My wife has just acquired a Garmin Forerunner 110.

GPS side of things is working awesomely, however getting some stupidly high HR readings. This morning when she got back from her run she was standing in the kitchen and it was reading 235 bpm! I threw my Polar on her, and it read 110.....

Seems to read normally when at low heart rate/start of run, but randomly spikes and then seems to read high in general for the rest of the run. I think I've ruled out interference from transformers etc with the rough comparison in the kitchen this morning.

She does have a heart murmour, so I'm wondering if there is something in that? Anyone else experienced something similar? I see Garmin do a "premium chest strap" however still trying to work out if has the same sensors or not...

Any thoughts/suggestions appreciated.

On my garmin, I get high heart rates from wearing baggy polyester cycling jerseys into the wind (Up to 240 bpm).

As a solution I wear tighter ones or if I only have loose ones left in the drawer, bike away from the wind to start my rides until I am warmed up.

I have never had any other interference. I know the Polar ones can go crazy under high voltage power lines.

My Garmin shows up my PATs, and they occur more often than I can physically notice, but then my crap Polar did the same.

Thanks Dave.
I'd read up on the baggy tops as well - I don't think this is the case a) her tops aren't that baggy, b) she's only running, so flapping shirts shouldn't be a problem (Tauranga, not Welly ) and c) it was reading 235 when she was not moving!

Yeah my Polar goes ballistic when I ride past a substation, well into the 200s. But hers is doing it consistently - so pretty much ruled that out as well.

FWIW I had problems with my suunto when in urban areas, which I never had with my polar. I attributed it to buried high voltage lines or similar.

davea97 wrote:On my garmin, I get high heart rates from wearing baggy polyester cycling jerseys into the wind (Up to 240 bpm).

As a solution I wear tighter ones or if I only have loose ones left in the drawer, bike away from the wind to start my rides until I am warmed up.

I have never had any other interference. I know the Polar ones can go crazy under high voltage power lines.

Slightly off topic I guess.
I recently had this happen to me as well, as described it was heading into a strong blustery wind, but then stopped once I was warmed up. In over a years use it has only happened the once though. Also as described have no issues with high voltage lines at all.

in this situation I assume there is an outside interference overriding the sensor signal
i find
1 wet the electrodes/sensors prior to application
at the risk of .. . . . . saliva sticks better than water
and
2 check transmitter the battery (??old out of the box)
when my battery gets old it happens a lot more often.

I used to have problems with an old polar unit and recently had trouble with my Edge 705. I used to just wet the sensor area but I found when I wet the sensor area and the area of skin underneath it that I haven't had any problems since. You can also buy electrode (sp) gel from pharmacies if this doesn't work.

Ive oly ever experienced HR problems with Polar stuff, nothing with Garmin (both edge 500 and 705).

I do randomly get a cadence spike from somoene elses cadence sensor if my sensor batt is low, so maybe try a new HR sensor battery?

Thanks for the replies guys - I'm going to take it for a blat myself and see if I get whacky results as well, that should tell me if it's the strap or the wife that's the problem!

A loose or poorly contacting chest strap can cause a silly high count. Just wearing the strap for a bit before using it will make the skin damp. .

Low battery when new is a known problem with some models. I think it is caused by the unit getting woken up a lot during storage, maybe interference or a nearby foot sensor.
I ended up keeping the USB Bluetooth Ant+ stick unplugged, keeping the foot pod in a metal tin up where it won't get bumped, and wrapping the watch in a spare tinfoil hat when not in use.

New batteries can die very young especially since the fakers have learnt to spell "Maxell" correctly.

Hmmm. So I tried the Garmin while we walked the dog tonight. Completely normal for me, then after 1km (12 minutes) we swapped the strap over, was normal for wifey as well initially and them BAM, shot up to 230+ (the big spike at 15 odd minutes). We were out in the open, nowhere even remotely near any power lines or transformers or substations. You can see the point where we swapped the s trap back to me again.

Looks as though there is something weird going on which is specific to the wife....
Will try a new battery in the strap, as the HR reading did seem to cut out occasionally, although this didn't seem to upset the trends, and didn't set the unit into a weird spike or anything.

Underwire?

jo wrote:Underwire?

Aha! Good thinking batman. I shall investigate...

Does she have pierced nipples?