Recently i’ve really been working on my overall fitness for my cycling using a Garmin Edge 200 and strava to track my own progress. Now I’m looking at monitoring my HR too so been reading up on different types of watches (I really don’t want to wear anything on my chest if i can help it).

At first i was looking at some of the Fitbits like the Charge HR to track continuous HR and to indicate when I’m working in each zone but reading up on some the Surge and Blaze I quite like the sound of smart notifications from my phone which is zipped up in my hydration pack.

Does anyone have any experience with Fitbits or similar? My priorities are monitoring continuous HR (some of the basic models only track resting HR) and ideally something that won’t look silly on small wrists.

Forerunner 235? It has built in HR on the back of the watch and will pick up your texts , calls, notifications etc from your phone

TomTom do some. (I have the non-HRM version which is pretty good)

I’ve got a Blaze and quite like it. I acknowledge that step counting might not be totally accurate but at least it’s consistent so I can see how I change over days / weeks etc.

It’s good at autotracking exercise and the function works well so I dont tend to interfer with it.

I should add that it’s not that “smart”. It tells me I’m receiving a call or got a text message and controls my music but that’s it (which is all I want it to do anyway).

It’s not too big, it’s quite flat and I’ve not used the interchangeable straps but it’s a nice touch.

I should add that I use a Tom Tom multisport for tracking proper runs / rides as the Blaze doesn’t have built in GPS and relies on your phone (which I don’t take with me).

Got the 230 with chest strap which does basic notifications, they do a 235 which is the same with built in HRM.

Cheers, Steve

i’ve been really impressed so far with my forerunner 235

I’m somewhat dubious of the max heart rate of 182 bpm I set a few days ago. Other than that I’m also pleased with the 235

mine has been pretty consistent with other HR monitors I’ve used over the last few years.

I’m more suprised at the RHR figures being a lot lower than I thought.

I’ve read that for accurate reading you need to wear a chest band. The sensors on most watches that read the blood thru your wrist get quite inaccurate during high levels of activity.

I bought a 230 a few weeks ago and it’s brilliant.

The HR and GPS is really good and I am quite taken with activity tracking.

The interface with my mobile and tablet is outstanding as it syncs automatically via Bluetooth without any input from me. It then updates my Garminew Connect account. Great.

The email, WhatsApp and text updates are also really useful.

Dogsby

maybe if I was doing super critical interval sessions but at the level I need it then the wrist HR is more than good enough. and way more comfortable/convenient.

DC Rainmaker is your friend for all of these questions.

I have a Microsoft Band 2. The HR is pretty consistent against the chest strap HR that’s linked to my Mio GPS unit. I would say there is a 2/3bpm difference between the two which is fine for what I’m doing.
Activity tracking is good, with several different tiles you can put on the start screen – cycling,running,walking,golf etc.
Links to a phone app which in turn links to the MS Health site with more info.
Has email/phone alerts, allows you to answer texts via voice or virtual keyboard (bit fiddly) controls music, various other apps like news etc.

I like it.

Mio fit if you want something to wear on your arm. Works with strava and connects to most Garmin GPS watches as the heart rate monitor.

Got a Vivosmart HR, the optical hr monitor is OK, not perfect but better than wearing a strap. Broadcasts as ant+ so the Garmin devices can pick that up. Apart from that does the usual health and smart phone notification stuff and play pause skip for your chosen music app. Like it, only downfall is reading long notifications but you have your phone for that anyway and the HR broadcast mode is a few settings deep in the menu.

I bought a forerunner 235 and its great, the only downside with the HR monitor is that it does seem to lag a bit. Doing intervals the other week, and my HR was still going up even though I’d stopped running flat out and was starting to recover.

I’m about to buy a Garmin Vivoactive HR. Mate has one and loves it.

I’ve got a normal vivoactive but I’d say it’s not as accurate as my edge 1000 (or the 800 I had before) when paired to HR and my speed/cadence stuff on the bike. Altitude is the obvious weakness

I’ve got a normal vivoactive but I’d say it’s not as accurate as my edge 1000

That and the battery life is why I went for the Smart HR, uses the Edge 810 for GPS duties and the watch for the rest.

I’ve a bog standard Garmin FR210. which is about all you need to get you going. You can customise the zones, and display. You can swap it between running and cycling (or strava can do that for you) they’re ubiquitous and cheap. It does take a bit of time to catch a satellite sometimes, but a charge lasts 8 hours and although the Garmin interface is proper shabby, it does play nicely with strava. Oh, and become a premium strava user for the extra HR and fitness options for monitoring

I’ve read that for accurate reading you need to wear a chest band. The sensors on most watches that read the blood thru your wrist get quite inaccurate during high levels of activity.

