After seeing sky-high heart rates during exercise with the GW4's wrist sensor over the past few weeks, I decided to compare it to my reliable Polar H10 chest strap. Unfortunately, Samsung does not provide native support for external BT HRM's, so I used the SportyGo app with their BT module installed - works perfectly to connect the H10 to the GW4. That's where the good news ends.
When not under exercise stress, the GW4 wrist HRM is somewhat close to the H10, averaging 5 bpm difference. But, when hiking and especially when running, the GW4 is far off and wildly inconsistent with itself.
When running, I see 20 to 40 bpm inaccuracy - sometimes more - always on the plus side, giving really alarming heart rates. When cooling down, it'll eventually drop down to around the proper reading. There are so many similar reports from GW4 owners, it's not an issue isolated to my watch. My previous watch, a lower-end Garmin was far more accurate, making wearing the H10 sort of redundant. Even my old $50 Samsung Fit2 did exercise-based HRM'ing better than the GW4 - so Samsung knows how to do this!
Bottom line: Samsung has to address this problem with their HRM and they need to provide the BT HRM connectivity that has become standard in the watch industry, for those of us who want to use external HRMs.
If Samsung wants to play in the "health wear" market, they need provide a competitive product.
Thank you for your interest in sharing your idea with Samsung. We appreciate your feedback and will tag it on the forum so that it will appear with other feedback, ideas, and requests. This will allow your post to be more easily found in the event that Samsung product groups are seeking outside feedback/requests/ideas regarding our products.
Be sure to click " ✓ Accept as Solution" when you find an answer that works for you. Please note, notification emails are a DO NOT REPLY address, you must log-in on the community page in order to respond.
I recently (couple of days ago) purchased a Galaxy Watch 4 (44mm). The heart rate monitor is WAY off. I'm wearing my old Fitbit Ionic on one wrist and my GW4 on the other, and hte GW4 is showing roughly TWICE the heart rate as my Fitbit. I know my Fitbit is accurate as I recently verified it against a real medical electrocardiogram.
If I take the watch off and put it back on, it shows the correct heart rate for a period of time, and then goes haywire again. An agent on Samsung's chat-based support sent me to an article listing troubleshooting steps, none of which resolved the issue.
Is there a definitive fix for this, or should I return the watch to T-Mobile while I still am in the return window and order a Fitbit instead? Thanks!
Thank you for reaching out. I can certainly understand your frustration with the HRM not working as expected. Important: This device and related software are not intended for use in the diagnosis of disease or other conditions, or in the cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease. Give this link a try for some steps to assist in getting more accurate HRM readings: https://www.samsung.com/us/support/answer/ANS00083511/
If you have tried the troubleshooting steps and are still experiencing these symptoms, I would recommend reaching out to our Samsung Health team directly at (855) 795-0509 for further assistance.
