Heart rate strap pairing failure and incorrect zones before and after app reinstall

Cassandra Rempel

I’ve been using a Suunto Smart Heart Rate Strap for about 18 months.

From early on, the app calculated heart rate zones incorrectly, setting Zone 2 at ~134 bpm. Zone 2 should be ~60–70% of true max HR, which for me is around ~112 bpm. I contacted Suunto support multiple times but received no useful guidance or explanation.

Eventually, uninstalling and reinstalling the app was suggested as a fix. After doing this, my heart rate strap can no longer be paired or synced at all.

Before the reinstall, the zones were wrong but the strap worked and I could manually calculate correct zones.

After the reinstall:
The strap will not sync or pair
The zones are still incorrect with no way to correct them
I lost 18 months of data

There is no visible way in the app to re-pair or reset the strap. I know the strap itself works; this appears to be an app-side issue with zone calculation and pairing state. Is there any way to fix this? Or, should I give up, purchase from a different company and be more cautious about software and interface design.

Brad_Olwin

@Cassandra-Rempel Can you provide a bit more information? Are you using a watch or only the Suunto App? The HR values are set in the watch and then propagated to the app.

sky-runner

@Cassandra-Rempel said in Heart rate strap pairing failure and incorrect zones before and after app reinstall:

Zone 2 should be ~60–70% of true max HR,

This isn’t true. Zone 2 should be where the aerobic threshold is, and for different people it can be at different percentage of max HR. For example, for me the top of zone 2 is at about 80% of my max HR. The more aerobically fit a person is the higher aerobic threshold is.

2b2bff

@sky-runner Max HR is irrelevant, lactate threshold is. And as Max HR doesn’t change, but thresholds are, your statement is correct…

https://www.suunto.com/de-de/sports/News-Articles-container-page/Figure-out-your-training-zones-and-supercharge-your-fitness/

Zone 5: Above your anaerobic threshold. Zone 5 ends at your max heart rate
Zone 4: 94–99 % of your anaerobic threshold. The upper limit of zone 4 is your anaerobic threshold
Zone 3: 89-93 % of your anaerobic threshold
Zone 2: 83-88 % of your anaerobic threshold. The upper limit of zone 2 is your aerobic threshold
Zone 1: <82 % of your anaerobic threshold. Zone 1 starts at your resting heart rate.