Apple watch Series 3 and external heart rate monitor

The exactly same issue here.
Apple watch series 3 nike version and polar H7.

I already posted in many different forums and still did not found a reasonable answer for that.

The first time I paired the watch with the H7 it worked wonderfully, the other times nope...

It seems that the watch recognized the external device and put that in a "blacklist"

Even connected, the watch refuses to take readings from the external device! I just do not understand why since

it easily find and pair with the H7

There are a lot of users complaining about that! When Apple will do something to correct this?

For those who are serious about sports, the data generated is very important!

Below, 2 pictures of the almost same training, on the left Apple watch reading, on the right Polar H7

That was the only time I could use the external device 😢

I’m having the same issue with pairing an external heart rate monitor.

I have a Series 2, and Polar H10. Whilst running watchOS3 the H10 worked seamlessly.

After updating my watch to watchOS4 (OS running on the Series 3 watches) the H10 no longer will pair.

I’m assuming there will be an update to fix this, but so far no luck!!

Same problem. I have 2 different bluetooth HR monitors ( one at home and one at the gym). Both of them used to work seamlessly. Since I upgraded to the series 3 I have had nothing but problems. I really hope that they fix this soon.

I have since posting, got mine working. I don’t have my PolarH10 connected to my phone. I turn on my HRM and wear it, then go into the watch Bluetooth settings, connect the HRM, then exit by pushing the crown on the side. When starting a workout, the watch will emit a 1 second flash on the in built HRM, then picks up the reading from my H10

So I can get it to work, but only if I power cycle my watch. Do you know if maybe  made it so you can only have it paired to one monitor? I have one I keep at the gym that I use there and one at home. I never had this problem before or possibly something wrong with my watch.

I have same exact issue. Series 3 LTE with TICKR. I returned TICKR to Amazon for replacement and same problem.

TICKR Support says their are going to update their Firmware to work better with Apple Watch, but they suspect this issue is a WatchOS problem.

The problem I have is once I power cycle it will stay connected with 1 HR monitor, but I use 2 different ones. I keep one at the gym and one at home. It always used to work and now I can only pair to one.

hmm. I think it needs a power cycle in order to be able to connect to another bluetooth heart rate monitor. What if you try to manually disconnect via "forget this device" after a workout at home and reconnect manually with the one at the gym?

It worked!!!

Dude thank u so much for sharing the tip from Apple support.

Hope not having to do that every time I use the strap...

I'll try using it for a week and then I'll post an update in this thread.

This is working now for me too now! I was simply rebooting watch, apparently force reboot (holding button and crown for a few seconds) is doing something different. I set the watch to turn off Watch HRM monitor during workouts within the Watch App and I can see I am still getting heart rate data and there aren't any green lights on the watch, and its populating BPM much faster. I can't wait to try this tomorrow on my daily run. Thanks so much for the tip!

Actually, it seems if you enable power saving mode you don't see the HRM when you select the run workout (this seems like a bug) but if you leave power saving mode off, once you start the run workout the green light goes on and then off within a few seconds and you are still getting HRM data from TICKR.

So I have the polar h10 and my new apple watch 3 and the watch will act like it's connecting to the h10 but won't stay connected. I tried the reboot and it still won't stay connected-any thoughts? It's there a way on the workout screen to see if you are connected to the external versus watch heart rate monitor?

Apples implementation in this area definitely could use some improvement. An icon indicating external HRM being used would be helpful. The only way to tell right now if the external HRM is being used is to physically look under the watch and see if the green lights are illuminated. If you see no lights but you are getting eart beat data it is using the external one. I also-wouldn't put too much stock into the “connected” state the watch reads. In my experienceif you connect and leave that screen and then go back there it will no longer say connected even thought it is. What I’ve been doing is connecting the heart rate monitor so it says connected and I just leave that screen on the watch until I am ready to start my workout and launch the app for the workout.

Good call... Did that and it seems it is indeed locked in, as I even took the watch off and it kept a heart rate with no lights on back.

Good deal, I really am impressed with the accuracy of the built in him- it kills my Garmin and other watches in the past.

Do you use any apps besides the native workout app?

I mostly run outdoors and take some hiit type classes and I am only using the native workout app since it fills my needs. I am using the TIKR HRM and it works with many 3rd party apps. I went to the external HRM because I found the built in one unreliable. Some days it would work great and other days it would be reporting the wrong numbers or have problems detecting my heart rate. I’ve found the external monitor to be 100% reliable and the method of detection is widely accepted to be more accurate than the wrist based method.