Awaiting arrival of my Ticker HR strap, once I sync with the watch do I have to sync each time or will the watch automatically sync with the strap? If wrist HR is on, does the HR strap override that or do you have to turn off the wrist monitor? With my Garmin 235, a 1 time sync automatically goes to and uses the Garmin HR strap and overrides the wrist monitor. Thanks for info. Nick
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
BT HR strap questions
- Thread starter Long Run Nick
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I use a strap with every workout....just works better for weight training. The watch will automatically sync with the strap every time you turn the strap on after initial setup. It also automatically shuts off the apple watch's HR sensor and defaults to the strap.
Thanks. Got the Ticker today. Having an issue pairing it. Watch recognizes it but advises it is not connected? I put it on and have it pretty close to my watch. Assistance will be appreciated. Nick
If I knew this would be so complicated, I would not have bought the Ticker.
All I want is to have HR reading using the Nike app with the Ticker. I have the Runfitapp on the watch. Attempted syncing, the watch recognizes the Ticker but says it is not connected.
My thought was I could put the HR strap on, have the Advanced turned off and get a more accurate HR reading with the strap.
I guess I thought once I can get the watch to recognize Ticker all I had to,do was start a run with the Nike app and the HR reading would come from the HT strap. Help me please.
With my Garmin I put my Garmin HR strap on, bingo my 235 recomizes it, I get my HR and I go run.
Sometimes I think I am high tech, then I get baffled. Help an old guy. Nick🙂
All I want is to have HR reading using the Nike app with the Ticker. I have the Runfitapp on the watch. Attempted syncing, the watch recognizes the Ticker but says it is not connected.
My thought was I could put the HR strap on, have the Advanced turned off and get a more accurate HR reading with the strap.
I guess I thought once I can get the watch to recognize Ticker all I had to,do was start a run with the Nike app and the HR reading would come from the HT strap. Help me please.
With my Garmin I put my Garmin HR strap on, bingo my 235 recomizes it, I get my HR and I go run.
Sometimes I think I am high tech, then I get baffled. Help an old guy. Nick🙂
Night Spring
macrumors P6
I've never used a Heart Rate strap, so I don't know the details about how they work with the watch. But sounds like you are thinking of the Apple Watch as a stand alone device like the Garmin. It isn't. Almost everything goes through the iPhone. My guess is you need to pair the Heartrate strap to the phone, and go running with your phone. I doubt the Nike Watch app and the Heartrate strap has a way to communicate directly to each other. You have to keep in mind that the idea of running with the Watch only, without the phone, just became practical with the release of S2 Watch. The ecosystem is built around the assumption that you will have your iPhone with you, and it's taking a long time for hardware and software makers to reconfigure things to accommodate people who want to run with the watch only.
The rest can be ignored... (it's mostly wrong, by the way).
[doublepost=1479718821][/doublepost]
what do you mean by, "have the Advanced turned off"?
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...-polar-bt-hr-monitor-experimentation.2016060/ - this guy's testing suggests it works, but the app doesn't display it while you're in the run (which isn't massively useful...)
the tickr should be extremely simple to connect... and once you've done it once (which you have, as its stored in settings and says "not connected" everything else should happen automatically).
Important to note - you have to have both pins closed for the tickr to work - if you're testing connecting it while you're not wearing it, it's not going to connect. Using the built in apple workout app, or the heart rate app, the optical HRM should start up initially... at the same time, the bleepy lights on the front of the wahoo tickr will have a little party to show you the watch is connecting to it over bluetooth. then after about 5-10 seconds the optical HRM will cut out and the bluetooth HRM will take over.
Night Spring
macrumors P6
Glad to have the input of someone who has experience with Heartrate straps. And that other thread lists exactly the kinds of issues that I think are bothering Nick. He expected the app to display the data during the run, and for all data to sync across all apps and services after the run. But no. A lot of things just don't work the way you expect them to.
I know most of the details of what I said might be wrong, but I wanted to let Nick know that the problems he is having isn't ALL the result of him being technologically challenged. A large part of it is that apps are badly designed and/or buggy. We shouldn't need a thread like the one you linked to, but here we are, trying to figure out how things work.
