Heart Rate Monitors and Fitbit

[Colinm39]

I have started this topic so that we can build some history about  what Fitbitters are using to help improve their Fitness, especially with the exertive, above waist effort.

I use a Polar rs300x for the very heavy effort and a MIO Sport wrist touch HRM for the opportunistic walks. All work well but I had to do the Rockport Walking test for my Vo2 for the Polar HRM because it calculates your Vo2 based on the resting heart rate. Mine is 53 bpm and gets down to 42 when I'm asleep (just woken). By adjusting that I now have both HRM's reading within 5 calories on a 30 minutes stationary bike activity.

I have supplemented that with Total Heart Rate Training: Customize and Maximize Your Workout Using a Heart Rate Monitor (Paperback) By (author) Joe Friel.

I know we have the MIO Alpha, many Polars and other brands. It would be nice to hear from those who have the total package HRM, Pedometer and Calories all in one. They were hitting the market last year but I haven't seen much activity on the Internet.

I look forward to seeing your comments.

[Cybertekkno]

I just purchased a Polar FT4 HRM watch with the chest strap and just started wearing it yesterday.  I was surprised at how easy it was to set it up...I had it completely figured out in a few minutes without even havign the read the instructions that came with it.  While wearing it during racewalking and intervals training workouts yesterday and today, I discovered just how inaccurate the calorie counter on my Horizon T401 treadmill really is (almost 30% off).  I am, however, wishing I had purchased the FT7 so I could upload my data, as the FT4 does not have the ability to upload the data.  I can manually log data on PolarPersonalTrainer.com, which is kind of a pain in the buttocks, as it would be so much easier to just upload it through their syncing tool.  Fortunately, on Fitbit.com I can easily log of my heartrate data under Heart Rate.  

[Dominique]

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@LilBudyWizer wrote:

Regrettably I forgot to wear my chest strap today so I had nothing to compare the Alpha to. I didn't see any drops outs though and the numbers all seem reasonable. Battery life is real good. I used it for about three hours as an HRM, another 20 as a watch and I still have 2 of 3 bars on the battery indicator. I think you could likely get by with charging it once a week for a hour run 3-4 days a week.

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In addition to the Mio Alpha, I also have a Polar H7 chest strap, which is generally well regarded in terms of accuracy. I've sometimes worn both, connecting the Polar to my Nexus 4 and I've found they display exactly the same results (give or take 1-2 beats per minute), perhaps with a slight delay for the Polar (probably due to Bluetooth communication).

Battery life is indeed very good, in fact better than what they promise (which is 18 hours, if memory serves). On a few occasions, I've used the Mio Alpha to record my HR during my sleep, using an app on my phone. The phone had to be connected to the mains, otherwise its battery would most likely have discharged during the night.

[WendyB]

I also read a lot of bad reviews on the Basis. It looked really nice tho. But I always base my decisions on reviews

[Mary]

Before I had a Fitbit, back in early 2009, I had a Body Media Fit.  The Basis kind of looks like that on the back, but with HR.  I don't really like the sensors on me, and for me they didn't add much above what the Fitbit gives.  I don't really like a watch, either.  But I liked how the Basis deals you out goal cards over time.  It seemed kind of game-like, how you 'unlock' new goals once you've completed others.  Though for me the big goal is just being consistent, not always adding more stuff, which is why the Fitbit Premium deal didn't appeal to me (among other reasons).  

[Leslie25]

I have both the one and the flex.  Of the two I prefer the one.  The flex seems to be ased on arm movement and doesn't record well if the arm isn't constantly moving.  I do find that it records better when you wear it around your ankle.  I do have a problem with both when I bike.  I always log manually then as neither is very accurate.  I do prefer the display on the one much better than the flex.  The flex also doesn't have the flights of stairs capability.  

[LilBudyWizer]

If you like games then you might want to give the Striiv a try. I wouldn't use it as a replacement for a Fitbit, but it's a nice addition to it. You don't have to do more, just do something. Steps earn you energy and gold to purchase stuff in a building game. You can earn extra energy by completing challenges along the way. The challenges come in difficulty with the more difficult earning more energy. It's things like steps in so many minutes. Easy is real easy. Medium requires me to keep most of the time, but I can stop to cross streets. With hard you have to keep moving and move a fairly fast pace. Cross traffic and crossing lights often make me miss those. The point of energy is the walkathon. You can earn charitable donations, like polio vacines.

Where I really liked it was trying to get my wife into walking. She got winded easily so the playing with the little challenges gave her an excuse to stop. Once she started a challenge it gave her a reason to keep moving until she completed it. I figure a donation is worth like 10 cents and takes 18K steps though it use to be 10K. They raised it due to the bonuses from completing challenges. You actually get a bonus every 2K steps as well and applying that drops it to like 14K steps. Using the challenges though you can be a bonus about every 4k steps which is why I think they raised it. I've earned about 300 donations. You get a free donation just for syncing.

I don't really get it as a business model though. If it came out of the purchase price then they gave $30 out of my $100 purchase price to charity. They say they have partners making the donations, but I don't see how they recruit sponsors since theirs no credit given to sponsors. It's a great idea with visibility to sponsors. I wouldn't mind ads for the sponsors if they're donating based upon my walking. Lord knows enough sponsor plenty of stuff that involves setting and watching something, TV being the biggest. What a better world it would be if even 1% was spent getting people up and moving to earn donations to charity.

[Leslie25]

I used to use this for the walkathon/water donation.  I was using the phone app.  The app although free did have advertisements and the push notifications got to be to much I had to turn them off.  I can say that was useful in motivating me and my sister to get 15K steps a day so we could make 1 donation a day.  Everytime you close the app it pushes a messages.  I was using fitbit,so really didnt need it for the pedometer feature.  It also was a battery drainer as well on the cell phone.  

[LilBudyWizer]

I'm a bit disappointed, but not with the Mio Alpha. I found I can't run an ANT+ sensor at the same time as a Bluetooth BLE/Smart sensor with my phone. It isn't the Mio Apha, another Bluetooth BLE HRM does the same thing. So I can't use an ANT+ foot pod or bike speed/cadence meter at the same time. I have several ANT+ HRM's, but it's still disappointing.

[slysam]

Interesting thread! In addition to a Fitbit I use a now discontinued Polar F11, a polar H7 and Digifit I cardio app. I tried quite a few tracking apps--most that can sync with Fitbit and found I prefer Icardio. I sometimes will use Runkeeper since it syncs with other apps and Digifit will log my workouts to Runkeeper. I keep looking at other trackers, but the One so far seems the best fit and now I have so much history on Fitbit. I am really interested in the Missfit Shine since it looks nice and can be worn swimming. I am looking for something for water exercise. I was eyeing the poolmate but for the price doesn't seem versitile enough. I was looking at Polar Loop but from the reviews it didn't really seem to add anything and I don't want to have to wear something on my wrist. My big disapointment is in their specs the heart rate feature doesn't work in water since it only uses the bluetooth signal. Swimming and water exercise is the main thing I wanted it for as my fitbit and hrm work fine for everything else. I just always feel I miss steps when I take a shallow water class that I otherwise enjoy. My Polar F11 works fine in the water. And I have used it with my H7 strap so I know that strap is capable of working in water (using the ant+ signal not the bluetooth).