I think one thing that’s not talked about, is if the relation of the Firstbeat VO2 max to the lab results are consistent in time for each individual, or not.
If the calculation is off because of data that’s consistently wrong (wrong max heart rate input, e.g.), then the result might be consistently wrong but the evolution and relation to true VO2 max should stay the same over time, which makes it valuable as a means to indirectly track cardiovascular fitness progress.
This is an example of my chart for the past 6 months. I was having a really great base build up during the early winter/spring especially on the bike (building up to 4.3w/kg and my highest FTP ever) and my run fitness was slowly building as well. When the pandemic hit and my races started getting cancelled I really backed off on my training, especially on the bike (which is now around 3.7w/kg…
). I continued running enough to make a decent crack at my what-turned-into-a-virtual-half-marathon event at the end of May, then didn’t do a single run in June and very little biking (I focused on landscaping my backyard). July I started doing the Ironman VR events as some motivation to do something, but it was mainly hard efforts with no training behind them. I’ve been doing haphazard rides outside (fun!) and have been working on building my run mileage up with mostly easy runs since then. The numbers are inflated a bit (would love it if they were accurate, but then I’d really need to learn to HTFU or something 
), but I think the trend follows my training/feeling quite well in my case.
Exactly, I think the trend is more important than the number itself, unless you want to compare yourself to others
Yes.
As long as people know the numbers are pretend (for most people) and use them as guides to see where their fitness is heading, then is fine. But Ive seen enough people looking at their garmin vo2max number and thinking too high of themselves… 
I think what is really interesting is how many of us have a fitness age of 20!
1 percenters baby! 
Haha, yeah I’m sure there are people who take it and the race predictors as gospel and brag to their “followers” then come up with a myriad of excuses when they inevitably fail to come anywhere close at actual races.
Exactly.
I have a few friends that are way faster than me, with “lower” vo2max on Garmin!
its a joke really!
That’s likely the case with actual lab measurements as well - - having a higher VO2Max isn’t always guarantee for a better performance, person-to-person. We’re still always aiming to push it higher though. 
You can turn that feature off!
How?!!! I have this problem on my forerunner. My edge doesn’t though so not sure what I did with settings
I suspect its in the Device Settings on the Garmin Connect App.
Maybe here?
Search the word “performance” in your manual. Here is the 530 manual:
https://www8.garmin.com/manuals/webhelp/edge530/EN-US/GUID-D9D48D59-CD5E-4805-AC3E-6699EBDD2A24-homepage.html
My 935 loves to tell me, in a very negative way, how much i suck while im warming up… specially on the bike.
But at least when i do running races it usually positive about the situation…
I found the ‘performance notifications’ area digging through menus on my 530.
Hmmm I’ll have to do some digging on my forerunner. I found recovery advisor/VO2 Max/etc. but no performance notification. Thanks for the info and you as well @bbarrera.
Maybe this helps:
On my 530 it’s under:
Menu > My Stats > Performance Notifications
Thanks. I use the 735xt so it’s a bit older functionality. Did some digging and performance condition is a data field on the 735. Problem is I don’t have it set as a data field for any of my activity profiles so no clue why it pops up. I did turn recovery advisor off since it seems to be tied to recovery status (and it’s worthless anyway IME) so we’ll see if that did the trick. 
I own an Edge 520 and it gives me a score of 45. I got lab tested today and scored 48, I’d say that’s pretty close for an algorithm.
My garmin gives me a vo2max of 57 on running and 54 on cycling.
I laugh at the face of the running number.
And i am highly skeptical of the cycling number.
But that’s also using a sample of 1. Which is usually not ideal.
