Watches With Heart Rate Monitor

For The Fitness-Minded, A Heart Rate Monitor Is A Welcome Addition To Your GPS Running Watch

There are essentially two varieties of watches out there with heart rate monitors:

• less-expensive watches built for fitness training and monitoring
• more-expensive gps-enabled watch with GPS watches built for GPS tracking, fitness training and monitoring

Then there are two varieties of hear rate monitors as well:

• chest-strap monitors
• watch-only monitors

What you decide to buy depends entirely on your needs, of course, but you should keep some things in mind.  While the cheapest route is to purchase one of the less-expensive models that only feature heart rate monitoring via a watch, be warned.  Just because something says it's a watch with a heart rate monitor doesn't mean that it's good at the task or that it's what you're expecting.  For example, on the super-low end you have bargain models from no-name vendors that allow you to stop and monitor your heart rate at that moment by pressing the watch to your wrist tightly as it takes a measurement.  If you're looking to monitor your heart rate in a comprehensive way, this isn't really what you'll need.

As well, there are questions about the accuracy of wrist-mounted models.  Do they give you as exacting a readout of your heart rate?  Of course in ideal circumstances, the pulse can easily be taken from the wrist, but when you're jogging, running, hiking, biking or swimming you're moving around quite a bit and the watch tends to get jarred quite easily.  For this reason, most of us who really mean to monitor our heart rate opt for a chest strap monitor.  Just to get some idea of what people are saying, here's a quote from an Amazon review for one of the cheaper models:

"I really wanted to like this watch because I was fairly resistant to wearing a chest strap. Buy a watch with a nice comfy chest strap instead. This watch doesn't allow you to "watch" your heart rate. You must stop what you are doing and hold your fingers against the node and wait a few seconds for you to get the read out. I say that you need to stop what you are doing because anytime I tried this while moving significantly, I would get a read error. So it worked fine for Zumba when we were taking water breaks or while walking on the treadmill. Very difficult to check heart rate while running on a treadmill or while spinning. Or even on the elliptical for that matter. I never got to the pedometer part because I was too frustrated and sent the watch back for a HR monitor that had a chest strap that allowed me to be able to constantly monitor my HR just by looking at the watch. So this is fine for light cardio. Problem is that if you are looking at HR monitors so you can keep your HR up, you are probably doing a bit more intense cardio and should probably look at HR monitors with a chest strap."

-- P. Breyer

What the reviewer is saying there is really important to keep in mind, because if you don't realize that you're receving bad readouts from your watches with heart rate monitors then you'll assume that the data is right and that either you're healthier than you are or, possibly, it could lead you to believe that you have heart rate issues that you don't actually have!  So, while it's not important to always buy the most expensive, latest and greatest technology for the highest price, it does pay to avoid the bargain bin when you're dealing with your health.

Having dropped the cheap watch with heart monitor crowd from the selections and decided that wrist-based monitors aren't up to the task, it's time to continue on to the different models available and explain a little about each - we'll break them down into two categories for ease of understanding:

• non-GPS watches with chest-strap heart rate monitors
• GPS watches with chest-strap heart rate monitors

Today we'll deal with the non-GPS units...

Non-GPS Watches With Chest-Strap Heart Monitors 

Timex Ironman Road Trainer Heart Monitor Watch

The most affordable of these is the Timex Ironman Road Trainer Heart Rate Monitor Watch which starts at a little over $60 and features all kinds of training-related functions, including:

• A 100-hour chronograph that lets you time laps and split
• A "Data Recorder" which is the heart rate monitor chest strap
• Memory that accommodates up to fifty laps, with avg. heart rate tracked for each lap
• Tracking of average heart rate for an entire workout and for each lap (as mentioned above)
• Estimate of calories burned 
• See more at the link above

The Timex Ironman is a good entry level alternative for those who want something better than a dinky wrist-based heart rate monitor, but don't want to plunk down the $100+ it costs to get a more fully-functional heart rate monitor watch.  You'll have everything you need to keep track of training time, heart rate and so on.  Of course to get a really accurate training watch you need to opt for something GPS-enabled, but not everyone needs this functionality, especially if all you care about is keeping track of your heart rate.

The heart rate monitoring itself seems to get largely positive reviews, with most people experiencing good results with their heart rate monitors.  Some people seem to have received lemons that jump around wildly from time to time, but the only complaint that seems to surface regularly is that if you've got a large torso then the heart rate monitor band itself can be a bit tight.  Still, for around $60, this is the bargain of the group.

Garmin FR60 Heart Monitor Watch

The mid-range offering in the group, arguably both in price terms and in functionality terms, is the Garmin FR60, which you can pick up for anywhere from $65-$90 on average.  The FR60, pictured below, has the trademark Garmin form factor that's not quite as slick as competitors, but tends to give you a greater ergonomic experience (with the sole exception of the Forerunner 405, which is a nightmare to use compared to all other Garmin Forerunner models).  You can see the contrast between the FR60 and the other units here:

The Garmin FR60 comes with:

• Heart rate monitor chest strap
• The ANT+ wireless USB stick (for transfering data) 
• Garmin's Training Center software and access to Garmin's online "Garmin Connect" service
• Tracking heart rate based on lap times, averages and so on
• Training alarms and Garmin's "virtual partner" mode that lets you race against yourself

All in all, the Garmin has about the same reputation as the other watches.  Some report glitches and spikes with the heart rate monitoring, but most people seem happy with the model.  At a price point between that of the Timex and the Polar, it's a good mid-range option for those who can't justify the cost of the Polar, but want a little more functionality than the Timex offers.

Polar RS300X Heart Rate Monitor Watch

The final, and most expensive choice on the list is the Polar RS300X Heart Rate Monitor Watch, which is a bit of a hybrid as it pairs with other Polar devices to extend its functionality.  For example, you can add the GPS sensor and foot pod to give the unit GPS capability and more exacting cadence tracking for your training.  Still, it ships out of the box as a sturdy fitness watch with heart rate monitor, so for purposes of this article, we'll leave it in the non-GPS category and let you decide whether to upgrade.  Here's a quick look at the watch:

The Polar's a bit of a step up from the Timex and gives you greater flexibility with your heart rate monitoring and your tracking of fitness activities.  Features include:

• Heart rate diplsyable by maximum rate, beats per minute as well as average rate during exercise
• Keeps track of sixteen sessions as well as the last six teen weeks
• Offers alarms to let you know when you're outside of your target heart rate zones
• Software to help you track and understand the effect your training is having on your heart rate
• Comes with a heart rate monitor strap
• Tons of other functions explained in greater detail at the link

Reviews of the Polar are largely positive, with most users expressing happiness with the heart rate monitoring and the alarms.  As with many other models, the only complaint tends to be about the size of the chest strap if you happen to have a large chest.  

The main problem with the Polar is that at about $110 starting price, it's only a few dollars cheaper than the Garmin Forerunner 305, which is a fully-functional GPS unit that also comes with a heart rate monitor.  Still, the heart rate monitoring-specific functionality of the Polar RS300X is richer than that of the Forerunner series, so if you're specifically looking for bells and whistles to do with heart rate monitoring and tracking geographic locations and distances isn't on your wish list, then the Polar is probably the better choice for you.

Wrapping Up

That wraps it up for the non-GPS watch with heart rate monitor reviews - tomorrow we'll move on to the GPS watches with heart rate monitors where we'll take a look at some of the more advanced options available!