How to get the Garmin heart rate monitor to work after a Battery change

This week I tried to change the Battery on my Garmin heart rate monitor ( HRM2-SS ). The change itself is not that difficult – only remove the 4 screws at the backside, open the cover, change the old Battery with a new CR2032, close the cover and place the screws back. After that the Heart rate was not shown in my Forerunner or Edge…
To fix the problem I tried to reconnect the monitor with the forerunner manymany times – without any success.
A colleague of mine who uses a (optical) nearly similar polar heart belt, gave me the hint to short-circuiting the monitor for a few minutes. Bypassing the battery contacts should cause a reset of the device. This could easily done with a paper clip or by inserting the battery in the wrong direction. The contacts of the monitor are installed in a way that the misplaced battery will only cause a bypass between the two contacts. Be careful: don’ t give reverse polarity to the device – only bypass the connectors!
After this procedure the heart rate monitor build up a proper connection to my garmin computers and every thing works as expected. By the way – i love my Garmin devices!

261 thoughts on “How to get the Garmin heart rate monitor to work after a Battery change

  1. Thank you soooo much. My blue TRI HRM failed last year when I changed batteries so resorted to an older version. Then today my husband’s did the same so googled.. .and found your thread. It worked a dream. Straight away! Thanks again

  2. Same as all above. I thought my HRM was a goner but then tried this as last ditch attempt before it was going in the bin and voila! Now working again! Cheers!

  3. After attempting, in vain, to connect Garmin premium heart rate monitor to Zwift, it was no longer recognised by my Garmin Edge 530. I spent a few hours trying to figure it out, and was resigned to buying a new strap, until I stumbled across this. Initial scepticism was overwhelmed by my sense that at that stage I had nothing to lose. Well it ruddy well worked first time! Mega grateful, thanks for sharing!

  4. Yes, it worked like a charm. I was able to pair a really old HRM-1G (10 years at least) that I though was toast with a new Edge 530. Didn’t want to pair, tried all the Garmin recommendations. Then I came across this fix, reversed the battery for only 1 minute, and reinstalled the battery correctly. SHAZAM! Thank you very much, you saved us all a bunch of $$$. I sure wish Garmin would step up and post this… ( I guess they wouldn’t sell many new units ).
    Cheers

  5. Brilliant advice! It worked for me with my Garmin heart monitor. Many thanks!

  6. After trying everything that made sense, I found this advice. Put the battery in backwards to short the contacts and success! Saved me from buying a new HRM strap. Thanks

  7. Still works!!! HRM2-SS here. Suddenly went dead. I went through all the normal steps & then some (recruited my old Polar HR band), but still no HR on my Edge 830. This was my last resort. 2 Minutes later, and it’s working like a charm! If you’re still reading these comments from your 2011 post, THANK YOU, DANIEL!!! I have a big mountain bike festival tomorrow morning and was not looking forward to not being able to monitor my HR.

  8. You saved my hrm tri from going to trash bin, and my wallet)

    You just need to be enough patient and wait for a while to reset sensor. I left it for a few minutes (few secs not enough), and it helped

    Thank you very much

  9. I just tested this and it worked too!!!

    Found the HRM that I haven’t used for a few years. Changed the battery initially and still didn’t work, so found this and gave it a go.. it worked!

    I left the HRM2-SS in tack with battery in and put a paperclip across the two metal contacts for a few minutes. Tried connecting again and connected immediately.

    Great post!

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