heart rate monitors fitness trackers?

skipper847

skipper847

skipper847

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I've been looking for a heart rate monitor which have other things to it as well to wear on your wrist. Most say for android or ios or phone. Do these always have to be connected or can you use these and never have to connect as I don't have an android or ios. I do have windows obviously but almost all fitness tracker have ios or android.

Just wondered if you actually could wear these with out ever connecting to them?.
 
Majority of them work without a phone but are fairly limited in what you can do with them. Connecting it lets you view the full stats and averages and pretty graphs and all that.

Any reason you want one without connecting it?
 
having the android app with a garmin for example will let you view all of the stats collected, it'll let you sync back to your garmin connect account etc.

otherwise you generally wont get much information from the tiny display unless you literally just want to see your real time heart rate.
 
UnworthyBean said:
Majority of them work without a phone but are fairly limited in what you can do with them. Connecting it lets you view the full stats and averages and pretty graphs and all that.

Any reason you want one without connecting it?
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Thanks for reply. Like I said ive not got a ios or android just windows desktop.
 
I'm looking for a new heart rate monitor as well. Wrist worn ones don't tend to be that accurate though, i'm looking at the Polar H10, H7 & Wahoo Tickr. Not sure what to go with to be honest, H10 will probably be the most accurate.

skipper847 said:
Thanks for reply. Like I said ive not got a ios or android just windows desktop.
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The H10 saves up the data so you don't need a phone, just connect it to your computer and the data will download.
 
Trusty said:
I'm looking for a new heart rate monitor as well. Wrist worn ones don't tend to be that accurate though, i'm looking at the Polar H10, H7 & Wahoo Tickr. Not sure what to go with to be honest, H10 will probably be the most accurate.
Click to expand...
to be honest there wasnt much in it between my wrist garmin and the chest strap i normally use.

as long as you fit the wrist ones correctly they shouldnt be far out.
 
What is it with all these watches for monitoring heart rate, step count etc.
Why not just measure pulse rate at the wrist for 15 sec and then times by 4.
I think all these gadgets are a waste of time and money.
 
lunar said:
What is it with all these watches for monitoring heart rate, step count etc.
Why not just measure pulse rate at the wrist for 15 sec and then times by 4.
I think all these gadgets are a waste of time and money.
Click to expand...

Snap, it certainly seems that way. The whole "steps" thing is so misleading. If you're overweight, eat less. I used to be 18 stone until I figured out "Calories in > Calories out = Weight gain". People tend to see they've done 15,000 steps then reward themselves with a giant muffin.

Same with the heart rate stuff. If you need to check your heart rate because you're unsure if it's high, you're not working hard enough :D
 
Feek said:
Just to pick up on this, when I go for a bike ride with both my Apple Watch and Garmin chest HRM, they both read pretty much the same all the way through.
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Can imagine the Apple watch being accurate, good tech, isn't it. The HR straps are about £40 though. Everything i've read about Fitbit and the like say they are a bit temperamental. Need to do some more reading i feel.
 
lunar said:
What is it with all these watches for monitoring heart rate, step count etc.
Why not just measure pulse rate at the wrist for 15 sec and then times by 4.
I think all these gadgets are a waste of time and money.
Click to expand...

I wanted something more accurate. Its not needed as I do test my blood pressure and pulse 4 times a day any way on a normal blood pressure monitor. I just wanted something for when I go out for a walk. Its been 10 years now but I've had a kidney transplant and my pulse is always on high side when just resting. Doctors no this and say its fine but keep an eye on it. My blood pressure is normally average or low at 110/60 but pulse is always in 90's. Last time I went for check up it was 106/83 but pulse was 96. I want to see a more accurate reading when walking.
 
Chest strap for more accuracy, wrist strap for something more discreet you can keep on all day. I like my Fitbit charge 2, the sleep tracking is amazing, I like the heart rate tracking too but accept its not going to be 100% accurate, however it's good enough for me.
 
lunar said:
What is it with all these watches for monitoring heart rate, step count etc.
Why not just measure pulse rate at the wrist for 15 sec and then times by 4.
I think all these gadgets are a waste of time and money.
Click to expand...

It depends what you're trying to do, if you're training for a particular sport you might want to keep your heart rate within a particular range and you can use the heart rate monitor to track you throughout the whole of the exercise. Monitoring your pulse for 15 seconds then multiplying by four is fine but you've really got to be stopped to do that and you will only get periodic timings rather than a continuous data stream. If a series of snapshots when you've stopped is all you want then a heart rate monitor is probably overkill but not everyone has the same requirements hence it might not be a waste of time or money to them.
 
lunar said:
What is it with all these watches for monitoring heart rate, step count etc.
Why not just measure pulse rate at the wrist for 15 sec and then times by 4.
I think all these gadgets are a waste of time and money.
Click to expand...
Hard to.do that constantly while exerising and memorize every data point for hours at a time. Let alone doing that right through the night.


They might be a waste do time to you but if you actually know what the data is useful for then it is incredibly helpful.
 
Aedus said:
Chest strap for more accuracy, wrist strap for something more discreet you can keep on all day. I like my Fitbit charge 2, the sleep tracking is amazing, I like the heart rate tracking too but accept its not going to be 100% accurate, however it's good enough for me.
Click to expand...

One of the comments in reviews (cnet IIRC) about the Garmin HR 'elevate' sensor builtin is that (a) it lags by about 6 seconds and (b) although in normal running use it's reasonably accurate, compared to a Polar chest strap during interval training it becomes inaccurate the longer it's used (and that carries on into the cold down).

I'm interested, and will probably get, the Garmin Forerunner 235 GPS. Although it suffers from the above, I have a Polar chest strap and Polar watch for any intervals on a treadmill. I'm more interested in a general GPS/HR watch for that.

What I would say is that check carefully functionality doesn't require additional accessories. The VO2, and some of the cadence etc of the Garmin watches require their chest band or swimming chest band in order to provide it. Additional cost to what is an advertised selling point!!
 
Trusty said:
Can imagine the Apple watch being accurate, good tech, isn't it. The HR straps are about £40 though. Everything i've read about Fitbit and the like say they are a bit temperamental. Need to do some more reading i feel.
Click to expand...

The apple one is good for non sports use, it is bad when used during a workout.
 
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