Profiles and Sensors.

no, sensors are not linked to profiles ( only indoor has some restriction for radar )

Your Edge will essentially have a "pool" of sensors that is paired, and will connect to those that are turned on and/or activated when you get ready to ride. 

Sensors are not part of the profile. The Edge uses whatever sensor it detects. This is much simpler and easier to use. However nothing prevent you from creating a profile that is more specific to a bike, for example if you have one with a power meter you could have a profile that display that info while your other profiles don't. 

Dang the luck.  Thanks for the validation on my thoughts. 

Thank for the reply 

Thank you

This really should not be an issue. If a sensor is not detected it is not used. In the case of the radar if you start the ride and there is no paired radar in range, you simply ride as if you have none. I use a radar all the time and when I MTB I don't have it with me, and on the Edge is simply see nothing related to the radar.

So what happens if i use the same device for Road and MTB and I start a MTB ride from my home?

Lights and radar are on the road bike and set start and power up for convenience.  What happens then please?

Former Member out of interest, how many CPU cycles are burnt up searching for sensors, GPS, forming light networks etc and how does this affect the responsiveness of the unit?  How would this be different if sensors could be enabled/disabled per profile so that the units were not searching unnecessarily for sleeping sensors?

Please see other peoples posts about forming light networks and ensuring that other sensors are awake first before turning the units on.

I'm riding the turbo, why are you forming a light network?

I'm going for a ride on my MTB, why are you forming a light network?  Why have you connect to my trainer?

Is searching for sensors that are never going to be used as part of the profile a good use of scarce unit resources?

You can complain or find simple solutions, I rather do the last. So your issues I resolved a long time ago and they don't bother me. Here are a few tips for you, use them or not at your discretion but please don't blast an angry reply if you don't like them.

1) When I am done using my lights (I have the 500 head light and a varia radar) I completely turn them off by holding the power button about 3 seconds, until the blue connectivity light turns on, then release the button. This shut off the ANT+. 

2) When I set the lights on a bike and I want to use them, I turn them on the same way, power button for 3 seconds. They light until the Edge connects and then turn off by themselves.

3) My Edge is set setup to activitate the lights only once I pressed the Start/Stop button, not as soon the the lights connects. I think I had to change the default setting for that. It is part of the lights options. This avoid lights turning On in the garage before I start the ride and also allow for 5)

4) When I do indoor training, usually in Zwift, I don't use my Edge anyway. I have zwift setup so it automatically upload the ride to Garmin Connect and Strava so I have no need for the Edge indoor.  I know some use the Edge for that, I don't.

5) If you have the Edge setup like in 3) you can simply wait that you are about 100m from you garage before pressing Start and it will by then be out of range and the lights will not turn on, even if you didn't  shut them down.

6) I use lights on my MTB quite regularly for night riding (I then add some more powerful lights), and also sometimes when bikepacking in which case the bike goes on some roads at time. so MTB does not mean no light. For the regular bike park rider maybe, but not in general.

7) You could do with the trainer the same I do with the light. Simply have the habit of turning it off when you are done. You will save power, save wear on the electronics/power supply, and solve your Edge connection  issue.

8) when I leave on a ride if a sensor didn't connect, I use the control Widget and touch the little connection wheel next to the sensor icons. If a sensor was not awake it gets picked-up then without having to go in the menus. Very rarely my Edge does not get all the sensors once I start riding. Sometimes Di2 takes a minute or two because it takes several shifts before its transmitter awake but the Edge always then connect without intervention.

Overall you make valid points that some connections should not happen in come profiles. Many years back Garmin had the Edge work the other way around. They had Bike Profiles instead of Activity profiles, and for each bike profile all sensors had to be had coded (configured) and a sensor could not be on more than one bike at a time. That way of doing it was total nightmare as people more and more were moving "sensors" from bike to bike. They replaced with the Activity profiles and made it much easier to move sensors around. The few quirks this causes are far less of an issue than what we had before. I am sure a few tweaks could be made to make it better, maybe disabling a sensor in a particular profile could help. It is not perfect but the use cases are limitless, and for every user that want it one way there is another that want it the other way. As long as I can find my way out I am good to go. I just want to ride my bikes. Cheers.

Sorry martin you misunderstand me.  I'm not blasting anyone or indeed complaining.  I'm simply pointing out that there are people out there that have different use cases and views than yours.

Being able to disable sensors in certain Profiles would be a solution that would seem to meet many people expectations and requirements.

Thank you for your suggestions.  Enjoy riding your bike, its a lovely day here today.