Edge1030 only connect if GCM is open, but Vivoactive3 stays connected round the clock

The Edge 1030 will not connect to the phone until GCM is open.

But why works the Vivoactive as desired and the Edge 1030 not?

What is the vivoactive 3 doing that is 'desired' that the Edge 1030 is not doing?

The Vivoactive is connected via Bluetooth the whole day and receives smart notifications.

When I turn on the Edge 1030 it should also connect to the mobile without manual steps.

But it doesn't, I have to reopen GCM or turn Bluetooth Off and On again.

Please notice, the Vivoactive is still connected to GCM the whole time, so GCM is running in the background.

The Edge himself tells me, that he is not connected to my phone.

The 1030  would connect to my Iphone6 without GCM open. But, since 7.3 firmware update, I now have to have GMC for the 1030 to connect. I don't have a problem with this but I can understand how others might not like this new behavior.

I will add my experience. I regularly see the Edge 1030 display the message "Phone Disconnected" and sometimes "Phone Connected" during a ride. If I go into the settings when the phone is disconnected, the Edge says it is "searching" for the phone. If I stop my ride, go into phone and launch GCM to the front, the Edge will connect again... until it randomly disconnects.

For me I found a clue on the Android GCM forum that gave me an idea since I use S7E. Someone suggested manually loading an older version of GCM on the phone. Now I know a few months ago, there seemed to be a version that was really stable in the connection 14.6.1 in March.

I found the APK and installed on my phone. Today, I went for ride. Phone I stuck in my pocket without ever unlocking it. I had not opened or touched GCM in over 24 hours. Turned on 1030, immediately the message Phone Connected. Did my 1.5 hour ride with never a message of phone disconnecting. Alerts and notifications came in without issue. At the end of the ride I stopped the 1030 and immediately got notification that the ride was uploaded. Now in the versions before 14.6 and the later versions since 14.6 I never had this reliability. WIth 14.6 I do see if I reboot my phone a notification appears "Connect Sync Service". It cannot be dismissed until I open GCM. But after that it seems GCM is always running. No prior or newer version of GCM ever displayed a message like this. I'm now making sure to turn off auto-update for GCM.

Maybe this will help someone else.

I do make sure on S7E that I have GCM as an unmonitored app in battery maintenance.

I am pretty sure,that GCM is running 24/7 in the background, because I have smart notifications on my Vivoactive 3without any issues.

Even when the VA3 is connected with GCM in the background the Edge 1030 is not able to connect to my phone unless I open GCM.

Even more annyoing: I open GCM and connect my Edge, put my Oneplus6 in my backside of the trikot, get my bike ready for cycle and sometimes the Edge goes to standby because I am to slow.

Maybe 2 minutes later I turn on the Edge and once again he is not connecting to my phone.

Hopefully I have a solution for the Bluetooth issue:

You have to go to the developer options from you mobile and check this button: 'Disable absolute volume' under the Bluetooth options.

Since I have done that the Edge connects automatically to my mobile.

Tomorrow morning is the stress test, the Edge never connects automatically after the phone was seven hours in flight mode.