My Forum friends, thank so much for helping me out. Night Spring, your explanation makes a lot of sense and helps vindicate some of my tech ignorance. Not sure if vindicate is the right word, but I like it🙂
I guess Garmin has spoiled me. I have to remember that a lot of Forum members are not wrapped up in running without their phones. A dinosaur like me got running decades before the portable phone showed up. I tried running with music in the early 80's and had a device I strapped to my arm- I think it just did radio stations. I soon realized I enjoyed running, for running's sake. Therefore, no music, no phone.
Nico, the "advanced" I mentioned is on the Nike app. If you select it the HR from the wrist monitor will show HR. If you don't select it, no HR.
I had read the post you referred to but got a little lost in all the data🙂
A little data of my own. Ran a 15 mile run yesterday morning with my AW2 Nike and my Garmin 235 with ant+ HR monitor strap. Had the HR on the Nike app also.
Results: AW showed 15.32 mile-- the Garmin 15.25 miles. Pretty tight.
AW showed avg HR at 131 while Garmin w/strap showed 133. I am starting some marathon prep training and ran for 12 minutes and walked for 1 minute. The whole effort was quite easy and relaxed. For body metrics data geeks my Max HR is around 190- and that my friends at 73 years old. Back in my prime- early 40's my Max HR was around 207!
Hopefully not TMI. Looks like I send the Tickr back. Again thanks for helping me out. Nick
I guess Garmin has spoiled me. I have to remember that a lot of Forum members are not wrapped up in running without their phones. A dinosaur like me got running decades before the portable phone showed up. I tried running with music in the early 80's and had a device I strapped to my arm- I think it just did radio stations. I soon realized I enjoyed running, for running's sake. Therefore, no music, no phone.
Nico, the "advanced" I mentioned is on the Nike app. If you select it the HR from the wrist monitor will show HR. If you don't select it, no HR.
I had read the post you referred to but got a little lost in all the data🙂
A little data of my own. Ran a 15 mile run yesterday morning with my AW2 Nike and my Garmin 235 with ant+ HR monitor strap. Had the HR on the Nike app also.
Results: AW showed 15.32 mile-- the Garmin 15.25 miles. Pretty tight.
AW showed avg HR at 131 while Garmin w/strap showed 133. I am starting some marathon prep training and ran for 12 minutes and walked for 1 minute. The whole effort was quite easy and relaxed. For body metrics data geeks my Max HR is around 190- and that my friends at 73 years old. Back in my prime- early 40's my Max HR was around 207!
Hopefully not TMI. Looks like I send the Tickr back. Again thanks for helping me out. Nick
you seem to be suggesting you're going to turn off the heart rate monitor and then surprised that the heart rate doesn't connect...
the watch decides to use the bluetooth HRM over the optical one, not you 🙂 basically, when the optical HRM is activated and there's a bluetooth strap detected, it'll do it automatically. if you turn off the optical HRM in any third party app, there'll be no connection to the tickr at all.
I get that. I have not run with a BT HR strap, just got it yesterday. I think you misunderstand the turning off the AW wrist monitor. I turn it off sometimes and run with my Garmin235 on the other wrist with the Garmin ant+ HR strap. With the Garmin, if I use the HR strap the wrist monitor is ignored and the reading is from the HR strap. With the HR turned off on the AW using the Nike app there is no HR reading. If I keep the AW HR on I compare the 2 Heart rates. I note here that the AW wrist monitor jumps around more, but interestingly, the average HR is pretty close to what I get running with the Garmin HR strap on the same run.
As Night Spring had written, it appears I can't run with just the Tickr and my AW 2 without my phone and get a HR reading from the Tickr HR strap on my watch.
Does that clarify? I appreciate your input. Nick
You said "My thought was I could put the HR strap on, have the Advanced turned off and get a more accurate HR reading with the strap." That would disable all heart rate readings on the apple watch; built in HRM or bluetooth HRM. This is my point...
You're taking advice from someone who basically said in their first sentence they have no experience of using a bluetooth HRM with their apple watch and ignoring someone who does know and... telling me the opposite of what i say is true... it's going to be hard to help you at this point but i'll break it down simply to how it works.
- Pair tickr with apple watch
- Any time the optical heart rate monitor is turned on, the apple watch will connect to the bluetooth HRM and then disable the optical heart rate monitor itself.
