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Smart Trainer and HR monitor

Jun_Li
over 3 years ago

Hi,

With recent update, finally my Fenix 6 can connect to my smart bike trainer, which is great!

However, there is some tricky issue I don't know how to solve.

The problem is that whenever I connect to my bike trainer, I cannot get the HR monitor to work again. Neither the on watch display nor the ANT+ receiver for Zwift on PC to receive the HR broadcasting shows any valid HR.

Maybe the SW is trying to get HR reading from the trainer? But my trainer cannot measure HR at all.

I guess this is a more generic questions: when there are more than one sensor for the same type are connected, how to choose which one to use?

I wish my bike trainer can provide power information to the watch so I can see the Garmin Training Effect, but in the same time, I need the wrist HR monitor to work.

Any suggestion?

Thanks!

  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 3 years ago in reply to Jun_Li

    there goes my line of thought Slight smile

    happy & safe sporting

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to hulubei

    No. If you use something like ‘Free Ride’ from the watch then you are using the watch to control the trainer. You cannot use Zwift as you have now set up a conflict. The whole point of the FE-C connection is to allow the watch to control the trainer in the absence of an app like Zwift/Rouvy etc. As DCRainmaker says:

    philipshambrook said:
    "At any rate, I’m honestly not convinced there’s that many people using their wearables to control their smart trainers in 2020 (or beyond). I think the number of people executing trainer workouts from wearables (and even bike computers) is diminishing as training app platforms get better and better at what they do."

    Simply put you do not use the ANT+FE-C connection to connect to the trainer if you want to use Zwift/Rouvy or any other app to control the trainer.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to philipshambrook

    I think you misunderstood. I am not trying to use my watch to control the trainer, as a matter of fact I don't want to. I just wanted to get power information from the trainer to the watch. However as the trainer only has FEC profile I have to connect to the FEC profile. I would rather it only has power meter profile but it is not the case.

    As of really controlling the trainer, as long as the watch does not actively send any data to set the resistance of trainer, I don't care if it is connected to FEC or not. And the trainer can connect to the watch over ANT+ while connect to Zwift over Bluetooth at the same time. And it does respond to the resistance setting Zwift is trying to set. That is all we need. So basically you can have two things to connect the the FEC at the same time, but one of them can actively do the "command" while the other is just "free ride".

    When you said "Free Ride" is that I was using my watch to "Control" the trainer, that is true if you think "Control" as a high level concept, that the watch controls the trainer to do free ride. However, in my words, "Control" is a low level data protocol thing, which "control" means the watch sends a data packet to set the resistance of the trainer, which would not happen in the case of "Free Ride". In this scenario, the watch stops telling the trainer what to do to get a "free ride". Hope this makes it more clear.

    And what I was complaining is not that this does work. I only hope when this works, the wrist HR also keeps working.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to Jun_Li
    Jun_Li said:
    However as the trainer only has FEC profile I have to connect to the FEC profile. I would rather it only has power meter profile but it is not the case.

    The FEC protocol on the watch is to connect the watch to a trainer to control it. I do not believe that you can connect a trainer to the watch over that protocol. Irrespective of whether you believe control is a high or low level concept the simple fact is that by selecting 'Free Ride' or any other choice from that menu you are implicitly connecting your watch to the trainer for the purpose of controlling the trainer from the watch. That is the intent of the recently added ANT+ FEC connection to the watch.

    Your options to get power information from the trainer to the watch are limited to Bluetooth (I think ANT+ too but not sure about that).

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to Former Member

    Former Member,

    Here is more details:

    With the trainer connected to Zwift over BT, ANT FEC to the watch. Watch broadcasting HR over BT to Zwift.

    When trainer connected to the watch, the on watch display stops showing HR (and became "---").

    The green lights under the watch for the HR sensor are still ON all the time.

    Zwift was showing HR reading all the time, so the HR broadcasting seems went on. However, the HR reading never changed, and stayed at a number before the trainer was connected.

    After training, the activity sync'ed to the phone had a never changing constant HR reading, the same number as shown on Zwift.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to philipshambrook

    @

    That is totally not true. You think when you select "Free Ride" the watch "tells the trainer to start a free ride". However, in reality, the watch "stops telling the trainer what to do", and let the trainer do whatever it wants (in this case, the trainer would listen to Zwift over BT). And at the same time in FEC, the trainer broadcast the power information so watch can receive it. Connect over FEC does not mean the watch has to "command" what resistance the trainer has to set to.

    If you really want to understand what I was talking about I would suggest you read some detailed spec of ANT+FEC.

