Garmin HR Strap - Endless Problems

Duncanandthemachine

Hi Folks - not buying advice,[Admin] then why post in buying advice? Moved to general[/Admin] but seeking others who have had problems with Garmin premium HR strap? Mine last about 3 months before starting to drop to 60-70 during relatively intense exercise before giving out entirely.

Any advice or similar experience? Returning to Garmin (again!) obviously an option, but with Christmas coming it'll likely be away for a month!

Cheers,

Duncan

craker

I'm on my third standard strap in 5 years. First one broke after a few years, I've just lost my second one (no problems with it) and the replacement seems good. The 2nd and 3rd ones were 2nd hand for £10 off ebay (some chap always seems to have pots of them), no information about their provenance.

All in all, no reliability issues.

wongataa

Do you wash the strap? I have had no problems with mine and I give it a thorough rinse after every ride.

paul_onabike

Had 3 of the damn things over as many years. The latest HRM3 strap being the shortest lived.
1 sender unit died and 2 straps failed. They were always washed as per instructions, though I do sweat a lot and wonder if this had any bearing on the longevity of the straps.
I have spent more on straps than I did buying my Garmin! Perhaps their marketing strategy is along the same lines as printer cartridges- maintaining income using crap overpriced consumable HRM straps.
I now have attached the last HRM3 unit to a polar soft strap, and only time will tell if this is more successful. I did try a Cardiosport Ant+ strap and sender, but this only lasted a short while also.

Never had this problem years ago when using just a HRM.

Calpol

I bought the Polar one (strap only as garmin monitor fits in it). In fact i bought 2 so I could have a spare. Its been faultless for a year or so. My Garmin strap failed after a year. They cost about £11 from Amazon.

Bobbinogs

The standard Garmin strap seems to work well. I bought one to replace the 2 faulty Bryton ones I had and it has been faultless (providing it is kept clean and the battery replaced regularly).

cougie

Not had a problem with mine for the last year and I sweat like a lil pig.

I wash the strap every 5 uses or so - just make sure you pop off the unit first.

ai_1

I've had the classic strap that came with my 305 and was used for about 3 or 4 years and the premium soft strap version that I got with my 910XT about 2 years ago. I replaced the strap on the new one with a Polar strap after about 6 months. Both transmitters and all 3 configurations have been pretty much flawless since about 2008. I get false readings occasionally early on in sessions in cold weather if I'm not sweating much and have bad contact - normally a reading about 25% higher than actual. This is usually on runs rather than cycling and can be remedied by wetting the contacts - saliva works fine. I switched to the Polar strap on the new one for comfort reasons. The Garmin strap worked fine otherwise.
If you're getting lots of readings you're sure are spurious, I'd start by changing the battery and making sure you're getting good contact.

ddraver

I have seen that Garmin regard these straps as disposable items. Mine just died after (almost exactly - it was an xmas pressie) 3 years and I ve got one of the new premium ones.

That's been ok so far.

gloomyandy

Had the basic strap for 3 years or so, no problems at all.

arthur_scrimshaw

I've got through two premium straps and now have given up. First was replaced under warranty when it was 6 months old, the second lasted just over a year before starting to give spurious readings. I think it's the strap and not the sender unit.

chippyk

Had the original plastic HRM strap for years with my 405 but got the premium one when I bought my 800. When my heart rate goes over about 155 the premium one stops recording or records 40-50bpm for the whole ride. The two fixes I've read about are the Polar strap and washing it.

peteb0

My original Garmin premium strap started to periodically send crazy numbers after ~9months; rinsed after every use. I eventually replaced it earlier this year with a polar strap after some googling and so far that has been performing fine at a more reasonable price. The sender is still the original Garmin one.

vimfuego

Had mine over a year and no real problems until about a month ago when readings starting going do-lally especially early on in a ride - though they tended to settle down after a while. Eventually though I was apparently clinically dead for about 10 minutes on one ride according to Gary Garmin, no matter how much saliva was applied to the contacts. I've only washed the thing occasionally (normally just wipe it down after a ride) and sweat like a maniac at the best of times, but washing did no good at that point either. Long story short - changed the battery in the unit before taking the plunge on a replacement & what do you know, it's working fine (2 quid fix, happy days!). As someone above mentioned I do still get the odd spurious reading early on in a ride in cold conditions. I wondered if this was due to additional layers etc but the issue seems to self rectify after a short while, so either due my beginning to sweat or just the whole thing warming up a bit, or something.

ai_1

vimfuego wrote:

.....Long story short - changed the battery in the unit before taking the plunge on a replacement & what do you know, it's working fine (2 quid fix, happy days!). As someone above mentioned I do still get the odd spurious reading early on in a ride in cold conditions. I wondered if this was due to additional layers etc but the issue seems to self rectify after a short while, so either due my beginning to sweat or just the whole thing warming up a bit, or something.

Battery replacement is always the sensible first suspect.
Extra layers shouldn't be any problem for the HR signal. I'd say it's almost certainly just a contact issue due to less sweat on cool days. That's certainly the cause of the same symptoms for me.

bernithebiker

On my third Garmin strap now.

For me, they last just under a year, then fail. Not battery, not skin contact issue.

I think the pickups degrade over time.

Garmin have replaced them each time, after a bit of insistence on my part, as IMO it should last at least a year of normal use.

I wash them every 7 to 10 rides.

handful

My Garmin soft strap is 2 1/2 years old now and apart from odd occasions when it takes about 5 minutes for the garmin to recognise it it's been faultless. It gets a wash similar to berniethebiker maybe every 8-10 rides/turbo and I always pop off the unit first apart from once when the OH picked it up and chucked it in the washing without knowing I do that but it survived that ok.

arthur_scrimshaw

bernithebiker wrote:

On my third Garmin strap now.

