Spartan Sport WHR Baro always reading HR too high at first few km while running

SlaSh

@sartoric or scosche rythm in my case, very comfortable and accurate device.

SlaSh

@jthomi even with the belt? WOW thats bad…

@vietpq I wonder how well Baro sits on your wrist, i.e. whether you have large wrists or not? Spartan units (not Trainers) are fairly big, and I’d imagine would have more of a “roll” on smaller or medium wrists as your arms move, resulting in some erroneous HR. At least, until blood circulation picks up and your limbs start to swell a bit due to all the increased blood flow.

Also, when you begin to run, do you shoot like a bat from hell or pick up your speed slowly in a I’m-a-weightlifter-not-runner-piss-off type of fashion? Optical HR is known to lock on cadence sometimes, especially when there’s light leaking.

I have Spartan Baro too and have been relatively impressed with its accuracy, enough that I no longer carry a strap or band most of the time. But then my wrists are on a larger side, I always start uber-slow, and I’m a perfect pick for optical HR from a skin complexion point of view…

jthomi

@SlaSh Only sometimes, maybe once, twice in two weeks…

sartoric

@jthomi
But that looks like an issue in “transposing” what is measured into numbers … or heart at full throttle

@vietpq Yep, looked at your moves data… Cadence 91 (182 for both legs), heart rate 183-185… See above. I’d definitely suggest wearing the Baro higher on your wrist and making sure it sits real snug.

vietpq

@NickK I alway wear the watch 2 fingers above wrist bone during exercise as Suunto’s guide for WHR, I also wear tight enough so can’t be able to see the light shining from the sensor.
I’m experienced runner so I usually do warm up carefully and start at easy pace for first few km before speed up

@vietpq I did check your moves: the watch is clearly locking on your running cadence as Valencell sensor, and many others, are known to do sometimes. Not sure there’s much you can do about it. I had a very similar issue with a few Garmin devices and their Elevate sensor a couple of years back: they’d lock on my walking cadence, “hike” heart rate to 110-115, then “chase” it all the way up to 140-150 trying to lock on something real.

If you are absolutely positively sure the watch is tight to avoid any light leakage, my only suggestion would be to either try a different arm, or arm position, or really low cadence initially – like 80-110 typical for walking, or use a separate sensor like Scosche Rhythm or Polar OH1.

Unfortunately, to this day wrist mounted sensors can be a hit or miss, and for you it’s clearly more of a miss.

Brad_Olwin

@vietpq I have issues that are worse than yours for OHR and at this time it works for some and not for others. I believe that Suunto is working with Valencel to make this work better. We just have to wait for future updates. I use the Smart Sensor when I need accurate HR.

SlaSh

@Brad_Olwin people reporting abnormalities even with suunto smart sensor… sometimes I feel like it is not an hr sensor itself, but something with algorithms.

@SlaSh Talking of issues…

Strangely enough, took my shiny new Suunto 9 for an inaugural run yesterday. Picture perfect HR from the built-in sensor on the first attempt, but GPS… Oh, GPS! Oh, gods! Suunto, no! Absolute worst I’ve seen even from much older devices. I’m fairly certain power saving wasn’t on, GPS quality was set to Best, and power profile was 24 hour… Running latest 2.1.64 firmware.

I was kind of surprised when it locked on GPS signal almost instantly – most watches, even “accustomed” to this location, take 15-20 seconds. Hopefully, tomorrow’s run is better.

cosme.costa

@SlaSh @Brad_Olwin , I had a lots of problems with the smart band, HR spikes over 230 BPM, sudden variations, … Eventually I bought a new belt and everything is fine again (around 200 km with it). I got an A3 Vertical for more than a year and I never had issues with heart rate. I have a Sigma Rox with heart band that is made by the same people that makes the one for suunto (everything looks identical and have the same dimensions except for the different distance between the brackets for the sensor) and I still use the original belt with zero issues.

So, I’m inclined to belive that the original belt of my SSU was faulty.

