Connecting Apple Watch for Heart Rate Monitor with Wahoo Computer & Strava
 

Hi all,

I am trying to get HR stats uploaded to my Wahoo Elemnt BOLT computer / Elemnt phone app & Strava using my Apple Watch instead of buying the Wahoo HR monitor. I've seen/read several threads about that, several posts on the Strava community forum and in other places on internet, but it seems impossible. I've found a way do it manually using www.gotoes.org, but I'm not motivated enough to do this every time.

Has anyone found a solution to this? I mean, I already have a good bike computer & an apple watch and the last thing I want is to buy another damn product. It would be nice for my watch to directly send the HR info to either my bike computer or to Strava.

Right now, my bicycle's speed & cadence sensors are connected to my Elemnt Bolt computer that feeds the ELEMNT phone app & Strava. It's clean and effective.

Garmin watches are able to broadcast HR measured at the wrist over the air. Apple doesn't have a feature like that? Maybe possible to code one up, or does the walled garden prevent that?

The Strava app is supposed to work with apple watches. You mentioned Stava, so I assume you use their smartphone app. Fire off an email to their support people. If they don't get back with you soon, then check out Ride with GPS. https://ridewithgps.com/help/mobile/

I had a question about something the other day and with in the hour, they answered my email. In fact, I think the other two times I ask them something in the last ten years RWGPS responded with in an hour.

I use my Apple watch whenever I drive to a ride and I forget my bike computer or the computer is having fits or whatever. I also use it for walks/runs.

https://support.strava.com/hc/en-us/...pple-Watch-App

The OP wants the Strava App on the watch to read HR, along with speed and cadence sensors. From what I read, that’s not possible as Apple Watch does not pair with sensors. iPhone does pair with sensors. However, since the Apple Watch does not broadcast heart rate (like many of the Garmin watches), the iPhone won’t pair with HR from the Apple Watch. Bottom line, at present Apple Watch does not allow the Wahoo Bolt or any device to record heart rate along with cadence and speed sensor data.

The Apple Watch will pair with select sensors. I have paired mine with a HRM strap on occasion. I believe it will also pair with certain pieces of gym equipment. The heart of the matter is that it will not broadcast as if it’s a HRM itself (which I suspect is partly a privacy concern by Apple). Some Garmin watches will do that and I think maybe some from Polar.

I don't think this will work. Apple watch won't broadcast HR data to the Wahoo unit like a HR strap will.

To get the data into Strava with HR you'd need to be running the Strava app on the watch but it won't show on the bike computer. You'll wind up with two activities sync'd to Strava, then you go in and delete the non HR one. The only problem with this approach is if you have cadence/speed/power metrics running to the Wahoo as those probably won't pair with the Apple Watch. However I can't imagine there's any chance you don't have a HR strap but do have power meter.

JohnJ80- Polar doesn't broadcast HR, well not in any way you can get it to the Wahoo. The Polar Ignite "has" HR broadcast but it only works with Polar Club so its basically a gym/fitness class type of scenario.

At this point in time, I think you’d be hard pressed to use the Apple Watch as a true fitness tracker. You can use an old Garmin Forerunner 735 watch to record power, cadence, speed, and heart rate. HR can be recorded from the sensor on the watch or from a strap. If you wish you can also broadcast the HR signal from the Garmin 735 to ANT+ compatible devices. Can’t do that with Apple Watch. I’m sure Apple knows that there are other more capable fitness watches out there. But their target audience is more mainstream than us Strava (or Garmin Connect/Polar Flow) obsessed athletes.

I've been looking for a solution to this problem for a long time and no luck. The Apple ecosystem is very closed, but I believe that if Wahoo wanted, they could work around it by doing as Zwift does with Zwift Companion.And that would mean having an Apple Watch version of the Elemnt App just to get the heart rate and send it to the phone, but I guess that could cannibalize their Tickr product and they may not be super interested in that...

Hi at all
 

I found a solution.

you can use the app ,,BlueHeart’’.
It will Broadcast your heart rate via Bluetooth.

works perfectly for me.

greetings from Germany :thumb:

For my case with cycle meter, if another watch app came into focus, HR to cycle meter failed.

I spent the $55 to get the wahoo strap. 100% solid.

This worked for me! You have to install BlueHeart on your Apple Watch and your iPhone and then my Wahoo Elemnt Bolt picks up my Apple Watch as a heart rate sensor.

Thank you!

When I try this, it connects, but then I see a dash in the HR field. Any idea why?

FWIW, there's another app similar to Blueheart called Heartcast.

It's funny how complicated this is, I had no luck with those "broadcast HR" apps on my watch.

What I did have luck with was completely stop using Strava app on my watch and instead use Cyclemeter app. It has a watch app so it can get HR data and collect it. Once I'm done with my ride in Cyclemeter it automatically sends it to Strava. This might not help the OP because he has a BOLT, but if you use your phone as your cycling computer this has worked well for me. Why not use Strava? Cyclemeter can also pair to power meters, Strava app cannot.

You might need to reset Bluetooth in the app settings. It did this with me and also seemed to drop out a couple of times on my second ride using it but,, it quickly found my bpm again by itself while riding and shows no bpm dropouts on Strava.

Cool, I’ll try that, thanks!

Hi,

I can confirm that Apple watch does not support creating Bluetooth peripherals. There’s no problem connecting sensors, but you can’t get it to transmit data like a heart rate monitor would. I don’t know what the reason is, but I suspect it might be due to power consumption. Anyway, this restriction doesn’t apply to iphone apps, which is why you have apps that first transmit the HR data to the phone before being retransmitted as a peripheral that you can connect your head unit to.

I recommend you check out the Navigr8 pro app. It has this feature, but is also a fully fledged cycling computer. I actually ride with just Navigr8 running on my watch. I can easily connect my speed and cadence sensors and power meter to it and get my heart rate from the watch. No need for anything else😁

can it push your heart rate data to a bike computer though?

Yes it can, but only via the companion app on the phone. This is the only feature that depends on the phone app. Everything else runs standalone on the watch.

Thank you

only a few will do it over bluetooth though.

nope I wish it could I have to wear something else to get hy HR to my garmin. either another garmin watch or I use a wahoo arm HRM thats the easiest method.

I’ve never been able to make Blueheart work reliably. However, North Pole Engineering makes a dongle called Heartbeatz that works flawlessly. You pair the dongle to your bike computer as a HRM, you connect it to your Apple Watch with their app, and it works absolutely flawlessly.

https://npe-inc.com/heartbeatz/

Having read the OP's post and all the replies, this seems to be the best solution that I've read. I have used a strap based HRM for the last 10 years but would go this route if I wanted to use my Apple Watch as an HRM. However, I'm not too keen on using my watch as I really don't want to mess up the glass on a fall or crash. I'm wondering, though, does this require that the phone be in BTLE range for this to work? Nothing I saw on their website and video confirmed or denied that the phone must be present.