwift Tickr HRM but record the effort in the Apple Watch fitness app. Seeing my cardiologist next week and ask her some questions, including heart rate variability recordings. I was hiking in the mountains a few weeks ago, was motoring down a steep section of trail, stubbed my toe on a rock in the shade, and did a 360 roll, scraping my knee. As I was sitting there, my watch buzzed and Siri asked me if I was OK. I entered that yes, I had fallen and that yes, I was OK. When I told my wife about it she asked me if I asked Siri if she was OK too. . It's always hard to settle on one device if you're doing multiple activities. DCRainmaker has the best reviews on pretty much every fitness device and that's who I usually look at first online. I've got an older Garmin bike computer, a high end Garmin GPS, a Garmin InReach emergency communication device, the Wahoo Ticker HRM and the Apple watch. Maybe someday everything will fit on my wrist.

Terex

Have you been using the heart rate variability function? The numbers I generate are weird, and I'm going to ask my cardiologist about utility/accuracy. Going to ask her about use of the EKG too. The SpO2 seems to work OK, but I don't really need it much. I may use it for making sure that the pulse/ox meter is working properly when we have guests visit (we live at over 7,500' and I have a pulse/ox meter for their use in the spare bedroom) and for search & rescue subjects I run into.

Hermes

I have the HRV turned on and I wear the watch all the time such that I record sleep. My HRV is in the green, meaning good and there are trends. I do not try to interpret the data to predict performance on the bike or when to rest. If I get enough sleep and an afternoon nap, I am good to go. I have played around with the SpO2 and EKG. Interesting. I always get a 98% or 99% SpO2 at the docs but my watch may show lower numbers. Go figure.

zjrog

This topic is interesting me, as I recently cracked the screen on my Fitbit Charge 2, and need a replacement. I found long ago the HR reading when exercising was off by a bit. More as I got sweatier. My previous band, Samsung Gear Fit 2 wasn't much better.

For rides, I use a Wahoo TickrX (previous model), paired usually to my phone. But lately I've been using it paired with a XOSS G+.

As much as I would love a Fenix 6, I will never use all the features. I can't run, same with the Forerunner series.

I'm leaning towards Garmin Vivoactive 3, as I know several people that have them, and l ike them a lot. Or the Garmin Instinct. Both are more affordable and meet my needs. I'm also considering the Venu SQ. As well as Samsung Galaxy Active watch, though less and less.

I was looking at a Fitbit Versa 3 or Charge 4. But both are getting lower on my list.