I am experiencing an issue with my heart rate showing about 1/3 to 1/2 lower when in workout mode on the ATV. When I exit workout mode my heart rate returns to functioning normally.
I’m Steven a tech support agent with the Zwift team.
What you’ve described seems quite odd and to my knowledge, all Zwift does is read the heart rate. Doing a workout vs a SIM mode ride shouldn’t change how Zwift reads what your heart rate monitor is transmitting.
Does this behavior only happen when using the Wahoo TICKR or have you tried a different heart rate monitor?
What about pairing methods? It looks like you’re on Apple TV, so have you tried using the Zwift Companion as BLE bridge to pair instead? If so, does the HRM still exhibit the same behavior?
If you’ve never done the ZC BLE bridge to pair, you’ll find instructions in this article.
If this is something that you see consistently happening and can be reproduced, you might consider contacting our tech support team and we’ll likely need to examine your log files.
It would also be helpful if you could record a short video exhibiting the issue. I’d like to see this happen where your heart rate is 1/2 or 1/3 in a workout and then suddenly shoots up to normal when you’re in a SIM mode ride. If you send us a support request, attach the video (if possible).
You can contact us here.
Will do. You can somewhat see it happening in this screenshot. Notice how my heart rate is staying nearly consistent across the sprint intervals (something I assure you was not physiologically accurate 
). Then note the yellow line where I ended the workout. See how my heart rate suddenly increases?
This photo doesn’t show the increase at the end of the workout because I just pulled the strap off in frustration. However, you can see that my heart rate is being reported as remaining pretty stable even during hard portions of the workout.
To answer a few of your other questions:
I have not utilized the Companion App for my connections, apart from occasionally connecting to my Apple Watch for heart rate monitoring. I can give it a try, it’s not my preferred method of connection, but I’ll give it a try.
I have not noticed this issue when using my Apple Watch for heart rate monitoring. When I’ve experienced this glitch with the Wahoo TICKR I have checked it against my Apple Watch readings and the watch will show my heart rate as 50-60 bpm higher.
Thanks for providing the screenshots and answers to my questions.
Since this behavior is not seen in Zwift when you’ve used the Apple Watch to monitor heart rate, to me this suggests that the issue is specific to your TICKR HRM, and perhaps not necessarily Zwift.
I say that because as I understand it, all Zwift does is read the heart rate and record it within the app, and to your .fit file. It doesn’t manipulate the real-time data in any other way, and it shouldn’t matter whether it’s an ERG mode workout or a SIM mode ride. Heart rate is heart rate, and all Zwift does is read what the TICKR is putting out.
That said, I have to wonder if other fitness apps would read the TICKR the same as Zwift under similar circumstances. That’s one surefire way to know if it’s an issue with only Zwift or it’s an issue with the TICKR hardware itself.
Would be interested to hear how Wahoo Support would weigh in on this one as well. Have you reached out to them?
I did reach out to Wahoo Support today, however, I am nearly certain after doing a test today that the issue is related to Zwift. I am currently encountering the problem on Zwift.
Step 1: Started workout on Zwift and noticed consistent heart rate. Apple Watch independently displayed rising heart rate.
Step 2: Exited workout mode and heart rate gradually rose to match Apple Watch.
Step 3: Reentered a new workout and Zwift heart rate gradually lowered and went out of step with Apple Watch.
See photos below, couldn’t capture on video as it took a couple minutes for heart rates discrepancy to rematch.
Photo 1&2 Pre-Second Workout - No discrepancy
Photo 3&4 During Second Workout - Significant discrepancy
Photo 5&6 After Second Workout - No Discrepancy
Also, this was using the companion app for pairing so I am experiencing the issue with two different means of connecting
Tried workout mode a 3rd time with same result (after about 10 minutes of accuracy in the workout) the numbers slowly dropped down.
Sorry for all these posts… one last thing:
I connected my Wahoo Roam via ANT to the heart rate monitor near the end of my Zwift ride. It registered exactly what Zwift registered, though both were out of step with my Apple Watch.
However, when I closed Zwift, the Roam heart rate reporting rose to match my Apple Watch heart rate. It seems like something with the connection to Zwift is somehow causing the HR monitor to drift to a lower heart rate.
Also posting a final chart that visualizes what I experience today.
Thanks for sharing all that data and the screenshots. It’s quite helpful.
Since the same issue seems to be happening with multiple different HRMs you’ve tried (e.g. Apple Watch and TICKR), I suppose all that’s left for me to do is flag this up to a higher technical authority on the team, and see if they want to write a bug report for it.
I’ll let you know when I have more information. Thanks!
EDIT:
Actually, Jonathan, it looks like you’ve already written in to our tech support team, so we’ll get this escalated and correspond with you via email. Thanks again!
Just to be clear… I’m not connecting my Apple Watch to Zwift. I am just using it concurrently with my TICKR connected to Zwift to demonstrate that my TICKR HR monitor is registering low.
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I have experience this same issues but didn’t recognize the connection to workout mode until I saw your post. I had no issues with HR or connectivity prior to a couple weeks ago when I did my first FTP test. Since then, I haven’t had blatant issues during every workout session, but every issue that has happen has begun during a workout session.
Most sessions where there is an issue, it is the same 2/3 to 1/2 the HR shown by my smartwatch, which is otherwise relatively close with the HRM usually being the higher of the two. In some cases, the HRM has dropped to 0 or frozen at a single HR value regardless of changing effort. The value reported in Zwift is the same as reported to my head unit and phone app likely how your Roam has been. One thing I’ve seen that’s different is sometimes the low HR will linger into SIM mode until reconnecting the HRM or restarting Zwift.
This has been repeated over the last two weeks after switching the HRM battery, performing a HRM reset, connecting through both the PC’s bluetooth and through the companion app, switching to a laptop instead of my PC to run zwift, turning off all other bluetooth devices besides my Bike, and occurs in both pre-made and custom workouts.
Just wanted to show this wasn’t an isolated case.
Setup: Wahoo Tickr X (Firmware 1.14.0); Kickr Bike (1.25.0); Headwind Fan (1.0.3)
I’m having same issue. Heart rate very low and not changing during intervals on training plan.
Also had this issue on pace partner B yesterday
Same issue using 2 different wahoo HRMs
I switched to a competitors product to do my workouts and it solved my issue. Zwift said unless others have the same issue, they weren’t likely to work on a fix.
annoying. I have a friend with same issue… riding again today with HR stuck at 107…
I am having the same issue. The HR monitor I’m using in Zwift is lower than an independent HRM.
I had similar issue with Wahoo Tickr ever since I changed battery early this year. Even reset did not help. The HR would show low for unspecified time. Then it would suddenly jump to catch up to HR number that was correct by feel. This happened in free rides or races. Unclipping the HR strap for few seconds sometimes solved that but who wants to do that almost every ride…
I finally bought a new Polar H10 strap few weeks ago and have never seen these issues again.
I’ve been having the same issue with my Tickr X. Replaced the battery because that was my first option of where the problem might be. But it didn’t help. My heart rate will show between 80-110 when I’m in sprint interval and my HR should be above 150. Did a 90 minute workout today only in the last 20 minutes did it show a more accurate HR.