External HRM keeps disconnecting

I bought an Instinct watch and HRM-Dual strap for running. The watch is able to find the HRM and connect it via both ANT+ and Bluetooth. However after it has connected, I'm able to see my heart rate on the watch only for few seconds. After that the heart rate drops and HRM is disconnected from my watch.

If I navigate back to "settings -> sensors & accessories -> hrm-dual" it says disconnected, but after navigating there, it quickly changes to 'searching' and to 'connected'. After that I'm once again able to monitor my heart rate only for few seconds until it disconnected again.

Link to a youtube-video that describes the problem: www.youtube.com/watch

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Former Member over 4 years ago +7 verified

5267698

Sounds and looks to me as normal behaviour.

Is this your first Garmin watch ?

Going into the sensor menu triggers the watch to search for sensors and connect to them so the you can setup the sensor…
5267698 over 4 years ago in reply to Former Member +1

Thanks for your answer.

Yes indeed this is my first Garmin watch and actually the very first smart watch overall.

Now I'm able to monitor my heart rate!

There is no (at least default) widget for monitoring…

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0 2628826 over 4 years ago in reply to razmichael

With an Instinct, to see your HR using the HRM, if you go to the run window, then into the menu while on the run screen and choose settings, then watch face. This will show you your real time HR.

0 4854554 over 3 years ago

I have found the problem is that the watch by default will connect to the external HRM via ANT+ and will also search bluetooth as well. I found that a 3rd party app on my phone was trying to connect to the external HRM sensor via bluetooth and as you can only have one bluetooth connection at the same time and this was kicking of the sensor from the watch. Then when the watch tried to reconnect to the sensor (via bluetooth) it would then also kick off the sensor from the third party app on the phone and then disconnect from the ANT+ on the watch because a bluetooth connection had been found to the sensor from the watch instead. Think of it like apps on your phone fighting over that one bluetooth connection one gets in then the other boots it off again. The way I got round this was to switch the bluetooth to phone option off from the watch so that the watch wouldn`t try and connect to the phone apps and vice versa and this worked because the watch wasn`t sending a connection via bluetooth to the phone and the sensor was happy using the ANT+ on the watch. Ive tried it twice so far and the watch hasnt reported any drop offs or disconnections from the external sensor. You will just need to switch the watch bluetooth back on when finished to sync up with garmin connect. Hope this helps. It seems that the vivoactive 3 wants to connect to an external HRM via bluetooth even when its got a connection to the ANT+ on the watch also, not sure why this is needed surely you would think Garmin would program the watch not to connect to external HRM via bluetooth if an established connection has been achieved through the default ANT+ on the device? then this would allow one third party app on your phone to at least connect to the bluetooth without disturbing the watch. Hope this is useful

0 5582399 over 3 years ago in reply to 4854554

Men I had the same problem... struggling with that since several weeks... suppose to throw away my HRM already... Thanks for the tip!!

0 8420320 over 3 years ago in reply to Former Member

First watch and strap and all my frustrations have ended with your comments. I was noticing the same thing as OP and asking the same questions. Thanks.