Brad_Olwin

@SlaSh said in Spartan Sport WHR Baro always reading HR too high at first few km while running:

@Brad_Olwin people reporting abnormalities even with suunto smart sensor… sometimes I feel like it is not an hr sensor itself, but something with algorithms.

I know this but if it was algorithms, it would occur for everyone. My Smartsensor is rock solid and I have not had any issue for a very long time. So it has to be a bit more complicated. It may depend on the sport profile or other odd combination of settings. As soon as I am done with my race next week I will start biking more and soon skiing. I did not have issues skiing last year but some reports are from folks biking so I will test that.

Brad_Olwin

@NickK Can you post a link to this? My S9 is doing rather well for GPS.

@Brad_Olwin Not sure I can make just a few moves public, but here’s the tracks from Suunto 9 and Spartan Baro over the same segment of the run (and while we are at it, why not throw in V800 as a reference?):

Notice how Suunto 9 completely misses the turns and has me running through the middle of the boulevard in a wondering drunk type of fashion… I mean I do drink every now and then but I never work out while intoxicated. And I certainly don’t remember myself drunk enough to produce a track like that. Maybe I’m missing something in my life. Thank you, Suunto!

I’m not passing any judgments from a single run, yet – will run again on this route tomorrow and will do a trail on Sunday, but I’m somewhat concerned.

UPDATE: In the spirit of full disclosure: I did a second run today and now see a substantial improvement. I think it beats Baro’s tracks and most definitely the initial run:

jthomi

Well, right now it happens almost every time, before starting the exercise when the GPS arrow and heart rate is on top of the watch screen HR says 80-90 for example, and then pushing the middle button to start the recording, HR says 130-150. When stopping the exercise immediately and starting everything is fine. A little annoying to be honest.
Maybe I have to flash the firmware to avoid that, but right now this workaround is just fine.

@sartoric said in Spartan Sport WHR Baro always reading HR too high at first few km while running:

@jthomi
But that looks like an issue in “transposing” what is measured into numbers … or heart at full throttle

someguythatruns

I have the same issue with my SSS WHR Baro watch. Most runs it doesn’t click in until about 1 mile in, no matter how much I leave it to link up to my HR (always have the solid HR symbol before setting off) or how much I warm up. Also has spikes during my run as well where it’ll jump to 200+, which makes the HR monitor completly ineffective for me. I’m finding myself not trusting it at all, which is a real shame.

Used plenty of other wrist based HR watches before, from TomTom, Fitbit and Garmin (which was the Fenix 3, so no issues around watch size either, this one is smaller!), plus used a chest belt previously, I know what my HR should be like. And the watch is on my wrist correctly, no light bleeding in, away from my wrist bone and I’ve tried everything mentioned here to get it to work right, it just won’t.

I’m getting close to sending it back as it’s not doing what it should do. I really do love the watch apart from this, which is a big disappointment. I can live with the Strava not syncing thing, using the SA app and manually uploading runs via a PC, but this on top of it as well is just one too many.

Does anyone know if Suunto could be fixing this at some point? It would be a real shame to send the watch back after 1 month.

If anyone would like to see and can suggest anything, MC is here - http://www.movescount.com/members/member2390628-Someguythatruns

andrejfit

OHR definetely needs some fix.
Im facing low HR values during the day and sometimes sensor freez which is not good.

Brad_Olwin

I think all need to know that oHR is very personal in terms of performance. I have seen @Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos in person with great oHR and me not so good. There are improvements coming but this is not an easy thing to do. Mine works great for walking and gym exercises like stretching. Running flats or uphill works well but not downhill. I also have the few minutes of way too high HR. This is helped if you select the sport start screen so HR is engaged but do not start. I did this while driving to my last run and did not get the high HR at the start.

But remember that different individuals will have different experiences.

sartoric

This is a nice reading about this topic

https://valencell.com/blog/2015/10/optical-heart-rate-monitoring-what-you-need-to-know/

The chapter “What are the primary challenges with OHRM wearables?” points out the problems