    In the meantime, let me try to give you another example to see if I can make it clear:

    Say you (the trainer) have a gym partner (the watch), and personal trainer (PT, Zwift here). Both can tell you what to do. If one tells you to do push up (over your left ear) and the other tells you to do stationary bike (over your right ear), then it is a conflict. However, if your partner just want to hear you saying how much exercise you did and not care about what you did (free ride), you can just follow your PT's command and report your workout result to both of them.

    BTW. It is a fact that when my trainer connected to my watch and zwift at the same time, it responds to the hills I am climbing in Zwift. So there is nothing really to argue about here.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to Jun_Li
    Jun_Li said:
    If you really want to understand what I was talking about I would suggest you read some detailed spec of ANT+FEC.

    My last words. You need to understand why GARMIN added FEC connection to the watch. Once you understand that you’ll understand why you cannot achieve what you want to achieve by attempting to connect your trainer to your watch using the ANT+FEC.

    Oh course I might be wrong so the best people to talk to will be GARMIN support.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to philipshambrook

    Well , my understanding is that Garmin added FEC because a lot of trainer and stationary bikes only support FEC protocol. And people want to get power information out of that trainer to the watch. If you search the web, you can find a lot of people complaining their trainer cannot connect to the watch as a power meter so they can record the power. So adding FEC is the only way Garmin can do to help, unless all the trainer companies want to update their SW.

    Adding FEC means the watch is capable of "control" the resistance of the trainer. That are the other menu items on the watch for. But it does not mean it has to control the resistance, this is why "free ride" exists.

    Connecting a FEC device basically creates two virtual data channel. One is inbound to watch, so we can get the power readings and other information. The other is outbound, for the watch to control how much resistance the trainer should set to. The channel is there but no spec says the watch has to send anything over that outbound channel.

    BTW. As I kept saying, I have already achieved what I wanted to get, that the Zwift controls the trainer and my watch can get the power over FEC. This is not even a question. My whole post is about HeartRate sensor in this configuration.

  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 3 years ago in reply to Jun_Li

    hi,

    at the moment you are not alone with the wrist hr not working

    read this ... fenix-6-series - wrist-heart-rate-and-ant-sensors 

    read this ... forerunner-945 - forerunner-945-wrist-hr-doesn-t-work-when-connected-to-trainer-after-5-0-update 

    it is just a simple thing that is not working but other users reply in strange tongue Slight smile

    happy & safe sporting

  • 0 over 3 years ago

    Finally got to test this out as opposed to merely hypothesizing what should and shouldn't work. F6 Pro Sapphire has no added 3rd party CIQ stuff - out of the box running latest public release software.

    I've been using my F6 Pro Sapphire with speed and cadence sensors on the bike, WHR or chest strap and Power coming from a Vortex Smart 2. I had the HRM-Dual sending bluetooth HRM to Rouvy, ANT+ to my watch.. That's my usual setup.

    Testing the new Trainer option. In sensors and accessories I removed Power from the Vortex and the speed and cadence from the bike sensors. I connected the Trainer and the speed/cadence from Vortex, leaving only the chest strap connected ANT+.

    First test was using the chest strap and a manual power setting of 150W set on the watch followed by a change in grade to 4. All worked just fine with the resistance changing as expected and heart rate being recorded on the watch. Turned off the chest strap in sensors and accessories to switch to WHR. After giving the WHR a few seconds to reconnect and settle I started again. Worked fine with trainer responding to control from the watch and speed, cadence, and WHR being recorded. 

    I then set wrist heart rate to 'Broadcast During Activity' on my F6 and connected my wife's F6 to my broadcast WHR (HRM-Dual still off). Settings on her F6 as on mine and tested. Worked fine.

    Note that Rouvy was not open nor was there any connection to any app on any iPad, iPhone, or computer, which I suspect would be the use case for this new option.

    All good so far. Fired up Rouvy next and lost heart rate to my watch - note at this time the chest strap was still not connected. I then connected my chest strap and got the heart rate on Rouvy but still no ANT+ connection to my watch. Started pedaling and power and speed/cadence were on Rouvy and my watch but control of the trainer was now from Rouvy, but still no heart rate from my watch. Disconnected chest strap again and still no WHR either on my watch or broadcast to my wife's F6.

    So I shutdown Rouvy. Restarted the activities on both F6s using WHR and there was the WHR again on my watch and broadcast to her's.

    My conclusion? If you want to use the new Trainer Settings you do so without having Rouvy (and I'd suggest Zwift) running. Use one or the other and avoid trying to mix and match. You get all the data on the watch including training load and VO2max just no pretty pictures or cartoon cyclists to race. That's something you probably need to pursue with Garmin.