PSA: Band 2 Could Suffer Lock-ups from Humidity

Each summer I spend a good amount of time performing heat training. I won’t go into details about it because it’s quite a shock to the system and dangerous if you’re not used to it. Essentially, it’s a program that improves conditioning through specialized Fartleks, but in the heat. So, while others either hit the treadmill to avoid the mid-day heat, or get up and run at 4am before the sun and heat are able to create a toxic, humid soup, I wait until the exact hottest part of the day and jump straight into it – on purpose.

However, I’ve noticed something recently that should cause a bit of pause for those that do somehow end up in the mid-day heat during a run, or need another excuse to avoid it. This has now occurred multiple times and I think I’ve finally figured out the common denominator.

If you have alerts turned on during a run in the heat (for me, it’s been anything above the 90 degree F range), when an alert displays (such as the UV notification) it will lock up the Band 2 for a brief period of time and stop tracking your movements, time, mileage, heart rate, etc.

Initially, when this started happening I thought it was just the heat. But, then I thought back to when I ran for a week in Vegas recently in the 100+ degree F heat there. It hadn’t happened in Vegas and even in that instance it was within normal operating specs (14°F to 104°F (-10°C to 40°C)). It has only happened when running in the heat here in Ohio. But, then, when it’s hot in Ohio, it’s also very humid. The Vegas desert is a dry heat. The Ohio South Western valley produces a brutal mix of hot sun and thick humidity. It’s like someone taking a wet blanket, wrapping it completely around you, and then dumping you into a bubbling hot tub.

Today, with the Band 2 on my left wrist and the Garmin vivoactive HR on my right wrist, I was able to verify that the Band did, indeed, lose time, mileage, steps, etc. Since the Garmin was still tracking in the heat, I just kept running, hoping that the Band 2 would unlock eventually. It finally did, but only after losing close to 3/10^th of a mile and almost 2 minutes.

It was like I was in my own Hot Tub Time Machine. Either my Band 2 wrist had traveled back in time or my Garmin wrist had traveled into the future – but only by 2 minutes. I was curious if the Garmin might have some future knowledge it might share with the Band 2, i.e. how to avoid a major pothole or something helpful like that.

So, other than staying out of the heat to keep from passing out from heat exhaustion, you may also want to consider doing so in the event your Band 2 experiences the same problem. Incidentally, this is the first summer I’ve had the Band 2. Last summer, during my heat trials, I was using the Band 1 and didn’t experience this problem. So, this is possibly just a Band 2 problem.

Let me know if you are crazy enough to experience this yourself.