I’ve used the Vivosmart HR alongside my Edge 800 + chest strap on a couple of rides & the data is very similar.

For me, i have a Polar RC3 GPS, not because i think the watch itself is any better than the Garmin offerings, more because the software on PC is so much better, no good recording lots of data if ou are going to view it in Garmin Connect which is about as much good as a trapdoor in a canoe, the Polar software is so much better and any data can still be transferred over to Strava.

I bought a forerunner 235 and its great, the only downside with the HR monitor is that it does seem to lag a bit. Doing intervals the other week, and my HR was still going up even though I’d stopped running flat out and was starting to recover.

Yeah – this is what DCRainmaker identified as pretty much the only quibble with the 235 – not catching recovery drop well and getting a bit confused when doing intervals (see http://www.dcrainmaker.com/2015/11/garmin-fr230-fr235-review.html for a very in-depth review).

That wasn’t a deal-breaker for me as I’m not that interested in using the HR stuff at that level of detail, and I’ve been really happy with my 235. Really nice switching between biking and run, syncing with Garmin Connect is pretty good, which links to Strava nicely. Basic phone notifications are fine for me – can feel a bit overwhelming when phone, watch and ipad all parp at the same time though 😉

Whats the battery life like connected full time? I only connect mine when I want to sync so it’s lasting well!

Cheers, Steve

I have a Polar M400 (I use a V650 too, so pretty bought into the Polar ecosystem in general).

It’s good, and pretty cheap. Smartwatch functionality ain’t particularly fab, but battery life is good for general use and not bad when GPS tracking either. Polar seem to have a strong tendency to release products with a fairly poor feature set (the V650 is a great example) which kinda get slated compared to the competition. But once they’re out there, they keep the software/firmware updates coming out quite regularly and they end up being fairly good value for money (possibly because most of the initial reviews are poor so shops can’t shift stock).

i’m getting about a week out of my 235. a bit less if I track a lot of GPS.

Ive just been reading up on the Forerunner 220 and 235 and they look pretty big. Bigger than the Fitbit Blaze and Surge. Is there anything out there any smaller that at least displays a clock and current HR/HR Zones?

Apple watch + Strava was good. Now the two just won’t talk, no heart rate data being recorded. Think they’ve had a tiff.

I’ve got the Garmin Forerunner 225 and it’s excellent, slightly big on my tiny wimpy wrists but otherwise flawless so far ~ 3 months

The 235 is about the same size as an “outdoor” sports watch – almost exactly the same size and the Sunnto Vector I used to wear. Similar to above – I get about a week out of a charge. It charges quickly too – I tend to just plug it in at my desk for half an hour a week.

The Mio Fuse is pretty slim, smaller than the Forerunner 230 etc anyway. It can display the time and your heart rate.

Seems to be fairly accurate for heart rate when cycling. Though it does depend on just how you wear it, I find it needs to be quite tight, and in a particular spot on my wrist. Much more comfortable than a chest strap for me anyway.

It doesn’t do much else – for cycling, best to connect it to a separate GPS device or phone. It transmits the heart rate as Ant+ and Bluetooth Smart.
It can work as an activity tracker/step counter, but its pretty basic.

The fuse is not as wide as the garmin but stands up taller. I find the garmin much more comfortable.

So if I upload an activity to strava via my Garmin Edge 200 can I upload HR activity too or do the devices need to be paired?

My garmin watch broadcasts the HR via ANT+ to the device like a HR strap and it’s recorded on the track. The other HR data etc. goes up through the connect app which seems to work just fine for me

What i mean is if i was to use a watch without GPS, can i combine the data with my Edge 200 on Strava or an equivalent?

Its not possible to combine files on Strava. It may be possible to do it with other software, depending on what format the heart rate data is. And you may have to synchronise the times, and make sure you start both at once.
eg using this: http://gotoes.org/strava/Merge_Heart_Rate_TCX_With_Position_TCX.php

Its a lot more hassle than just using a GPS device that records heart rate, eg Edge 500. Or use the Strava app on your phone, connected to a Bluetooth Smart heart rate monitor.

So i ended up going for the Fitbit Surge which was on sale at £158 from £200.
I chose this over the others because its quite small and doesn’t look like a dinner plate on my small wrists so I can wear it all day, and it seemed to have the best function to value compared to its competition.

So far I’m very impressed with it. I didn’t really need the GPS but its there if I need it or if my Garmin Edge ever fails during a ride. The amount of settings that you can customise is impressive and the HR monitor is pretty accurate most of the time which is good enough for me. It has 3 default HR zones based on your age and its possible to put in your one custom zone so I’ll be reading up more about that today.