HRV on Vertical

[Swaddy61]

@mikekoski490 As I also have a Polar H10 belt I downloaded the Elite App and conducted their HRV test. Now, it is late afternoon and I have had a pretty busy / active day (although without a gym session etc), and it has given an HRV value of 48ms, vs the SV figure of 19ms overnight last night. I am not ‘competing’ for the best HRV value (I wouldn’t win anyway!), just trying to alert Suunto to the fact that their HRV results do not appear to be consistently accurate!

As a reasonaby fit 62 year old (gym 3+ times / week, other activities most days, resting HR 56 bpm, BP of 119/78), I am inclined to believe that the Elite value (via the H10 belt) is likely more accurate. I will for sure, track it over the following days, and continue to compare to the SV figures. If the two values trend similarly, then we will know it is an offset issue, but if there is no correlation, then (probably) the SV’s figures are to be ignored completely, which would be a shame on an $800 watch!

Interestingly, the HR value of the SV (OHR) is within 1 bpm of the H10 at the same time, and the SV tracks my sleep with about 85% accuracy, both of which some people report as being far off their actual figures. So it seems it is the HRV algorithm which works better for some people than others - which is strange, as you would think it is a pretty simple, measured, metric?

I tried wearing the watch tighter last night, to see if that helped, but got my lowest HRV value!

Likewise, I find the SpO2 figures for the SV to be very variable - sometimes as low as 82% (quick, call an ambulance!), but ‘usually’ between 95 - 100%, which were the figures I generally got with my Coros Apex Pro.

Other than that, so far I am very pleased with the SV Ti Solar, although hoping the battery guage settles down over a few more charge / use cycles (I won’t get 20 days on a charge at the current discharge rate, with only about 2 hours of GPS a week so far - my 3 year old Coros was still managing > 17 days with the same usage).

So, a few more days of testing, and I will report back!

[mikekoski490]

@pilleus Hi. The ‘values’ would be the same on both Suunto and the HRV app: my age/height/weight/gender etc.

Polar does the same morning static test, using their HRM, for their Polar watches (or at least used to back when I had a Polar Vantage), which is why I got the brainstorm for using an HRV app with the H10.

From checking online, an average HRV score for my age is about 50ms (+/-). 2 different HRV apps now over 3 days have given me an average of 48. I didn’t see any studies that say if you take an ‘overnight’ HRV test, an HRV score of 15ms is fine - on the contrary, it was stressing me out!

So, for me, HRV is not accurate on Suunto yet, but I understand it might be for others. I was just adding my experience. I would prefer to rely on one app, SA, for everything, but for now I’ll prefer to use the Elite HRV app and H10 for this measurement. I do find HRV info informative, and again, not looking at a single score, but trends. Thanks!

[A Former User]

@robis Yes I do and also went recently. Everything is okay, I am healthy

[pilleus]

@mikekoski490

It’s okay, no problem with your way to measure hrv.

I prefer the over night method, because I want to see whether the value stays the same or increases over the course of the night.

[mikekoski490]

@pilleus For sure. Its all about trends.

My HRV app says I need at least 4 mornings, but at least 2 weeks, of measurements to get accurate trends.

Hoping to rely on SA and ditch the HRV app though!

[Swaddy61]

@mikekoski490 said in HRV on Vertical:

@pilleus For sure. Its all about trends.

My HRV app says I need at least 4 mornings, but at least 2 weeks, of measurements to get accurate trends.

Hoping to rely on SA and ditch the HRV app though!

That would be my wish too!

[surfboomerang]

Do you have to enable “Daily HR” to get HRV during sleep? Or is the “HRV tracking” option enough under sleep settings?

[A Former User]

@surfboomerang said in HRV on Vertical:

Do you have to enable “Daily HR”

yep, needed

[surfboomerang]

@robis Then I guess the desciption in SA needs to change:

“How to measure my HRV?
Suunto measures HRV during sleep. To obtain HRV data, you should wear your watch while sleeping and ensure that sleep tracking is enabled on the device.
During the sleep period, heart rate variability is measured continuously…”

Also when enabling the HRV tracking option there is no warning to enable Daily HR as well.

