I have a Garmin 130 that I use on a bar mount on road bikes and a saddle mount in Velodrome. I like it, very efficient, does the job well and seamlessly links to the App, and automatically uploads to Strava.

Have just pressed the button on a Garmin Instinct primarily for MTB and swimming and general outdoor use. I was thinking though it’d be handy for HR when on road or track, but not sure what the App would do with 2 Bluetooth devices calling for it through iPhone ? I presume I’d need to select a device to Bluetooth link to on phone settings, but would that mean that if I connected the 130, the HR data from the watch would not upload, or would it come in later ?

Yes, I know I can play with it but just wondering while waiting for my Christmas pressie 😀

Santa is bringing me an Instinct too so I’m not 100% sure but won’t it record everything your 130 does anyways?

Why do you want to be connected to the app when riding? Only reason I can think of to do that is for Live Tracking. The watch will identify and log the activity anyway, then transfer when next connected

Legend, you are right, I guess it will just sync up later. On that basis I don’t think it matters which one is connected to my phone while riding as either device will show texts and calls.

Breadcrumb, yes it will do all the same, however on the road I like the 130 on the bars so I can see cadence and speed while riding. I have dodgy knees and keeping average cadence up over 90 is kind on them so live data is very helpful while riding. Not an issue on MTB so happy to use Instinct on its own.

If the Instint is the same as the Viviactive i think you can use it as the heartrate monitor for other garmin devices. Not sure how automatic it is though or if you manually have to start it each time. Despite the Physio trueup feature (https://support.garmin.com/en-GB/?faq=EjPECQK58qA0xzJ5X74vm7) i don’t think it will match up the two activities properly if you just track on both devices.
Its only livetrack that you have to select which device, sync and notifications seems to work fine (on android) with multiple devices.

^^^good to know, thanks