Garminoffers a wide array offitness trackersand smartwatches that provide accurate heart rate tracking during workouts and throughout the day. That works great if you are outside doing a workout or only need your watch to collect that data. But there are times when it’s useful to share your heart rate with other apps, devices, or workout equipment. For example, if you like to ride thePelotonor use a treadmill, you may want heart rate monitoring during your workout along with the data the machine is collecting.
Luckily, Garmin makes it easy to broadcast your heart rate. With the broadcasting tool, you can share that information with a paired phone, exercise equipment, workout apps, or even your workout buddies. If that interests you, then here’s how to broadcast your heart rate on your Garmin device.
The best Garmin watches for tracking your fitness
No matter how you like to get movement in, the best Garmin watches will help you take your fitness to the next level.
How to broadcast your heart rate from your Garmin over Bluetooth using a Virtual Run
Virtual Run makes it fast to share your heart rate data
If you have a compatible Garmin device, you can broadcast your heart rate over Bluetooth and ANT+. The method for doing so will depend on your device. Some Garmin devices will automatically broadcast your heart rate over both Bluetooth and ANT+ when you use the method explained later in the article. Other devices will only broadcast over Bluetooth when you start a Virtual Run. You may need to refer to Garmin’s website to verify what yourdevice is compatible with.
How to broadcast your heart rate from your Garmin using Broadcast Heart Rate
Broadcast without tracking a workout on your watch
This method will broadcast your heart rate over ANT+ for devices compatible with an ANT+ connection. It will also automatically broadcast over Bluetooth for many devices that only support Bluetooth connection.
How to always broadcast your heart rate during an activity
Customize your activity settings to always broadcast your heart rate
You can also set your watch to broadcast your heart rate by default for certain activities. This is ideal if you use the treadmill frequently, for example, or always want to share your heart rate with an app or someone else while hiking.
Q: Which Garmin devices support heart rate broadcasting?
A long list of Garmin’s devices support heart rate broadcasting via either Bluetooth or ANT+. Devices that support Bluetooth broadcasting include the Descent, epix, fēnix, Forerunner, Instinct, Venu, and vívoactive series of watches, among others. For a full list of devices, be sure to checkGarmin’s websiteor yourdevice’s manual.
Garmin’sheart rate monitorsalso support broadcasting over Bluetooth connection.
Q: Why should you broadcast your heart rate?
There are a few reasons you may want to broadcast your heart rate from your Garmin device. If you use exercise equipment like indoor bikes or treadmills, your watch won’t gather any distance or pace data. The exercise equipment will, but won’t be able to read your heart rate continuously or at all, depending on the machine. By broadcasting your heart rate to a compatible piece of equipment, you can get all of your workout data together on the machine itself. That allows you to see your heart rate during the workout, a must if you base your workouts on heart rate zones, and give you a more complete picture of your effort and results when you are done.
You may also want to broadcast your heart rate if you are recording your activity using an app other than Garmin. Zwift is one such example. Just like above, when you broadcast your heart rate, you’ll get real-time heart rate data in the app you are using to record, even if you don’t have a heart rate monitor.
