dodgeboy8888

I am looking for a strapless hearth rate watch. I will use it for spin class , road biking and mountain biking. What would you guys recommend


Thx in advance

Duck0872

I have an Apple Watch, and while extremely useful, the heart rate monitor is horrifically inaccurate, so rule that one out. While cycling I use a mio link. While technically not a watch, it is a wrist worn HRM and i've had great results with it. It pairs nicely with cyclemeter and has an led on it to visually let you know what zone you're in.

dagray

Mio Fuse. Heart rate, activity tracker, sleep tracker. ANT+ and Bluetooth.

dodgeboy8888

Anyone tried Garmin forerunner 225 or 235 ?

deapee

I have a garmin vivosmart HR -- upgraded to this from a vivoactive (non hr) that used an ANT+ strap for heart rate. I find this thing accurate enough. There are sometimes weird things that can happen -- like it will lose signal once or twice in an hour long session sometimes -- It's probably from me shifting the position of it, or when you're performing activities with a lot of hand movment that also causes the strap to move. Here's two examples and i'll talk about each a bit:



Here we can see a brief warmup -- turned out it was 55 degrees and this paved path was mostly in the shade, so i turned around and got my jacket. Then started riding again. Anyway, you can see two spots in the middle where it kind of lost the heart rate briefly. At the end, I have no idea why it started reading in the 180's -- The last two minutes or so I was pedaling slowly, so I'm guessing my heart rate was actually going down from about 160 to about 140 in those two minutes...but for some reason it thought it was going up to the 180's...not likely, I know what 180 feels like.



Here's another one (it looks different becuase this one was screenshotted from the online app). Here I did 10 minutes on the stepmill, 10 minutes on the treadmill probably at 6% incline based on my heart rate, then I did 3 sets of carrying 100 pounds worth of dumbells, where I allow my heart rate to recover between each set).

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As you can see, it's pretty accurate and picks up the different types of activities pretty well. The best part of the vivosmart HR are the following:

- HR is pretty accurate.
- Garmin Connect App (for iphone) syncs to my phone and then from the phone automatically goes to their web app. So i can literally view an activity from anywhere.
- it also keeps your "average resting" -- my average resting is about 68, although it will go down to about 62 when really resting -- I started getting sick two days ago and my resting heart rate went up, so literally before I got sick, I knew I was getting sick.
- The battery lasts about 5 days.
- MOVE bar -- when you're inactive for an hour, it will tell you to MOVE! and you will get a bar you have to clear. about 250 successive steps will clear it. For each 15 mins of inactivity over the hour, a smaller bar pops up next to it. YES, sometimes I get mad when I just got back from a 1.5 hour ride and it's telling me to move, but there's a ton of reading you can do on it...and btw, you can disable the move bar if you want.
- It gives credit for flights of stairs too with a built in altimeter.

I think for me, it's a much more telling tool than connecting a chest strap during a workout -- I like to get credit for my "activity minutes" and stuff -- it tracks all that on the mobile app.

Now that all being said, if you DO NOT have a GPS on your bike computer and want one...the VivoActive HR -- will do all of the above AND should have a built in GPS to track those rides also.

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Since you mentioned the 235 -- that was something I thought about...but at the end of the day, it was just too big for me.

Fangowolf

If your not tied to a watch the soschse rhythm sits on your forearm. I use it on my rides.

ypsetihw

I have a version of this: New Elite Cardio Connect Heart Rate GPS Model SB1089BK | eBay

I got mine for $20 and it just needed a new battery. Works flawlessly and I've used the same battery for over a year. I use it for running/hiking, and then on the bike I just strap the watch over the handlebar with some extra bar tape wrapped around the bars to make it snug. It's low profile and clean looking. The bonus is that it pairs with the fitness machines at work, I just wear the chest strap and the treadmill picks up my HR as well.

ypsetihw

I also have a scosche HR bluetooth strap that I got for $9 to pair with strava on my iphone. WHEN it works it works great, but it tends to chew through batteries at an incredible pace. I think I got 3-4 runs out of it before it crapped out.

tunavic

Since you're hearing all kinds of opinions I'll add this. Nothing works as well as a Garmin chest strap and the best one is the older standard model. You can find it as a package deal with the Garmin Vivofit for about $49

DMC707

Yes -- a strap is still much more consistent than a wrist based unit for vigorous exercise

dodgeboy8888

Most straps won't work for a 57" chest

Erich_E

I'll throw in for my first post. I have a Microsoft Band 2 that works pretty good from what I've seen. It syncs well with my Galaxy S5, seems to have a decent GPS and the heart rate monitor has been pretty spot on when I've checked. Imports into Mapmyride and Strava perfectly as well, and I think the MS health site is decent as well. As a disclaimer, I don't have any other experience with any other HRMs or other wearables. I've been pleasantly surprised with it though.

DrIsotope

In 200+ tracked rides, I've had one ride with a weird HR spike with my Mio Link wristband HRM-- to all of 150bpm. Every other Strava file I look at for a rider with a chest strap, there's at least one spike over 200bpm, and many others are littered with dropouts and super low reads of like 10-20bpm. So while chest straps are more accurate, to me they certainly seem far less consistent. I'm not training for the Tour, so the Mio Link works perfectly well.

If the OP is worried about a tan line, just switch it back and forth between arms. Myself, I've got a sweet HRM tanline going. And fingerless glove tanline. And wicked leg tanline.

ypsetihw

every monitor (hr, power, speed, cadence) has it's nuances and the user must adjust interpretations of readings over time to compensate for reality.

bang for your buck, NON bluetooth or ant+ devices last MUCH longer in battery life and are much less likely to have general operating errors especially those related to interference. I basically use my HR watch with strap for on the fly while training and racing, like "how much am I REALLY hurting?" I use a very inexpensive wired canondale computer that includes cadence for about $15. the ride itself gets tracked on strava on the phone.

baron von trail 

I quit using a HRM a couple years ago. I am much happier now.

dodgeboy8888

I really want the hr for 98% cycling. I know wrist hr is not great for weightlifting and all.