Garmin Edge 1000 disconnects mid-ride

I’m using the Edge 1000 to play the Smart workouts with my Elite Direto. The Edge is loading the ride through my iPhone. I’m viewing the ride through the remote player (or whatever it’s called) on my Mac screen (in the browser). It all starts out just fine…

The problem: the Edge is disconnecting from my phone 30-45 minutes into the training, every time. It continues to control the trainer just fine, but the remote player goes dead and the iPhone (both Garmin Connect and the phone’s list of Bluetooth devices) says it is no longer connected.

My understanding of the Smart workouts is that it works best with a connection to the internet because the Xert server is analyzing the data and… I don’t know. Suggesting changes to interval durations and intensity? Something like that. So when it loses the connection to the server, I assume I’m now just doing a regular (“dumb”?) workout.

After the workout is complete and I’ve reconnected it to the phone, it uploads the data to Garmin. At least once I had to restart the device for it to reconnect.

Is this a problem with my device?

Is there some way to get the IQ app to connect via Wifi instead of through my phone?

Unfortunately, the app has no way of seeing the internet directly. It sends it through the Garmin to your Garmin Connect Mobile app over BT and then to our server. The data is all analyzed on the Garmin so the data doesn’t need to be sent to the server interactively. You can try keeping your Garmin and phone closer together. Perhaps you can keep Garmin Connect in the foreground on your phone. Fortunately, if the connection drops for a few seconds, once it comes back up and the Remote Player is updated, it will display the correct information from the workout.

Thanks, Armando.

It stays disconnected from the phone until the workout is complete.

Oh well. The Garmin is fine for its original purpose (bike computer) but is a piece of junk for running 3rd party apps compared to the ease of use of an iPhone or Android device.

None of my business, I know, but you guys are going to be fighting an uphill battle against the training software that is more reliable and easier to use simply because it runs on PC’s (with an Ant+ stick), Apple TV’s, iPhones, Androids, etc.

Ditto what the OP said. The concept is good, but having to run Garmin, phone and tablet for a session on an indoor trainer, which is where the Smart workouts work best, is not reliable enough. Is there a Windows or at least fully functioning iOS app on the way?

I have used the Edge 1000 to run Smart sessions. On the Mac I have then ridden in Zwift and had the Xert Player screens overlaid. I have never had an issue with disconnects and the Edge 1000 runs the session perfectly. Now, I am downloading the session as a ZWO and running in ERG mode directly in Zwift so do not need the overlays provided by the player or the Edge 1000. I haven’t done anything special to make this happen, but I do have the phone close by and I am lucky enough to have good connection to my wi-fi. I don’t offer much help here other than the giving hope that it can and does work.

I have it working and thanks to Armondo’s suggestion I’ve just learned to ignore the disconnects from my phone. After the ride is done I save it, then restart the Garmin to reconnect to my phone. My main complaint at this point is still that the Garmin 1000 is a piece of junk.

When the Garmin loses the connection to the phone (every single ride), the remote player on the laptop screen stops working.

Starting today I’m going to experiment with a different setup:

  1. Use Xert Player on my iPhone to control the ride with the bluetooth connection to the trainer. (Annoyance: the login screen on this app doesn’t work well at all!)
  2. Have the Garmin Edge 1000 record the ride (as a regular indoor training ride, not using the Xert app), so it gets all the Ant+ data like heart rate, power, cadence
  3. My old laptop with an Ant+ stick runs Zwift with power-control disabled so it just sees what I’m doing and doesn’t try to control the trainer.

I don’t really need Zwift in this mix but since the Xert remote player always stops working in the browser (because of the Garmin probl em) it gives me something to look (more interesting than my basement walls) and shows me my current power, cadence, heart rate, etc.

I have the Ant+ stick for iPhone, too, but man that’s a worse piece of junk than the Garmin.

Although you loose the smart intervals, if you’re using trainer control, doing the workout in Zwift by exporting the ZWO works well.