Looking around the main contenders seem to be:
Sigma
Polar
Oregon Scientific
Do I need a digitially encoded HRM or not? Reading some of the reviews people often complain about dropped signals etc. and I would imagine that a digitally encoded HRM would help avoid this, but they also tend to be more expensive.
My impression is that Polar gets better feedback than Sigma, but that Sigma are cheaper.
EDIT: Oh, and I think that with Polar the batteries are not user changeable, which might make less financial sense for a cheap HRM
£10 from Aldi
£10 from Aldi
Available twice a year...
I'd question the value of a budget HRM at all TBH.
If you're looking for budget, the Tesco one is quite good at £20
other than that - Polar
I'd question the value of a budget HRM at all TBH.
In what sense?
Aren't 'Budget' and 'Good un' mutually exclusive?
Because most budget HRM aren't that accurate and will mostly just give you a spot reading.
So all these are crap are they?
http://www.mailorderbikes.com/products.php?plid=m2b629s35p3308&rs=gb
You get what you pay for. This is as true as it is for HRM as it is for anything.
Whats wrong with just giving your current HR, that 99.9% of what mine gets used for, admiteldy mines set to Zones not HR but anyone with 2 barincells can work out from 1 to the other without much effort.
Tesco do one for £10/£20 seems to vary by shop/time of day/does the month have an R in it.
I've a polar F5, the chest strap battery is still fine 5 years on and the watch battery has been switched once. If your a member of a gym get a cheep polar one as they're the only ones that work with gym equipment usualy.
'digitaly encoded' is only usefull in roadie raceing or if you constantly ride allong power lines, or your paranoid someone might be trying to steal your HR data, even at the gym on spinning bikes a couple of feet appart I don't get interferance.
You get what you pay for. This is as true as it is for HRM as it is for anything.
That doesn't really answer my question. Anyway, I would believe that it is possible to buy an accurate HRM for under £40 and that I don't need the bells and whistles of more expensive units.
Thanks for some useful feedback 'spoon.
Having bought a cheap one £12 from decathon, which just gives your current HR, I've now bought a super fandango one with gps and the works (still getting used to it and using HR in general)
But from my limited experience I would suggest you get one that gives you max HR and Avg HR... if only to "see" what you have done.
i have the polar f4 (old model but still available for a while)
i bought it from [url= http://www.heartratemonitor.co.uk/ ]here[/url] i'd reccoomend them, good prices and get a really good intro to hrm training booklet.
it does what i need i to. time, time since start, HR, bands etc. occasionally i stop it by accident on the bike (press the button with my wrist)
if you just need hr than it is a good little model. batteries been going a couple of years too.
I have the Aldi one. It has spot, min max, target range, cal and fat burn, ect. I would think since the heart rate should work and the calculation for calorific burn is quite simple not sure how you can go wrong.
Buy cheap buy twice, or three times....or four times like I did.
In the end I brought a low end Suunto for 30 pounds second hand. The difference compared to the cheaper ones is that it just works.. I never think about it - spit on chest strap (nice!!), put chest strap on, put watch on and there is my HR for entire ride. The cheaper ones used to annoy me, they would drop the HR and I would be fiddling with the strap.
I used a Sigma one for several years when I started biking. Worked well, could provide useless stats such as max HR, average HR etc. Might have dropped out, I don't spend all of a ride watching a bike computer.
Currently use a Ciclosport HAC4, which isn't cheap, but allows download of ride data including altitude, HR, cadence etc - again, lots of useless stats but that look nice in graph format. This isn't a coded HR strap either. Polar seem to make a big thing of the coded chest strap business, but I am unsure for a none pro athlete whether it really makes a difference. A pro rider in a shoulder to shoulder peloton situation might appreciate the coded function sometimes.
i've got a sigma pc15 and it does all i want - zones (with annoying alarms and recall after your ride so you can see a % of time you spend in each zone), avg, max, laps etc. seemed to do more than similarly priced hrms from other manufacturers.
Aye, some good deals on the PC15 at the mo.
the newer polar ones are self service on the battery change (but i was recently disappointed to find that the bike speedo transmitter that goes on the fork isn't)
a plus for polar is that work with a lot of gym equipment
I've got the cheapest one from Decathlon, which only cost me £8 in a sale. You know what... it's excellent. I now own a Garmin Forerunner 305 which admittedly in functionality pisses on the Decathlon unit, but if all you want to do is see what your HR is doing (and not record it) they are absolutely great bits of kit. The watch bit is a good slim solid unit, with alarm, backlight and chrono, and I now often use that as my main watch...
I think i'm gonna go Sigma PC15... lots of features for not (too) much dosh. Cheers guys!