Joined: Aug 2009
Posts: 6,722
Likes: 5,345
From: Minneapolis
Bikes: 2022 Salsa Beargrease Carbon Deore 11, 2020 Salsa Warbird GRX 600, 2020 Canyon Ultimate CF SLX disc 9.0 Di2, 2020 Catrike Eola, 2016 Masi cxgr, 2011, Felt F3 Ltd, 2010 Trek 2.1, 2009 KHS Flite 220
Some of this discussion is digressing from EL&G to T&F, buf...
No 220-age is not a good metric. It may work for some, but I know many more for whom its far from accurate. I'm 64 and my MHR is 181 bpm. 10 years ago it was 184.
Occasionally I do see spurious high readings from my HRM. It had not occurred to me that this could be from microwave repeaters, but it's possible.
My current HRM is the Polar H10. I didn't know about the "coded" version. Will look into it when this one wears out.
Pretty. much every HRM I've owned does something wack from time to time. This includes Garmin, Wahoo, and Polar brands. Spurious high readings, low readings, stuck at some particular reading for minutes at a time, even though I know my effort hasn't been constant. Sometimes moving the HRM around on my chest or wetting it (if conditions are dry and I haven't yet started to perspire) helps. Sometimes it doesn't.
There's been lots of discussion of these kinds of things on BF over the years. My conclusion is that there isn't any HRM that is 100% reliable.