Grambo

Looking for recommendations on a good HRM. Not looking for a model with a lot of bells and whistles ..... just solid functionality that also measures calories burned. Want to be able to use it on both my Mt and road bikes.

Thanks,
Jim

crypticlineage

I love my Sigma sport PC15. It does training zones and works flawlessly, and I only paid $47 for it including shipping on eBay (new item).

pityr

I have this one as well. It works great and isn't complicated at all. I think i paid $40 at performance bike a year ago. It was on sale and i had a coupon.

late

Here's another good choice
https://www.performancebike.com/shop/...tegory_ID=4115

donrhummy

Polar s120 will do everything you need and it's cheap.

https://www.amazon.com/Polar-S120-Hea...4154830&sr=8-1

I think you can get it for somehwere around $50 now (maybe bike nashbar or performance?)

You can set 3 heart rate zones and it'll let you know if you're above or below it.

joshalope

I'm a big fan of Suunto because I think they're more accurate than their Polar counterpart, albeit more expensive, but you get what you pay for. Polar built a name for themselves, but the quality recently, in my opinion, seems to have gone down tremendously. The T1 goes for about $100, (I have the T3 ($150) which has a few more bells and whistles, notably an interval timer which I use a bunch for doing... well, intervals).

FigBug

Does anybody know how accurate heart rate monitors are at measuring calories burnt? Are they within 20%, or worse than that?

joshalope

I don't know how much an issue actual accuracy is, as opposed to the algorithm each manufacturer uses. Many times, the "calories burned" will also include caloric expenditures from your basal metabolic rate in addition to those burned through exercise, so it can pad the readings by as much as a couple hundred calories. With that said, because they are calculating calories burned by crunching numbers such as your weight, age and heart rate, not taking an actual metabolic reading, there is definitely a margin of error, although I think 20% might be a bit high.

donrhummy

What's this based on? Consumer Reports did a test of all the popular heart rate monitors and matched them against a HR monitor in a hospital and Polar was the most accurate by a good margin. I believe they said it was accurate to within 3-4 bpm. (You'll have to look it up) That's actually why I bought Polar.

late

Hi,
I have a Polar, a Suunto and a Sports Instruments. I don't really see accuracy as an issue at all. If it is consistently wrong, you will just use those numbers. As long as the stew is in the pot, it's gonna get cooked.

WHat I see as an issue is stuff like ease of use and durabilty, and features.
I like my Fit 3 because it is the HRM for Dummies

joshalope

It was based on my own personal experience with multiple Polar HRMs. Just a personal preference.

krazyderek

doesn't wal-mart sell polar's now?

FrankBattle 

My thoughts exactly. Anyone notice that the Polar doesn't start counting expended calories until you are >100 bpm? Well, at least mine doesn't. Wife and I both have very trusty A5s.

johnny99

Did you actually measure the error or are you just guessing?

munkyv22

I am perfectly happy with my Garmin.

joshalope

It would give me these readings that just seemed wacky. If I had actually expended that many Calories for a given activity, I would have lost a ton of weight which I did not. Also, there seemed to be inconsistencies from reading. But to answer your question, no I did not measure it. Again, as I said before, from MY OWN experience, I did not like the Polar HRM's (plural) that I tried because based on the activities I was doing, the data did not seem plausible.