Heart rate signal stops updating mid-ride and can't unpair

I have a wrist-based heart rate sensor that I got working with trainerday using an ANT+ dongle connected by USB. BTW thanks for implementing support for this combination!

I’ve stopped seeing complete signal drop-outs, but lately I am experiencing an issue where the BPM value seen in the trainerday app does not match the value being recorded and broadcast from the heart rate monitor; it’s just a flat line after a certain time. After this point, it becomes impossible to unpair the sensor (even when the dongle is completely unplugged). During the activity the separate BLE connection seems unaffected, which means I can keep using trainerday to control my smart trainer in erg mode. So the workaround I found is to save the activities separately and then merge them afterward, which is somewhat annoying.

This seems like a software bug, so I was hoping someone can investigate and suggest a fix.

Maybe you can see this example: Trainer Day

Here is some more info about the setup I’m using:

Garmin vivoactive 3 software version 8.20 and WHR version 20.03.31 (broadcasting via ANT+ “in activity”)
Moto G Power running Android 11 RPM31.Q1-54-13-11
trainerday app version 3.3.6
ANT Radio Service 4.16.00
ANT USB Service 1.5.2
ANT+ Plugins 3.8.10

Thanks,
Bert

Hi Bert, I just ordered a Ant+ dongle so I can test this with my watch but I will have it in 2-days. My tester had an Ant+ issue today too and I am not sure if it is related. I will let you know but I agree it sounds like a software issue.

The same thing happened again in another activity, although this time the app actually let me unpair the HRM and reset the connection. So it seems as though the comment “becomes impossible to unpair the sensor (even when the dongle is completely unplugged)” that I made in the first post is not necessarily symptomatic of the underlying issue.

Here is the new ride where the BPM freeze took place, in case it helps: Trainer Day (around 17:50 and 44:16 in this case, each time followed by a complete drop out when the ANT+ dongle was removed and the device connection reset).

We have some Ant+ improvements coming later this week hopefully it will resolve this.

I’ve had issues w/ my HR strap/monitor prev (magene H64) where it would freeze sometime and not go up/down. This is a connection issue w/ the Magene and it’s battery I think.

In your case, you mentioned that the signal only drops on TD App? but you were able to record it properly (w/o issues) on another device and merge it afterwards? Is that correct? If this is true, then likely not an issue w/ the device.

Just wanted to confirm.

That’s correct, the device itself doesn’t seem to have any issue and records HR data properly through the duration of the freeze; it’s only inside TD app where the BPM value does not change. I verified this by inspection of the saved HRM data exported to a separate tcx file, which is what I merge with the TD power data.

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