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!

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

  1. Thank you for this! I was having trouble with my FR220 not recognising the HRM, did the reset as described and it now works. Brilliant, and it saved me either £40 for a new HRM or £160 for a new Forerunner 🙂

  2. Thanks that worked. Shorted the battery terminals for 5 seconds & reinstalled the battery.

  3. Thanks for this tip. It worked on my forerunner 110 HRM. I found your post when I was looking to replace the whole monitor. I just flipped over the battery and left it there the time needed to find a paperclip to be able to remove it. Inserted a new battery. Put the monitor on and it was recognized after a few seconds.
    Thanks again for sharing this,
    Boz

  4. Thanks! My Garmin Forerunner 220 wouldn’t hook back up with my heart rate monitor either. A properly mangle paper clip did the trick! Thanks!

  5. Worked like a charm after 2 battery reinstalls. Same new battery. Garmin 510 HRM.
    Cheers

  6. Can someone just explain again what to do as I’ve tried turning battery over and I’m still getting no reading.

  7. Awesome was frustrated tried 2new batteries no joy until reset it as described by putting battery in backwards for ten seconds then all good.

    Thanks!

  8. I have had to do this repeatedly between runs… augh.. anyone else having to do this excessively as well?

  9. Worked for me too! Took some time until I found this post which saved me from buying a new one.
    I only had to short the connectors for a couple of seconds for it to reset.

    Thank!

  10. I have just replaced my battery the heart rate monitor keeps dropping signal , it connects to my edge 520 and my 920xt watch but keeps dropping connection after about 10-15 seconds, I have tried 2 new batteries and also done the short circuit trick but still not working as it should, it is getting really annoying now 🙁

  11. Bypassed the battery contacts, then washed the HRM strap and it finally worked.

    Thanks!

  12. After nearly throwing my device against the wall out of frustration, I have discovered your post. Thank you for this! It worked the first time and my Edge 800 picked up the HRM! You rock Daniel!

  13. Great advice – tried everything for three days after battery change (fellow riders et al) and this is the only advice that worked!

  14. WOW! thank you so much for it! Didn’t work before, and now in 1 second it paired! Thank you !!!

  15. Any way you could post a pic of what it looks like to bypass with a paperclip? I just don’t want to break the device.

  16. This genuinely works. So pleased I found this. Do Garmin even recommend this in their instructions?

  17. Any possibility of posting images with instructions or a vid? Ive been trying but it wont work 🙁

  18. Fantastisch! Werkt perfect. Gewoon de batterij even omgekeerd installeren, daarna weer verwijderen en op de juiste manier installeren… klaar! Werkt direct weer.

  19. Worked for me as well. Why doesn’t Garmin suggest this in their manual?

  20. I also had that problem.
    By mistake I inserted a CR2025, but as I see the polarity and the voltage are the same (measured 3,28 V).
    Then I replaced it with a new CR2032 and my garmin can not find the hrm anymore 🙁
    Do you think the voltage of 3,28 was too high for the device?

    The fix with shortcutting the connectors didn’t help 🙁

  21. This worked great. Thanks! For those who are confused, I was not able to figure out how to insert a photo in here. Take out the battery. There are two prongs in the center ( I think this is the negative side of the battery). There is a very small tab of brass to the side, tucked under the rubber waterproof gasket (positive side?). Bridge a paper clip from the prongs to the tab. I held mine there for a few seconds. Then I put the battery back in, screwed it back together, searched for the HRM and voila! I took it out for a test run and it showed up on my Garmin.

  22. Worked perfectly! ….of course I didn’t see this until after I had ordered a new strap, wtf :-/

  23. Oh wow, worked just like that. Reversed the battery and it was as good as always. Only noting now that I am reading this 6 years later and still good advice.

  24. Thank you Robert E. Kahn and Vint Cerf for inventing Internet… save me money, time and headache solving my HR Strap problem/mistery… and aslo thanks to Daniel.

  25. Thank you so much for the helpful advice! I was resigned to the expensive alternative of sensor and strap replacement – until I stumbled upon your web page.
    I bent the paper clip’s rounded end outward until the bend just bridged the gap between the center prongs and the one copper connector at the edge of the circular battery tray. As another already said, look beneath the silicone rubber gasket to find the perimeter contact.
    My Garmin 510 HR display now displays as designed.
    GREAT FIX!

  26. Monitor stopped working, so changed the battery, but still no joy. Was trying to work out if the monitor or the strap had failed and found this. Shorted out the battery contacts with a bit of wire, put the new battery back in and bingo, it’s working again. Saved me a lot of time, trouble and probably money. Thanks.

  27. Another confirmation. Battery reversal didn’t work, but a safety pin did. THANKS!

  28. Awesome trick, worked with just a few seconds of the battery being reversed after a bike ride and run without the monitor working and a few hours of troubleshooting!! Thanks for posting!

  29. Awesome, thank you so much…I can gone through countless batteries. I even tested the batteries with a meter they seemed to have juice but I could never get it to pick up One time I even bought a I new strap which did work, but I suspect all I needed to do was flipped the battery. I put the battery in backwards for 5 secs, flipped it around and bingo it connected…why doesn’t Garmin mention this as one of the first things to try??

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