Active calories from bike ride not in total calories

Thank you for your test. It really is a shame that the whole 'priority'-function literally does nothing.. It is one of the main reasons why I upgraded from the Edge Explore 2 to the Edge 1040. Hopefully they are going to fix this soon

I do not own an Edge computer, so am unsure whether it really works as designed, but it is supposed to work in the way shown on the following diagram from the document What is Unified Training Status? | Garmin Customer Support:

It means, you have to sync the devices several times, before they completely exchange the data over the Unified Training Status through Garmin Connect. First of all you have to sync the Edge, then you have to sync the watch, then you have to wait a few minutes (? they do not tell how long it takes the watch to reprocess all the data, but I suspect it could be up to several minutes), then you have to sync the watch again, and finally you have to sync the Edge.

The training status syncs fine through this process you link to. It's the calories that do not.

OK, I see. Sorry, I already forgot what was told in the thread and am lazy to read it all again. But if the active Calories come only from the watch (the Primary Training Device - PTD), even after the multiple syncing, then it looks like the PTD has the priority for the Calories. In that case you could only force it to use the Calories from Edge if you did not wear the watch during the ride, or if you disabled the OHR on it. If it does not help either, then I recommend reporting it to the Support.

Correct. Calories work if the watch is removed (or off). That's the experience people in this thread are all reporting. And that was not how it used to be, and according to @rekre "Garmin support told me that they're working on it. They told me to switch off the watch while recording the bike ride on the 540"

Yes, that looks like the way it is designed. If you wish a different functionality, then consider requesting it at Share Ideas | Garmin - if there are numerous similar requests, there is a chance Garmin changes it in the future.

For the time being, you can use a hot key either for disabling the OHR of the watch, or oppositely for enabling the HR broadcasting (without connecting any receiver) - that will increase the OHR sampling frequency and improve the Calories counting.

Another option, as long as both devices are compatible with the Unified Training Status (UTS), is double-recording the activity also on the watch with the HRM strap connected to it, and discarding the activity on the watch at the end. It is not recommended doing it, though, if one of the devices is older and not supporting the UTS, because then the training status may get duplicate entry data even from the discarded activity.

I can't say whether it was designed like this or it's a bug. 

Interesting suggestion about broadcasting HR but not connecting. I haven't thought of that but I'll give it a try. Thanks!

GlitchyRobot said:

I can't say whether it was designed like this or it's a bug. 

Yes, that's the eternal question whether it is a bug or a feature. Any developer will tell you the later (and I am a developer too, although not at Garmin )