Rogan

Is there such a thing as a stand alone heart rate monitor ? Wrist strap preferably. All I want is the ability to record my maximum heart rate and show my current heart rate. Doing this without the need to hook it up to a smart phone or anything else. If the device has those other features that is okay as long as it does not have to be hooked up to show current and record maximum,

TimothyH

There are lots of wearable devices which do this.

Polar M200 or A300, Garmin Vivosport or Vivosmart, Fitbit, etc.

ItsJustMe

Pretty sure ALL of those fail the 'no smartphone' requirement stated.

If you do use a smartphone then there are probably hundreds of devices that match all that starting at $20.

Without a smartphone, memory will be extremely limited, the user interface will be horrid, and there will be no way to get the data off the device. Honestly if I really needed this functionality and didn't already have a mobile device, I'd just buy a cheap < $50 tablet just to interface to a band to do this function alone. The number of people trying to do this and insisting on not having a phone is so small a market that nobody's going to develop it as a product. If they did, it would be horrible. With a phone, the band can be about $8 in parts and almost a cookie-cutter solution. Without one, it's a very difficult and expensive exercise with custom displays, lots and lots of programming for which embedded programmers will be needed.

Tourist in MSN

I have used several, a couple Polar models that I no longer have. Some Sports Instruments (a company no longer in business) ones too. All used a chest strap. Some of the Sports Instruments ones had a piece of soft molded plastic that was shaped to be a handlebar mount for the wrist watch unit. All of my Sports Instruments ones have died, mostly from water getting into them.

Unfortunately, most of the companies that make them appear to be in a race to see who can add the most excess programming to these HRM units. Thus, a simple basic model at a reasonable price is getting hard to find.

For now I have quit looking for a replacement unit. Instead I bought a chest strap that one of my GPS units will show me the current heart rate. It won't record a max, only show me the current rate however.

The one in the photo died on me in the middle of a month long tour. I suspect having it mounted on my bike on rainy days is what killed it.

TimothyH

There is no need to ever connect the devices mentioned with anything except to charge the battery. They can all be used standalone to view current heart rate and see the max for any particular activity.

I own four polar heart rate monitors including the M200 wrist based running watch. The Polar's do not need smart phones or connection to any other device and the OP will be able to view his current heart rate, save the data, look at past sessions and see HRmax for each session. The M200 won't show the highest heart rate ever seen, just the highest per session.

All of the devices mentioned have usable interfaces, if not color touch screens.

There is no need for a chest strap for many of these as they have optical sensors which read heart rate from the wrist.

There are literally dozens of such devices available.


-Tim-

drewguy

And pretty sure many of them can by synced to a computer if desired for keeping records of heart rate over time.

philbob57

Per dcrainmaker, many of the wrist/arm HRMs don't record HR accurately enough when cycling. The Vivosmart 3, for example, wasn't all that accurate for cycling in his tests.
He reports that the Polar OH1 is a very accurate HRM for cycling, but it can't be read on the go. It will store data, and you can upload it, but apparently to read it in real-time you need a smartphone or bike GPS. He rates the Scosche Rhythm+ as very accurate, too. I'm looking for a 7 x 24 HRM; haven't found one yet.