Wrist HR lights stay on when connected to heart rate strap

There are multiple posts on this and other forums about the is . It’s a new behavior and not a bug .  Garmin staff have commented on some of the posts confirming same .

That’s odd.  I searched before posting and nothing came up.  What odd behaviour, oh well, if it’s a feature, so be it.  

https://forums.garmin.com/beta-program/fenix-7-series/f/community-discussion/360515/hearth-rate-problem/1737727#1737727

Garmin-Laurie said:

I do understand the concern with the battery life, having the OHR enabled while using the HRM. However having this enabled is by design. The change is for a couple reasons. The first is consistency in HR/HRV throughout. So if one HR method is dropped, the other will pick is up. The 2nd reason is for Garmin Pay. When your OHR is disabled during activity, Garmin Pay cannot be used without a PIN code, because the watch is treated as "Off-Wrist". So keeping this enabled, allow Garmin Pay to be used during activities. 

Thanks, that’s great.   I excitedly tried to use the power manager fix.  965 doesn’t seem to have the required features to do it.  

Yeah, but how? I tried all the things, it’s off in the widget, o2 Level is off, no Garmin Pay setup, but still it will turn on, when I start an activity. And it will use it, although my HR strap is connected. Very annoying.

To be honest, I always check the light is off to see if the strap is connected.  At least I thought I did, if this has been like this for while, I clearly don’t check it as much as I thought.  

in all honesty, it doesn’t really matter. The battery drain is non existent.  It was just a handy way to check the strap was recording data.  

This is dumb. I’ve been using this for years. First Garmin admits their OHR is not accurate and why they insist you use a HRM for consistency. Secondly, who the heck is using Garmin Pay during an activity with an HRM connected? Is this for all the Peloton moms getting smoothies in between their classes? This is ridiculous and it does have affect on battery life. If it didn’t, they wouldn’t have disabled it before. This also lets me know that the HRM is connected. Theres no reason that if the watch detected that the HRm dropped that it could not enable the OHR in a split second. Garmin is dumb. They don’t ask customers. They just do what the want. This pretty much settles me going to Coros. I hate Garmin’s BS. They change stuff they don’t need to. This pretty much guarantees a forced upgrade when the battery life doesn’t last as long. Garmin and Apple are the only companies that design their software to reduce battery life instead of preserve it. Complete opposite of what they should. 

First, the most recent 19.13 beta introduced a setting to toggle wrist hr while wearing a strap on/off, so problem solved in the next update.

Second, you cannot turn on wrist hr "in a split second". Just look at the hr reading when you put on the watch, it takes at least 10 seconds for the reading to stabilise, even when your wrist is stationary.