Forerunner 935 connect to ANT+ dongle

First time setting up my Wahoo Kickr & Zwift, but I want to connect up my Garmin Forerunner 935 watch to be able to see my heart rate on the screen.

Ive tried to broadcast it via settings but still unable to appear on the screen to select the watch.

Ive read up that I may need a ANT+ dongle but when you look at the compatible devices the Forerunner 935 is not on there on the list of compatible devices.

Any help would be appreciated.

Cheers.

Hi Justin, welcome to the forums.

The 935 has a “broadcast” feature which only broadcasts in ANT+ protocol, so yes, you need an ANT+ receiver. If you have a Mac or PC, then pretty much an ANT+ dongle will work, just make sure you get a small USB extension cable to get the dongle near you. Your Kickr can also broadcast ANT+ as well which may make your setup easier rather than mixing up BLE with ANT+, but both should co-exist fine if you have “clean” radio frequencies around your setup.

FYI, later model Garmin watches can also broadcast BLE.

1 Like

Thanks for the reply Dean.

With the Garmin site stating the 935 isn’t compatible with the ANT+ dongle, do you think this will still work for my heart rate to be shown on the Zwift screen?

Cheers

They say that?! Can you supply a link. If you cant post (because your are new here) just post an invalid link with say deanDOTcom type of syntax, and I’ll have a look.

Here is the link to the the manual for connecting it. I have used it in the past for a Fenix 5 and 6 with a generic brand ANT+ dongle and it works fine. Plenty of people here do the same, but if you can, try and get a HR strap as you are likely to get better accuracy.

What generic brand ANT+ dongle do you recommend?

Cheers.

OK, odd, but having a link to the page to see the context would be better.

I linked to 935 Forerunner page which clearly provides the instructions. Here is a link to DC Rainmaker also confirms that:

Don’t have the fanciest new Garmin? No worries, you can still do this via ANT+ instead. Virtually every Garmin wearable ever made supports this. The steps might vary slightly, but they’ve been doing this for years upon years, even with the cheapest wearables.

If you also search the forums for “forerunner 935 ANT+” you will find plenty of posts confirming they work only with ANT+

Mine is so generic it doesn’t have branding on it :rofl:

image

I’ll have a search in the forums and post a couple of the more popular recommendations - where are you located (country)?

The only one I wouldn’t recommend is one that Cycplus - they had a really poor reputation a few years ago including sad stories in these forums.

This is a probably a good start…

Theoretically, if it is ANT+ compatible (and therefore paid royalties to Garmin etc) then its going to work. I sourced mine off my local online market (I’m in NZ), but Amazon/Ebay purchases are very likely to work equally as well.

Other forum folks might chime in with what they use too.

That list is totally inaccurate. There’s no Fenix range which i can categorically state are compatible.

Your watch will be compatible.

Cheers guys appreciate the help. Just purchased a dongle online.

1 Like

What device is this list about? This is a really weird list.

Garmin owns the ant+ protocol, they bought it, so it works with almost no need to think about it.

Chinese Magene dongle ant+ is very cheap and very good, magene stuff is usually pretty good even though so cheap. Get them on Amazon or even AliExpress even cheaper! :slight_smile:

Just as an FYI, I link a Garmin 935 through a generic ant+ dongle (alongside kickr5), with no real issues, and no setup other than pairing through zwift (using the chest strap)… The occasional dropout, but I think everyone experiences that time to time when using ant+… You’ll be fine :slight_smile: