Garmin Heart Rate and Unit tips and tricks

Garmin Heart Rate Strap Fix

"My Garmin Heart Rate strap gives incorrect readings from time to time..."

It is the most common problem with Garmin heart rate straps. I have been through 3 myself others even more! Garmin have a good warranty service and will replace them without too much hassle, but when your out of warranty you need to shell out another £40 for a unit that might only last a few months or not work from day 1.

A little background information...
Polar invented the worlds first wireless heart rate strap, so its safe to say they are the experts. I have a polar strap and watch that is practically as old as me and has never ever given a false reading or not worked, unfortunately its not compatible with the Garmin transponder pod, but they make one that is! well almost with a little modification...

Here is the workaround.

Step 1: Purchase the Polar Soft Strap for £13

Buy Polar Soft Strap on amazon

Step 2: Take the ant+ transmitter off your current Garmin Strap

Step 3 : Take your new Polar strap out. You cannot just stick the Garmin transmitter straight onto the polar strap unfortunately as you will find the little rubber seals are raised compared to the Garmin ones. The idea is to trim these down ever so slightly so that the transmitter will pop onto the strap and stay on securely. You do not want to trim so much off that the button is overly exposed as a sweat build up would cause a short circuit to the other terminal and possibly upset the readings. Get yourself some small sharp scissors/scalpel and trim off the excess rubber. The remaining rubber should be just about flush with the terminal.

Garmin won't mount

This is a fairly common problem from time to time and can happen after a ride in the rain if a little water gets into the mini USB connection. or sometimes when you plug your garmin in for no reason it just turns the device on and you can't access the ride data.

The WD-40 trick : This is to be done with caution. Let your garmin dry out fully try using a hair dryer on low heat blowing gently into the mini USB socket to try and dry out any water. If it still does not mount spray a tiny bit of WD-40 or eletrical contact spray in there and leave for a day or so give it a further dry out and attempt to mount the device again. (WD-40 drives out the water)

Forcing your Garmin to mount: plug your Garmin in and very quickly after it starts to turn on hold the lap/reset button on the Garmin 510/800/810, menu button on the Garmin 500. The device should mount as an external hard drive and you should be able to upload the files to strava etc using the comunicator plugin or via manual file upload by browing into the file directory typically Garmin/activities/ 

Still not working/Last resort (Try at your own risk)

Information on how to factory reset your Garmin