Steps not synchronising on Tom Tom Connect/heart rate monitor

curlewsazza

I have a TomTom Spark 3 cardio and have connected it to my computer for the first time for some weeks. My recent activities have all synchronised, but not my steps for today or for the week. Do I need to do something to do this?I don't recall it being a problem before.

Another couple of questions - has anyone found a work-round the fact that this will not measure lengths in small swimming pools (mine is 11 metres)?

And how accurate have others found the heart-rate monitor? I was getting worried that at a slow jog I was sometimes up to 170 bpm, but a test with an ECG from my GP's surgery showed that the actual rate was some way below 150 bpm.

Thank you for your help.

tfarabaugh

It only saves steps for a limited amount of time so if you have not synced in a while you will lose some data. This may help with the step synchronization:

1) Plug the watch into the computer and in Sports Connect, click the Gear Icon
2) Press CTRL (Windows) or CMD (MAC) on your keyboard while you hover your mouse over the reset button.
3) You'll see the reset button turns into a "Turn Off" button.
4) Click it, disconnect the watch and the screen will go dead.
5) Reconnect the watch and it will wake up and it should now update as usual.

There is no workaround for pool length, it is what it is. As to heart rate, it is generally fairly accurate but you can get spikes in HR due to the watch either losing the pulse signal and locking onto another signal, like cadence, or the cadence simply overpowering the pulse signal. Spikes in HR are generally from poor blood flow producing weak pulse strength, so the watch reads cadence instead. This is most common in running and is particularly apparent early in a workout or during a non-intense workout when you are not warmed up or when you are doing sprints with very high effort. You should think of the optical heart rate as an algorithm that is attempting to track a signal in a set frequency range (30-230 or whatever it uses). If the pulse signal is weak it latches onto the next strongest rhythmic signal, which is your cadence in running and the vibrations of the bike in cycling. For most people who experience this while running it spikes to around 180-200 bpm which is also the average cadence people run at. Additionally, each person has a different HR signal ‘strength’, depending on a range of factors, so some are prone to get it more than others. But usually their signal strength is lower for the first 5-10 minutes until they warm up properly. So, in that time, it is prone to latching onto cadence, which is a common fault with all optical HRs, not just TomTom unfortunately. Optical HR also can tend to lag in measurements, so if you are doing intervals it can take a but to catch up, so it shows high HR during the rest periods. If you notice it while it is happening you can try moving the watch a bit or briefly pausing your run, so it loses the cadence reading and latches back onto HR, which I find usually corrects it. I generally pause the watch, stand still for 20-30 seconds and will see it immediately start to drop. Once it gets into a more reasonable range and the pulse reading stops dithering (dithering is when it is not getting a good signal and it is a lighter grey in color) I start up again and it stays true for the rest of the run. You can also try switching wrists and the position on the wrist. I find I got better readings on my right wrist over my left and some people find they get better readings if the watch is on the inside of the wrist rather than the outside. It also helps if you warm up a bit to get your blood moving and your HR up, so it is producing a strong signal. Play around with it and see if any of this helps you. The challenge for the manufacturers of optical HRs (and this is a common issue with all brands) is to figure out how to factor out the other "noise" that is overriding the pulse signal without also factoring out other important data.

curlewsazza

iThanks for your help. I have done what you suggest twice to record my steps, but still have no steps recorded on TomTom Connect. However when I press the "Turn Off" button and disconnect the watch, the screen does not go dead.

Thanks for the HR advice. It hadn't occurred to me to change wrists, so I will try that, and then also perhaps rotate the watch next time I run.