Troubleshooting Heartrate Monitors

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Troubleshooting Heartrate Monitors

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If you're having trouble with the heartrate display in RowPro and/or your Concept2 Performance Monitor, check the following items:

The Concept2 Performance Monitor always displays your current heart rate, however RowPro sometimes does not update your heart rate on the PM twin, for example when you have Session Setup or the Control Center open.
RowPro will only pick up your heartrate if you can see it displayed on the Concept2 Performance Monitor screen. Usually when there is a problem with the heartrate display, it's because your heartrate is not displayed on the Concept2 Performance Monitor. There can be several reasons for this:

Chest belt batteries

Your chest belt may have low batteries. The usual symptom is intermittent or permanent blank heartrate display on the Concept2 Performance Monitor. Some chest belts have replaceable batteries, and for these the fix is to replace the battery. If your chest belt battery can't be replaced, the only way to fix this is to replace the entire chest belt.

Chest belt skin contact

The electrodes in your chest belt may not be wet enough where they touch your skin. The usual symptom is intermittent or permanent blank heartrate display on the Concept2 Performance Monitor. To fix this, wet the electrodes and make sure they are cleanly in contact with your bare skin.

Radio frequency interference

If you use a Polar Heartrate Receiver, it may pick up interference, particularly if you place the receiver pickup or the receiver cable too close to your PC, TV, radio or audio device. The usual symptom is erratic heartrate display. To fix this, position the cable and receiver on the side of your Indoor Rower away from your PC or other interfering device.

Receiver location

If you use a Polar Heartrate Receiver, it may be positioned where it is not able to pick up the signal from your chest belt reliably. The usual symptom is intermittent or permanently blank heartrate display on the Concept2 Performance Monitor. To fix this, move your receiver pickup to the optimum location, which is on the floor off to one side of the seat rail where your chest belt can 'see' it, and about halfway between the front most and rearmost position of your chest as you move through each stroke. If you are on a concrete floor, the floor may have metal reinforcing rods just below the surface that dampen the signal, in which case you may need to lift the receiver pickup off the floor with a spacer like a thick book or a small cardboard box.

Receiver connections

Your heartrate receiver connections may not be plugged in properly or may be dirty or not making good contact for some reason. You may also have a problem with your cable, for example it may be broken inside. The usual symptom is intermittent or permanent blank heartrate display on the Concept2 Performance Monitor. To fix this, check your receiver cable and connections and fix any problems.

PM3 issues

There have been reports of a few PM3s having problems with their heartrate display. The usual symptom is intermittent or permanent blank heartrate display on the Concept2 Performance Monitor as soon as you start rowing. If you reset your PM3 and this 'fixes' the problem for a while, it's likely the PM3 is the problem. To fix this, update your PM3 firmware to the latest version. Check www.concept2.com for the latest PM3 firmware version.

Registering your Suunto belt on the PM5 or PM4

When you sit down to row wearing a Suunto chest belt, check you can see your heart rate on the PM screen.  If not, you probably need to register your chest belt.  To do this, close RowPro and from the PM main menu press More Options / Connect Suunto HR, wait a few moments until your chest belt is listed, select it and press Confirm.

 

 

 

 

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