OK. I am about to go out and run. I have the AW HR on. Put the Ticker on, saw the blue lights and red for heart beats. Now the BT reading on the AW states not paired? It shows the little wheel turning and turning. It recognizes the Tickr but says it is not paired. I will let you know what happens when I return from my run. Be patient with me. Nick🙂
Night Spring
macrumors P6
But I do use the Nike Running Club app, which Nick is trying to use with his Heartrate strap. Your comments suggest that you don't have experience with the NRC app.
What we need is someone who has experience with both. Nick, perhaps you should post in that other thread.
[doublepost=1479740792][/doublepost]
If it says it's not paired, it's most likely not paired. Perhaps nicho can help you with how to complete the pairing process?
Btw, all these names are starting to get me confused. Nike, nick, nicho.... 😱
not paired? earlier you said not connected... they're two very different states, nick. not connected means it is paired, but not connected and the watch will try to use it. not paired means it won't conenct at all.
ftaok
macrumors 604
I've noticed that the Apple watch is very peculiar when pairing up my polar h7. Nico is right when he says in that you'll see the sensor on the Bluetooth screen say either "connected", "not connected" or "not paired".
Connected is obvious, it means the Apple watch will turn off the built in sensor and get hr readings from the strap.
Not connected means the hr strap has been paired in the past, but it's not connected. This could be because it's connected to something else or that it's of our out of range.
Not paired means the Apple watch sees the device, but had not yet established a connection.
In my experience, the Apple watch works fine with a bt hr strap. The workout app easily gets the data from the strap without any fuss. The NRC app, on the other hand, is the problem. It doesn't seem to display the data from the strap, but when a hr strap is connected, the built in sensor is not available, so the NRC app shows nothing.
I think the NRC app is broken for this feature.
Connected is obvious, it means the Apple watch will turn off the built in sensor and get hr readings from the strap.
Not connected means the hr strap has been paired in the past, but it's not connected. This could be because it's connected to something else or that it's of our out of range.
Not paired means the Apple watch sees the device, but had not yet established a connection.
In my experience, the Apple watch works fine with a bt hr strap. The workout app easily gets the data from the strap without any fuss. The NRC app, on the other hand, is the problem. It doesn't seem to display the data from the strap, but when a hr strap is connected, the built in sensor is not available, so the NRC app shows nothing.
I think the NRC app is broken for this feature.
Nico, I bow to you. I am sorry I miss used the term. The watched showed the Tickr paired but not connected. I wrongly assumed that it had also to be connected.
I am pretty sure the Tickr worked with the Nike app on my run. I ran an ez 6 miler and tried a few weak pick ups- hey, at 73 following yesterday's 15 miler I don't recover like I did in my 30's/40's/ and even to my 50's.
The HR seemed much more responsive and realistic. My pick ups quickly attained a HR that seemed right to me. Easing off the HR returned to kind of my normal for a ez run.
I didn't notice much difference in battery drain. About 1 hour10 minutes with GPS and HR on- hopefully from the Tickr- burned 22%.
Thanks for helping me out. I appreciate it. Nick
PS Night Spring I appreciate you too.🙂
Night Spring
macrumors P6
It does have to be connected. But once a Bluetooth device is paired, it automatically connects when in range and turned on.
If the HR strap worked during your run, then it has to have connected at some point.
the way that the tickr automatically connects when the optical HRM is turned on will mean you'll almost certainly never see it as "connected" in settings... unless you check the watch's settings mid-run.
Again guys, thanks. Rest day Tues. Wednesday, I will head out using the Tickr and test it some more with the Nike app.
I had the Tickr and it gave me nothing but trouble in regards to pairing. I picked up a polar instead and haven't had a problem since....
ftaok
macrumors 604
I'm personally finding it very difficult to pair my Apple watch with the Polar H7. On the iPhone, the pairing happens quickly and consistently. On the Apple Watch, not so much. I usually have to go through a lot of voodoo steps, including but not limited to "forgetting" the H7, disconnecting my BT headphones, rebooting the watch, etc.
But once I get it connected, it's good. My BT headphones (Jaybirds) pair and connect with the apple watch just fine, so I don't think it's a BT issue. Maybe it's the Polar's fault.
Does anyone have these kinds of issues with their HR straps? Make/model info could help too.
But once I get it connected, it's good. My BT headphones (Jaybirds) pair and connect with the apple watch just fine, so I don't think it's a BT issue. Maybe it's the Polar's fault.
Does anyone have these kinds of issues with their HR straps? Make/model info could help too.