Does the fenix 5 default to pick up HRM Tri when in use?

Former Member over 5 years ago

I think that the battery on my HRM Tri died and then the wrist HR took over (without any notification), so it's been picking up less than accurate data for weeks. Can you force the fenix to use the external HR monitor when present?

Top Replies

AntonisSp over 5 years ago +1

Disable optical HR before the workout.
mcalista over 5 years ago in reply to Former Member +1

Peek under the watch, if you are seeing a HR in the datafield, but no green LED's, HR is coming from the chest strap.
RonHi over 5 years ago in reply to Former Member +1

I am on 14.2 and I still get that notification. Typically, if I press Run ahead of actually being ready to press again as I set our, I get a GPS ready and External HR Connected. I find giving time to get…

All Replies

0 AntonisSp over 5 years ago

Disable optical HR before the workout.

0 RonHi over 5 years ago

The question that this brings to mind, for which someone here can reply, is how can we know if the battery has failed?

0 mcalista over 5 years ago

The watch should automatically use the external monitor if it detects it - no need to force it. Obviously with a dead battery, it will not detect it, and the watch will fail over to the OHRM (unless you disable the OHR).

0 AntonisSp over 5 years ago in reply to RonHi

It will show a message for low battery. It may last an additional 2-3 activities, but fail at any time.

0 Former Member over 5 years ago in reply to AntonisSp

Thanks, but where / how will it tell me that the HRM Tri battery needs replacing? After about 1 year I replaced the battery, but it never functioned properly after that and just chewed through batteries in 1-15 days! Having Googled this issue, it seems that this is a fairly frequent problem with HRM Tri, so I bought a new one. Appears to be working fine, but unless I force the fenix not to use wrist heart rate, how do I know that it is picking up HRM Tri?

0 mcalista over 5 years ago in reply to Former Member

Peek under the watch, if you are seeing a HR in the datafield, but no green LED's, HR is coming from the chest strap.

0 Former Member over 5 years ago in reply to Former Member

Former Member

in addition to mcalista's suggestion there was a question one month ago

notification-external-hr-connected-missing

arn01d said:
Previously on 13.30 when starting an activity a notification "Ext HR Connected" would pop up when wearing an external HR strap.

happy & safe sporting

0 RonHi over 5 years ago in reply to Former Member

I am on 14.2 and I still get that notification. Typically, if I press Run ahead of actually being ready to press again as I set our, I get a GPS ready and External HR Connected. I find giving time to get connection notification works. It is possible that the notifications are triggered if I quickly press twice and I miss then as I am running but I am not sure.

0 tickerguy over 5 years ago

It'll typically warn you when the battery is low, but it's a brief notification, you may miss it, and I've had it not tell me (probably because I missed seeing it.) If it's there and paired it SHOULD be picked up automatically.

I did have to replace my HRM once -- it went insane and started reporting ridiculously bad data. I thought it might be the battery, but it wasn't -- it was just flat-out nuts. A new one resolved it.

0 Former Member over 5 years ago in reply to mcalista

Thanks this seems to be the easiest way to verify.
My problem now is that all my training is "Unproductive", because it's using the previous few months of less accurate wrist HR data as a base :-(