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I've been using a chest-strap based HR monitor (Polar RS 100) for over a decade. For the last several years, I've been watching (no pun intended) the development of the wrist-based HR monitors, since it seems awfully nice to only have to put on a watch and ditch the strap.

They had a lot of growing pains, and the good ones are still expensive. I bought my wife a Garmin Forerunner 235 18 months ago for a gift. She still uses it, and it is fairly accurate, but it's still $325.

I finally broke down and bought one for myself, but I went with the brand new Polar M430.

https://www.polar.com/us-en/products/sp ... ning-watch

I bought in based on DC Rainmaker's review, where he says it is probably the most accurate GPS and most accurate wrist-based HR monitor available today:

https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2017/06/pol ... eview.html

DC Rainmaker is the God of reviews of this kind of technology.

Had it for a week, and it is awesome.

And it's only $229.

I got the grey color strap, and it is not as ugly as I was afraid it would be.

I have made fun of the fitbit crowd for years, and did not intend to use this thing as an "activity tracker", but I have been doing just that since I got it, maybe out of curiosity. I did learn yesterday that I could probably count my 1 hour lawn-mowing job as a pretty reasonable LSS, since I walked almost 2 miles and had a pretty steady HR in the 65% range . . . .

About the only negative thing I can say is there are a lot of bad reviews of the App on the google play store. People say it is not stable, stops syncing, and has to be constantly uninstalled and reinstalled. I myself have not had any trouble with the app though.

Cool

I have the Garmin Fenix 5 (from the 3 which I upgraded from the 2). Like the watch, don't have problem wearing with a suit, but the wrist HR is horrible, to put it mildly.

I have the tri and pool HR bands for Garmin so I'm kind of into the system, but I'll be curious of your experience with he HR on the polar.

The HR seems accurate for long runs and intervals.

This model will not work in the pool. Gotta' pony up bigger bucks for that. It is waterproof, but the functionality is not there for measuring swimming performance.

Won't do open water swimming either. And the manual says you can't use the polar chest strap with the watch while swimming "because bluetooth does not work in water."

It won't work with ANT devices like chest straps either, which I think is Garmin's old standard.

The Garmin Forerunner 235 actually is pretty good at wrist HR, but I'm too lazy to check if it works while swimming. DC Rainmaker liked that watch a lot 18 months ago which is why I bought it for my wife.

WB, are you still using your 430? How do you like it overall? Do you find HR reading and GPS accurate/reliable?

It looks like my HR gear is starting to show me middle finger and I might be looking for new one before getting into BB. I have noticed that Polar is having good sale now. So, I am thinking...

Yes I am still using it and I like it a lot. They added 24/7 HR monitoring
since I bought it, which works very well, and they fixed the app syncing
issues.

I get 3-4 days on a charge unless I take too many long runs. Charges super-fast too.

Overall very pleased.

It could be prettier.

WallBilly wrote:Yes I am still using it and I like it a lot. They added 24/7 HR monitoring
since I bought it, which works very well, and they fixed the app syncing
issues.

I get 3-4 days on a charge unless I take too many long runs. Charges super-fast too.

Overall very pleased.

It could be prettier.

Thank you!

WallBilly wrote:I've been using a chest-strap based HR monitor (Polar RS 100) for over a decade. For the last several years, I've been watching (no pun intended) the development of the wrist-based HR monitors, since it seems awfully nice to only have to put on a watch and ditch the strap.

They had a lot of growing pains, and the good ones are still expensive. I bought my wife a Garmin Forerunner 235 18 months ago for a gift. She still uses it, and it is fairly accurate, but it's still $325.

I finally broke down and bought one for myself, but I went with the brand new Polar M430.

https://www.polar.com/us-en/products/sp ... ning-watch

I bought in based on DC Rainmaker's review, where he says it is probably the most accurate GPS and most accurate wrist-based HR monitor available today:

https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2017/06/pol ... eview.html

DC Rainmaker is the God of reviews of this kind of technology.

Had it for a week, and it is awesome.

And it's only $229.

I got the grey color strap, and it is not as ugly as I was afraid it would be.

I have made fun of the fitbit crowd for years, and did not intend to use this thing as an "activity tracker", but I have been doing just that since I got it, maybe out of curiosity. I did learn yesterday that I could probably count my 1 hour lawn-mowing job as a pretty reasonable LSS, since I walked almost 2 miles and had a pretty steady HR in the 65% range . . . .

About the only negative thing I can say is there are a lot of bad reviews of the App on the google play store. People say it is not stable, stops syncing, and has to be constantly uninstalled and reinstalled. I myself have not had any trouble with the app though.

Quite a long lawn you've got there sir thanks for the review tho

I have a relatively Garmin Vivoactive HR I like it a lot and use it on my runs. The only bad thing is I can't use the watch for repeats.

travman wrote:I have a relatively Garmin Vivoactive HR I like it a lot and use it on my runs. The only bad thing is I can't use the watch for repeats.

i use a garmin forerunner 935. I create artificial repeats using this method -
create workout
set a time for estimated repeat + rest (so I use 4mins for say, a 1:30 400m with 2:30 rest).
i set the number of repeats

It's probably not the best way to do this but it should be available on the vivoactive as well.