For me, they last just under a year, then fail. Not battery, not skin contact issue.

I think the pickups degrade over time.

Garmin have replaced them each time, after a bit of insistence on my part, as IMO it should last at least a year of normal use.

I wash them every 7 to 10 rides.

Exactly my experience

dabber

It doesn't seem to be a problem unique to Garmin. I have a Holux HRM (paired to a Garmin 500) and have had two warranty replacements. The current (third) one I'm using seems to be working OK. Like others have said, I make sure I clean it well after every ride. I also use electrode gel every time as well.

iron-clover

A premium softstrap HR monitor came with my 500 bundle a couple of years ago, and it generally OK although if you were wearing a jersey that flaps in the wind then it would throw the readings off, and sometimes it would double or halve the HR for no apparent reason.
When I had to change the battery after about 7 months (with a lot of use in between to be fair) it never worked properly again, and would drain any battery put in within 5 minutes or less. I spent a fair amount of cash on Duracell button batteries from various high street shops to make sure I wasn't being had by fake/ rubbish batteries. Its possible something got into the unit just before it died for the first time to cause a short circuit etc which drains it quickly.

I ended up buying a 'classic' garmin HR strap as its replacement and I haven't really had any issues since. I haven't had to change the battery yet but hopefully it'll be fine when it is replaced.

alihisgreat

I've been using my 'classic' Garmin HR strap for two years with no problem...

pipipi

My Decathlon strap works well...

Guernsey Donkey

I have a Garmin Premium HRM which has died after 7 months. A battery change has not solved the problem.

dickeyknees

As others on here, the premium soft strap that came with the Edge 800 died after 8 months and was replaced by Garmin with the standard strap.

The standard strap is still going some two years later. I did buy a Polar strap on e-Bay, no problems with this either.

ai_1

Just for context. I think it's fair to say that the majority of forum members probably use a Garmin HR strap? Fair comment? I'm guessing 50% would be a very conservative figure but let's go with that just for the hell of it.
As of now, about 550 people have viewed this thread. So based on 50% that's 275 Garmin HR strap users. I haven't counted but I think we're still in single figures for reported failures within a year. It's likely everyone or nearly everyone who's viewed the thread and has had a problem will have commented so probably a <5% failure rate within one year? That's not spectacular but it's not horrendous either IMO.

I was starting to think, wow these straps seem really unreliable but having thought about it I'm not so sure....

andi1363

My Garmin Soft strap failed in under a year. Evans wanted the whole 500 bundle back to return to Garmin. I only wanted to send the strap. I didn't want to be without for any time really so bought a a Polar strap that takes the Garmin transmitter. This lasted about a year. On my second one now.

Barbarossa

I have had two of "Premium" straps fail - usually inside 6 months. Been using the standard strap now for a couple of years without a problem.

bernithebiker

andi1363 wrote:

My Garmin Soft strap failed in under a year. Evans wanted the whole 500 bundle back to return to Garmin. I only wanted to send the strap. I didn't want to be without for any time really so bought a a Polar strap that takes the Garmin transmitter. This lasted about a year. On my second one now.

Oh dear, you just raised Ai_1's percentage failure rate.

Maybe my sweat is highly acidic or something, but I've gone through 2 of these in 18 months. My current one is about 5 months old, if it makes it to 12, I'll be surprised.

Duncanandthemachine

I've switched my sender unit to the wife's strap tonight and it worked fine. I must admit i'm not great at washing every week (I train most days) but its reassuring to know I'm not alone and that also others do have better luck. Will see if the regular washing works. Thanks for the input all.

paul_onabike

Ai_1 wrote:

Just for context. I think it's fair to say that the majority of forum members probably use a Garmin HR strap? Fair comment? I'm guessing 50% would be a very conservative figure but let's go with that just for the hell of it.
As of now, about 550 people have viewed this thread. So based on 50% that's 275 Garmin HR strap users. I haven't counted but I think we're still in single figures for reported failures within a year. It's likely everyone or nearly everyone who's viewed the thread and has had a problem will have commented so probably a <5% failure rate within one year? That's not spectacular but it's not horrendous either IMO.

I was starting to think, wow these straps seem really unreliable but having thought about it I'm not so sure....

So I have just been unlucky that all 3 I have purchased have failed within a year then?
The problem is with the premium strap, not the classic strap - how many users is that? - and even a 5% failure rate is a concern -
I wouldn't buy anything if I thought it had a 1 in 20 chance of failure. 1- 2% would be acceptable - no more.
This is its 3rd version, and we thought that the problem had been addressed each time a newer version was released.

bernithebiker

Ai_1 wrote:

Just for context. I think it's fair to say that the majority of forum members probably use a Garmin HR strap? Fair comment? I'm guessing 50% would be a very conservative figure but let's go with that just for the hell of it.
As of now, about 550 people have viewed this thread. So based on 50% that's 275 Garmin HR strap users. I haven't counted but I think we're still in single figures for reported failures within a year. It's likely everyone or nearly everyone who's viewed the thread and has had a problem will have commented so probably a <5% failure rate within one year? That's not spectacular but it's not horrendous either IMO.

I was starting to think, wow these straps seem really unreliable but having thought about it I'm not so sure....

Here's how I would run the figures;

50% of forum members use an HR strap. (Bear in mind we have a lot of commuters, etc. and many competitive riders with power meters don't even bother with HR).

Of those 50%, maybe 3/4 are using Garmins. So 37%. Of those, many will be using straps OTHER than the Premium (the one with the problems), so I reckon, tops you're looking at 20%.

A quick count through the thread reveals 20 failures.

20% of 651 views is 130.

20 / 130 is 15.3%, not really an acceptable failure rate.

There is clearly a problem with these or Garmin would not be replacing them so frequently and without argument.