Comment by WXLCKNO | Hacker News Reader

Comment by WXLCKNO | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

Just wanna chime in and say my Samsung galaxy watch 5 pro does feel like a piece of junk in many regards, but specifically for heart rate tracking.

Whether I set it to measure continuously or ever 10 minutes, it never captures the real highs of the day.

I've been cycling a ton since I got swift and my first "real" bike last autumn and had been pretty sedentary for months before.

You'd expect the long term min max heart rate graph to increase but it's pretty much the same. The rare times it picks up on my elevated heart rate as I bike, it warns me that my "at rest" heart rate is high..

I've tried adjusting tightness, even reducing arm hair with a clipper as people were saying it can interfere. Nothing changed.

It was half off when I bought my phone so I grabbed it but it still feels overpriced. For sleep tracking I feel like it's been relatively decent and otherwise obviously I get notifications and stuff.

But the UI often feels laggy, simple things like entering my pin lags.

Ever since I switched from an iPad pro to the galaxy tab s9 ultra, I do appreciate how well things work when you own everything in the same ecosystem but the watch is the low point.

I have a Garmin 235 and the heart rate monitoring also sucks. I think now it just stopped working but when I got it new it was sort of maybe accurate indoors when you're not moving. As soon as you go running or outdoors where sunlight can interact with the sensor it's basically useless, either measuring your cadence instead of your heart-rate or just producing total garbage. So I bought a polar chest strap which is incredibly reliable.

It's been a while since I looked at reviews but when I did the conclusion seemed to be all wrist based monitors are iffy and vary greatly from person to person. Maybe some people have a stronger signal at their wrist?

EDIT: I do like the watch though. Lightweight. Durable. Long battery life. Accurate GPS. Everything I need to track my running.

Well the 235 is nearly a decade old now, there has been much improvement in heart rate tracking since then. The 235 is as old as the original Apple Watch.

I've had the vivoactive 3, 645, Fenix 6, and now the 255. The HR sensor is much improved on the 255 (and similar generation models) compared to older models. It obtains accurate HR quickly and doesn't stray or go wild with readings. Enough so that I can go without my chest strap for most runs. I still use a chest strap for high HR interval runs, as it has gone wacky at times here. Another nice thing with the new HR sensor is it uses what seems like a glass cover over the sensor, unlike the plastic resin on older models that had a tendency to develop a spider web of cracks.

Another nice thing I've noticed with the 255 is GPS is normally super accurate, and I'm now able to rely on it 100% of the time for auto 1 mile lapping.

Thanks.. Maybe it's time for me to upgrade. Though it still works great otherwise...

Apple watch sucks for hr monitoring too FWIW.

It’s usually at the top of the reviews done by The Quantified Scientist on YouTube. He seems to be pretty thorough and has a crap ton of data.

It's always matched the heart rate monitor at the doctor's office for me which has me thinking it's pretty good. What have you found that's off?

Just like other wrist-based heart rate monitors, I've found the Apple Watch will be within 10% of a good chest strap HR monitor (like the POLAR H10), but only during rest.

During high intensity interval training, the AW (and Garmin) can struggle. For me, it'll regularly read grossly under or over (like, think you're at 90 when your HR is actually 140, or 180 when I'm at 150).

Depending on your veins, your skin color, and your activity, wrist HR might be fine for you. If you want accurate HR in most conditions, though, it seems that you have to resort to a chest strap.

It seems like what we really need is implants to monitor our vitals continuously. These could also be really useful for detecting big problems (like a heart attack) long before they become catastrophic.

Some of that problem is inherent to the design. Reflective PPG just doesn't work great, especially when you're wiggling it around everywhere.

There's a whole bunch of signal processing mumbo-jumbo you can do to get a clean-ish heart rate from reflective PPG, it's just more complicated than Samsung/Apple/etc probably care to implement. They're selling you a watch, not a medical device. It sucks, but that's advertising.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com