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

Disable optical HR before the workout.

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

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).

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

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?  

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.

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

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.

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.