Background

I had difficulties recently getting my Garmin watch to broadcast its heartrate monitor to the Peloton app on my Sony Bravia 9, running Android TV.

Normally I do these steps

  • On my Garmin watch, hold down the settings button. Navigate to “Broadcast HR”, and enable it.
  • On my Peloton bike, or the Peloton app on my Android phone, click “Connect HR device”
  • It is instantly found and starts displaying my Heartrate

Issues with Android TV

However, when I installed the Peloton app on my Android TV, I could not get it to detect my watch. I confirmed that the app had access to local devices, that Bluetooth was on. The Peloton app also requested to access my location (needed to detect Bluetooth devices), and I granted it location permissions.

However later when I went into app info, and checked the app permissions. The location setting was not sticking to “allow access while using the app”.

Solution

Because my TV is a TV, when I first set it up I told it not to use location services. My thinking was it is a TV that isn’t moving… therefore it wouldn’t need GPS for maps, etc. This seems to have been the issue.

First I changed the setting to allow location services on the TV Privacy -> Location -> Location status -> Use WiFi to estimate location

Then I reconfirmed the Peloton app settings that “Allow while using the app” was sticking. Restarted the TV for good measure, and the Peloton app was able to connect and display my heartrate.