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Forerunner 965 Lack of Exercise Bike Support

BillV2
14 days ago

I love my Forerunner 965 for running. It’s reliable, has excellent battery life, and does everything I want outdoors.

But I’m incredibly frustrated with how it handles indoor cycling. It has a built-in “Bike Indoor” activity — which strongly suggests it can connect to gym bikes via Bluetooth or ANT+ — but it refuses to connect to AssaultBike or TRUE Fitness bikes at my gym.

These bikes clearly broadcast data over Bluetooth; they are instantly discoverable with my GymTrakr app on my phone. That connection is seamless — open the app, see the bike, tap to connect.

With the Forerunner? Nothing. No prompts, no auto-detection, and no clear way to get it to pair. I’ve tapped through nearly every menu and setting I could find in that activity.

If the Forerunner does support this functionality, Garmin needs to make it much more intuitive. When starting a “Bike Indoor” activity, the watch should simply ask: “Would you like to search for a Bluetooth/ANT+ bike?”

Until then, I’m stuck using third-party apps to get the data my watch should be collecting.

Garmin: please fix this or at least explain why your high-end fitness watch can’t do what a basic app on my phone can.

EDIT :  Looks like these bikes at the gym will never connect to the Forerunner 965 because they use Bluetooth FTMS which Garmin does not support

  • 0 14 days ago

    Is there any workaround for this?

    Right now, I’m stuck saving two separate activities to Strava:

    1. Power and mileage from GymTrakr

    2. Heart rate from the Forerunner 965

    I’d really like a way to combine this data into a single activity in Strava. If the Forerunner can’t pull bike data directly, is there another solution out there to merge or sync this info more cleanly?

    Any help or ideas would be appreciated.

  • 0 14 days ago in reply to BillV2

    I have no idea about this , but if you go to Sensors and Accessories in the main menu can it not be added there ?

    Alternatively can you broadcast the HR to the app from the watch.

  • 0 14 days ago in reply to S.M.R.

    I was worried the Main Menu approach would be more of a "fixed" connection like my Phone. Since it's a public gym it's not always the same bike I use I wasn't sure if that's what should be used.  I did try the "Search All" today & it wasn't able to find anything.

    I did play around with the HR broadcast on the TRUE bike. It advertises on the machine itself that it can pull HR data from Apple Watch so I assumed it'd also be able to pull from Garmin. But I tried a few times & TRUE bike was never able to find it.  The AssaultBike which I've been using more frequently of late is a little more basic & doesn't advertise that feature. I can dig into it a bit. 

    Do you know, can the Forerunner connect to Bluetooth sensors or do the have to be ANT?  Like I said, I did try the "Search All" today & it couldn't find anything. When it couldn't find it, I opened the Gymtrakr app & it was instantly discovered.

  • 0 14 days ago in reply to BillV2

    I don't know if I ever tried explicitly selecting the search type.  I guess these exercise bikes are kinda like a "Smart Trainer". Next time I'm at the gym I can try searching for that instead of "Search All" to see if it discovers anything.

  • 0 14 days ago in reply to BillV2

    Maybe you broadcast the HR to the GymTrakr App on the phone not the bike itself?

    They can connect via BT and Ant+ I believe (see linked support page)

    https://www8.garmin.com/manuals/webhelp/GUID-0221611A-992D-495E-8DED-1DD448F7A066/EN-US/GUID-0AA57B88-BA13-4983-ADAC-7EA7DABC735D.html

    Hopefully someone with some better knowledge of the actual situation can help.

  • 0 14 days ago in reply to S.M.R.

    Thanks I'll give that a shot!  

    I just asked ChatGPT & it's telling me that what I'm experiencing is expected behavior

    TLDR
    - GymTrakr app works because it supports Bluetooth FTMS.
    - Forerunner 965 doesn’t — it only supports ANT+ and limited Bluetooth sensor profiles.

  • 0 14 days ago in reply to BillV2

    Ah our great friend and assistant , Well good luck!