Is Average Heart Rate Broken?

[glate]

Hello,

I'm new to the Ergdata app. Have been using it with the Apple Watch app and have been very happy with it with the exception of the summary/tables regarding average heart rate.

In what world can the average heart rate be 125 bpm if I never once went below 125 bpm? Clearly the average should be somewhere between 144 and 162 bpm (31% of time spent above and below it helps there).



Is this a known bug? Is there a workaround somehow? Would love to have usable tables/information.

thanks!

[MPx]

Depends if that was the full session or just one rep of a set of intervals. If part of the set then the stated avg will be across all intervals...and the last one will look a bit like your display.

[Carl Watts]

Average is only good for steady state rows and you just set the monitor to have the maximum number of splits possible so up to 52.

I only every look at the top line in the monitor result, its good enough for comparison of an identical row a few months later to watch your average HR drop as your fitness improves.

A number of useful HR related stuff could be incorporated into the PM5 but C2 do not appear to be interested.

[Citroen]

Is this a known bug? Is there a workaround somehow? Would love to have usable tables/information.

If it's simply taking the splits then it's not a "bug". The PM5 gives instantaneous results, so the "average" result is actually the HR at the end of the split. There's no averaging, only an instantaneous value.

[Carl Watts]

As Citroen above, its not broken its just the average HR at the end of all the splits.

All you can do is increase the number of splits to improve the accuracy but basically its just no good for the likes of intervals, you would need the HR taken every few seconds, recorded then averaged and the PM5 doesn't do that.

The graph is cool and so is the time spent in each zone is interesting but no real need for the average rower to get fixated on exact numbers. 95% of rowers do not even use a HR strap and do not even bother to measure it.

[Tsnor]

Not obvious how averaging ending splits gets to the average HR. Goto your PM5. Look in History. See the ending HR for each interval. Does that average end up being the reported average ?

No, then looks like a reportable bug.

email info@concept2.com

devs don't read this forum, but do read their email. Include what phone you are using to run ergdata and anything else you can think of like ergdata version and pm5 firmware level.

[Sakly]

I would assume average HR includes rest times.
Since new ergData version I think that also HR samples during splits/intervals are used to calculate average (shown in the app, not in the logbook. The values differ.).

[Tsnor]

Hope C2 gets a bug report.

At some level, even if there is an explanation for an average HR so much less than every minute rowed, the average heart rate is useless.

Think this is a bug.

[Carl Watts]

Think this is a bug.

If its a bug then its been here since 2003. Honestly wouldn't worry about it works fine for me.

Other devices have come along for you to log HR, C2 are not going to be interested in fixing whatever problem you perceive to exist. Maybe they could explain with clarity how the average in the PM3,PM4,PM5 is calculated but seriously there are others things that could be improved in the PM5 that are more important.

[Tsnor]

Think this is a bug.

If its a bug then its been here since 2003. Honestly wouldn't worry about it works fine for me.

The OP is not reporting a problem with the PM5 or algorithm, this is a new ErgData data field being questioned. A field not reported by PM5 and not displayed on the old Ergdata.

This is *not* the new Ergdata averaging the ending heart rates. Look at the time spent in zones. Look at the HR graph. The ending interval Heart Rates did not average 125 beats/sec.

More likely it will turn out that very short activities do not get reported correctly. Data is only for 2 mins.

[Sakly]

When I look into an interval logged with ergData it seems fine. Last 500m from 8x500, ~1:39 length:



Average seems to be calculated from the single interval and values match the graph.
Shown picture was logged with a previous ergData version of the new release. I will look at one of the next logs, when intervals done.
I'm using Android.

[Citroen]

Hope C2 gets a bug report.

They will ignore it, they've been ignoring it since the PM3 was introduced in 2003.

It is NOT an average. It is the instantaneous HR result at the end of the split.

[Sakly]

Hope C2 gets a bug report.

They will ignore it, they've been ignoring it since the PM3 was introduced in 2003.

It is NOT an average. It is the instantaneous HR result at the end of the split.

That's true for the reported value in logbook, but not for the new ergData app HR graph and values. These values differ.
Logbook reports 174 for the last interval shown on my screenshot above, matching the max of the interval, but ergData shows also the average of the interval which is 157.

[glate]

They will ignore it, they've been ignoring it since the PM3 was introduced in 2003.

It is NOT an average. It is the instantaneous HR result at the end of the split.

I emailed them and they got back to me the next day. The new version of ErgData resolves the issue and heart rate averages now display correctly everywhere except for in table view (where they're still very broken).

Regarding the table view their reply was:

Thanks for your reply. I will report your findings to our developers. I believe that the problem you are still experiencing is relates to a bug that the developers are working on where interval data in some cases results in incorrect measurements recorded. This is an issue that they hope to have resolved in an upcoming update (most likely in a week or so) and appears to be in relation to the newer iOS 16 for iPhone. My apologies for the continued issue and thanks for your patience as we continue to work on this.