[mikekoski490]

Interesting. My Suunto HRV score this morning was 16ms. The HRV app was 50ms.

However, both show the same trend.

So, I think Suunto score is wrong for me as a 16ms HRV score would normally be pretty bad, but the trend is matching the readiness score of the HRV app.

[herlas]

@mikekoski490 in my case I have the Oura ring too and it measures from 1 to 4 ms more than my vertical OHR, I’m not sure you can have two different devices giving the same numbers for HRV, algorithms are not the same, and neither the place on our hand where we take the measurements. The crazy difference you get on your Suunto watch is pretty weird.

Example from last night Oura 74 ms, my vertical 71 ms.

[Swaddy61]

@mikekoski490 Seems we are in similar positions! My SV figure for last night was 20ms, my Elite HRV was 48ms. Both higher than yesterday, so yes. It seems there is a bit if an offset, but trends are similar. I do wish the SV was more in line with Elite…

@herlas If the difference was small (and with the same trends) I would also be happy, but the difference is very big…

[pilleus]

@mikekoski490 said in HRV on Vertical:

My Suunto HRV score this morning was 16ms. The HRV app was 50ms.

I use for testing the Android app “Sleep as android” and a Polar Verity Sense for capturing the heart rate.

The result is 51 ms regarding all the captured values of the night. But regarding the low values in the deep sleep phases, where the heart is running free without disturbing influences or movements, the result is 29 ms.

So there are different results within one app and with the same data.

We may ask Suunto, what kind of calculation is the base of the hrv shown on the Vertical …

[mikekoski490]

@herlas Just as @Swaddy61 mentioned, a small difference can be accepted as +/- margins of error.

Your score is 74ms vs 71ms. Totally acceptable variance, and both scores are within a healthy range for HRV.

Mine is a score of 16ms vs 50ms. Im no scientist but I dont think that’s an OK variance. Not only a difference of 34ms, BUT the low score, according to online resources, would indicate catastrophic health trend lol.

[A Former User]

We need to keep in mind that there are different types of HRV metrics, for example one app can measure rMSSD HRV, other a different metric. And the values are different based on that. So if one App measures 50 and other 20, it can be still correct. So we would need to know the type of metric Suunto measures to be able to compare. At least that’s what I think. Maybe I am wrong.

[Swaddy61]

@tomasbartko In principle I agree. I think the challenge is that some people appear to be having near normal readings - it would be interesting, perhaps, for those people to do a comparison using the Elite App, to see if there HRV is even higher on there!

Last night my SV gave me an HRV score of 30 (the highest I have seen in the short time I have had the SV), and Elite gave me 61, the highest since I have been tracking on Elite too. So again, there seems to be linearity between the two, just with a big offset. I’ll track both for the next weeks, and if the linearity continues, I will at least be able to trust the SV figures as guidance for my training, rather than as an absolute figure.

[A Former User]

@Swaddy61 yes I see similar numbers in SV and Elite HRV, if one goes up, other goes linearly up as well. And vice versa. I think it’s an interesting idea to know what would others with high readings with Vertical measure in other apps.

[Todd Danielczyk]

@Swaddy61 I am one of the fortunate ones where my HRV seems to track well along with my sleep. Everything seemed to track better once I adjusted my resting heart rate up by 7 points (stock 60 bpm moved to 67 bpm)

I started tracking HRV right after the update to get my 14 day baseline and then I got slammed at work which also affected my sleep pattern. It tracked all of this.

This week I got back on schedule but had a late night dinner with drinks on Wednesday and sure enough, it shows up. By no means am I am athlete but I’m a relatively active 46 year old so the numbers are in line with my age/ activity level

[Swaddy61]

@Todd-Danielczyk If you have a Polar H10 belt then it would be really interesting if you downloaded the (free!) Elite HRV App and took a reading for comparison.

[Todd Danielczyk]

@Swaddy61 thanks for the suggestion. I paired my strap with the app and just did a quick comparison and it looks about 20-30 pts higher than my Vertical does.