Does it find the sensors but just not pair with them? Or does it not see them at all when you search for them?

It doesn't find them.

By comparison, my HR monitor was picked up immediately and worked perfectly.

is your speed/cadence sensor ANT+ compatible? the garmin unit cannot pick bluetooth. If it is an ANT+ sensor, just check the battery and rescan sensors

Yup, I run indoors with a 920xt and a Garmin footpod all the time. There's an icon on the watch that reminds you what sensors are paired and there is an icon for the footpod...

Which sensor?

I picked up a fr35, and my wahoo combination speed /cadence sensor doesn't get picked up. Apparently it won't recognize the combo units, but will recognize separate ones, although I have yet to try it.

Maybe your watch has the same issue?

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920XT works with combo units...I can personally vouch for this.

Garmin GSC-10 is the 'old' combination unit. Paired in the settings as speed/cadence unit. Newer sensors are separate speed and cadence accelerometer-based requiring no magnets.

Generally speaking, as noted, if it's ANT+ it will pair.

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Trust me I’m a doctor!
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What are you switching from?
As others have said, the 920XT should pair fine with ANT+ sensors, it's almost the primary purpose of the thing!
I've used mine just fine on my Kurt Kinetic Road Machine with both the older GSC-10 speed/cadence sensor or the newer Garmin accelerometer type separate speed and cadence sensors. The KK Road Machine is irrelevant unless it's got the "smart" resistance unit and you're trying to pair with that. The normal "dumb" version is just a mechanical device. It neither sends or receives anything.

FYI there are 3 different profiles used by ANT+ sensors to connect to watches and cycling head units:

1. Speed (speed only)
2. Cadence (cadence only)
3. Speed/Cadence combo (sends speed and cadence data).

Speed/Cadence combo units, such as the GSC-10, send one signal which contains both speed and cadence data to the watch or cycling head unit. Your head unit only sees one device as being paired in this scenario.

Speed and Cadence sensors are treated as individual units will each send a separate data to the head unit. You have to pair each device with the head unit.

You have to make sure your head unit has the correct sensor profile for the speed and or cadence sensor which you are trying to pair. If you have the wrong profile or if no profile is set on the head unit it won't be able to detect the sensor(s).

I used to have a GSC-10 which I used with a 510. Once I switched over to the magnet less speed and cadence Garmin sensors I had to switch the profile on the 510 to pick up the new sensors.

DC Rainmaker gives a brief rundown on the three sensor profiles in the review of the Garmin magnet less sensors.

https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2014/05/garmins-spd-cad-magnetless-sensors.html
What speed and cadence sensors are trying to pair to the 920?

It seems you have a bit of knowledge of the sensor interface with watches. I have had no luck with the latest hub-based speed sensor from Garmin, paired with the 935 watch.

I have debugged, with Garmin tech support, doing everything from updating watch firmware to deleting file folders manually through PC, to replacing batteries, to using Vaseline on the battery (per Garmin support), to trying a separate watch (my son also have a 935).

I can always get it to work somehow eventually by removing the sensor on the watch and re-pairing from scratch, sometimes having to remove battery. I am getting very good at navigating the watch, but I really would like it to "just" work as my footpod does; I connect and pair it once, then it just works.

With the bike speed sensor, it might work once in a rare while, but typically I spin up the bike, start the indoor bike mode, and then the little speed icon flashes on the watch but it does not pick up speed. When I get tired of watching the wheel spin, I will go in and try to connect to the sensor again. Sometime it will connect, often it will say "try again" and I try and try and it might pick up eventually, it might not. Then I will remove the sensor from the watch pairing, then search for sensors again and it might find it, it might not. Then I will remove battery. You get the idea.

I just cannot believe that the quality of the speed pod is so bad that all 4 sensors I have are defective, or that I have 2 faulty 935 watches (and they pick up running sensor with no problem).

Any ideas? I am close to just buying a different brand of speed sensor, one that does not use the spinning technology. Any recommendation for a different sensor? Or ideas of hwat can be going wrong? I do not have any interfering wireless stuff in the area of my bike trainer. Treadmill is in same area and footpod works perfectly.

Thanks!!!!!

Are you by chance running your bike on a smart trainer that is also ANT+ with it paired to a ANT stick in a computer that is near your head unit, like a laptop on a stand just off the bullhorns?

I don't know if it is glitch with the Garmin hardware, Garmin's implementation of the protocol, or the protocol itself, but at my house that combination causes the Garmin unit to search forever. If I spin the back tire with the Garmin in my had leaning over the back of the bike it works. Mount it between the bars and nothing.

On the other hand, but Quarq pairs over ANT+ to both the laptop and the Garmin and never misses, although it drops the single to both once in a while indoors, but out doors it is rock solid.

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"...the street finds its own uses for things"

Nothing else around with ANT+, expect by running pod but I have checked that this is not the issue. Please keep the ideas coming :)