Heart rate tracking bug Galaxy watch 4

[LaurenceGough]

Hello,

My question to Samsung is why did you release a device (Galaxy watch 4) with heart rate tracking bugs?

If I try to track a cycle ride, which by the way doesn't auto track like £20 fitness trackers can. Heart rate tracking will only work for the first minute or two then it will fail to track for the rest of the duration of the ride, even if it is hours.

Yes, the sensor is clean, on on clean skin yes it is not on a tattoo, yes it is tight and not wobbling or moving at all.

If this isn't fixed within the next few weeks it'll be returned back to the store as faulty - and I'm sure many others will.

Samsung, you need to buy a £20 fitness tracker and just look at how much better it is than the Galaxy Watch 4 that you sell at around 15x the price.

This is such a serious fault, it should not be sold in its current state.

[LaurenceGough]

I am still having this issue daily, for some reason it appears not to happen for walking or hiking detection - I will have to test running soon too.

I see Samsung health app on the watch has just updated an hour ago or so so I will test again soon and report back.

It appears to manually fix if you manually measure your heart rate during cycling workout then it works again.

I wonder if anyone did actually try cycling with it before selling the watch?!?!

[DustinEhmke]

For me it's not only during cycling, also while I'm just regular walking or go jogging. But i saw the same complaints on different post also on the watch 3 from years and months ago. So I don't have any hopes that it's improving, seems like a Samsung thing. Just a nightmare

[Johny100]

I also hope that HR monitoring is going to be fixed. During the sport I lose my HR all the time.  Everything starts normally, than I loose HR monitoring for 3-8 minutes. Very annoying...  almost unusable for tracking sports.

[BeerGlugger]

Hi, Just wondering how you got on with this issue... I run and cycle and when running the heart rate is fine, but cycling the heart rate disconnects after a short while and can then be not recording heart rate for 10 to 15 minutes before recording again. I have tried starting a running workout and cycled and it doesn't have a problem, so seems to me that when cycling, if it gets a slight disconnection, it then doesn't bother to reconnect for an extended amount of time. This must be a software issue, rather than a sensor/ hardware issue.

Samsung told me to post this on the forum, as their technical team monitors the forum, but why don't they seem to make any comments?

[LaurenceGough]

Well I can tell you one thing, despite Samsung charging some of the highest flagship prices in the industry they care very little about any support after you purchased it. This watch is a great example, as are the Samsung Odyssey screens. Myself and many others have made many posts on here and Samsung haven't replied with one post. 

I've since got rid of this watch due to the HR issues and other bugs. 

Maybe Samsung might fix these issues but I doubt it looking at their current support and track record.

I'd advise returning your watch..

[LaurenceGough]

They want to charge people £400 pounds for a watch where Gmail notifications don't work right, where HR tracking barely "works" if you could call it that, where fitness goals don't even show up, where mountain bike rides cannot record GPS, where the battery runs out in around a day, where Samsung health toggles do nothing at all etc. I could go on.

[BeerGlugger]

BTW. I installed Google fit and did 1 bike ride and it didn't lose heart rate connection.

[LaurenceGough]

Google fit just gets frozen or stuck on a HR. You can even remove it from your wrist for  10 minutes and it will remain frozen. 

So instead of flashing -- it just gets stuck and doesn't respond or show current HR.

[BeerGlugger]

Oh...

[GSB1]

I use my Watch4 Classic for tracking walking (over 4mph average speed) and HIIT training for which I use the "Other exercise" option.

With either exercise session, I find with some consistency that the heart rate tracking will either drop out (not read at all) or drop to very low reading at some point in the session. Typically I find this occurs just as I am at one of the most vigorous points and my heart rate would be high (170+) or climbing (150 on way to 170). I get either no read or it will say like 100 as if I was resting for 5 minutes. This is really annoying as it is those peak times that really need tracking.

Clean watch, clean arm, not low on the wrist bone, I have tried normal tight, really tight and comfortable (a little loser) on the strap tightness and honestly no difference I get the same defective operation.

Despite buying the watch as a tech gadget, it has actually inspired me to up my exercise. Great, but now I am really into the exercise, the watch is a let down on the heart rate tracking.