Unusual Heart Rate Readings

[timkhoo]

Hi all, I am currently a little stumped on what might be happening. I have connected Strava to a chest strap HRM and am a little confused with the readings. I’m guessing the connection is being dropped intermittently for minutes at a time? it looked like only a few measurements were taken over the course of a 2 hour bike ride. I have tried disconnecting/reconnecting, forgetting device, changing battery, updating, but nothing seemed to work. I am also not connected to any other devices. Interestingly, during runs it seems to be fine? Let me know if you have any suggestions. Thanks!

[Jan_Mantau]

If it's fine during runs I would guess the seating of the sensor was not optimal at the bike ride or you didn't sweat enough to get good readings. Another thing can be the place of your smartphone, maybe it was further away and obstructed at the bike ride like being in the saddle bag.

[timkhoo]

I don't think it has anything to do with sweat. I found out that the readings tend to drop out while my phone's screen is off. When I wake it back up, the heart rate is given as --, then after a second or two it reconnects and provides a reading - all without moving the sensor.

The second idea might be possible since it reconnects when I take the phone out of my pocket, though I don't imagine there is significant interference from putting the phone in my jersey's back pocket. I can try mounting it to the stem to see if that makes a difference, though I can't really see how it would.

Do you have any other ideas?

[Jan_Mantau]

You could try disabling the battery saver options for Strava on your smartphone to keep the connections open.