So, I have used both a speedometer and a heart rate monitor in the past, but stopped using both after a time. I still have them in the closet but the batteries need replacing. I haven't used them for a number of years. Fast forward and I find my kids have gifted me a new Apple Watch and one of it's many functions is a heart rate monitor and speedometer.

Of course it records all the information it accumulates and I was surprised at the results. I expected my heart rate and speed to be lower now that I'm older, riding a tank of a bike and not terribly interested in pushing myself as I was 20 years ago but it seems to me both my heart rate and speed are far lower than I thought they'd be.

Not that it matters much but I'm thinking the Apple Watch just isn't nearly as accurate as the old speedometer and Heart rate units I used to use (Timex Ironman hrm with chest strap & cateye mini). Does any one know of the accuracy of my new watch vs. the older units I had been using?

You might want to check this out. The Apple watch faired pretty well, most of the wrist/optical monitors did fairly well assuming a few beats one way or the other is accurate enough.

Who Has The Most Accurate Heart Rate Monitor?

On a day to day basis I use a FitBit Charge given me by my wife. I had a stent implant not long ago. There was a heart rehab series covered by my insurance so figured what the heck. It was six weeks and you wore a harness with three electrodes, etc. You could observe your heart rate on a screen up front. The FitBit was quite accurate. I use a Mio Link while riding though because I have not yet figured out how to get Strava to pickup heart rate from my FitBit.

Thanks. Seems I'm slower than I thought.

I was running into a very similar situation. I have the Samsung setup with Gear S3 watch and S7 Edge phone. All pretty new stuff, but....

One of the reasons for the watch was the HRM and, on paper at least, it appeared as though I could use it on my rides with Strava or Endomondo (pick any popular app as I think I have tried them all) and NONE would allow me to record my HR from my watch through the app. In fact, most companies acted like I was crazy because I wanted to do so.

Now, let me clarify. I can use my watch if I use the watch app and my HR will record, but the watch apps don't see my speed/cadence sensors. The phone apps see the speed/cadence but not the HR from the watch.

The problem seems to be that the watch apps are not "extensions" of the phone apps. They each record your exercise separately and will not merge the two once the duplicity is recognized...rather you have duplicate records.

The OpenRider phone app is the exception that I found. The watch is more of a remote control for the phone app and it will pull in the HR readings from the watch with a paid account. I was very excited and very disappointed by the execution. I am not one for negative reviews but the app just sucks!

Long story short, now that I have this great gear, I am shopping for a heart rate monitor and I will likely go ahead and but a computer as well save my phone for calls.

BTW I am looking at the Lezyne Macro GPS, any users?

My problem also.

another (somewhat related) question.

Just how accurate is the distance function on the watch?

I've just used it for my commute, but I've been doing this commute for years and it seems the watch is recording it at a slightly shorter distance than what my old speedometer recorded

Well, there is one possible exception that I know of - Strava has an Apple Watch app and it talks to its iPhone app. You can pair speed, cadence, power, etc.. sensors to the iPhone app. I believe (but have not tested) that Strava will integrate your HR data into your Strava recorded ride.

The main problem is that the HRM in the most of the watches presumes the watch/phone is the end point for the data not the bike computer. The watches also cannot broadcast their HRM real time data and act like a HRM sensor would (this would be great if they could). So you cannot, for all intents and purposes, use a wearable watch like the Apple Watch and use it as a dumb HRM monitor sensor connected to a bike computer. So if you were to record your heart rate with the watch, you won't have it tied into your other ride data unless you use the Strava app.

What you can do with the Apple Watch is pair a regular HRM to it so that the HRM monitor strap or sensor is used instead of the Apple Watch's sensor - for whatever utility that provides (maybe lower battery usage?). To date the Apple Watch doesn't have the ability to interface to the rest of your bike sensors (cadence, speed, etc...). it can, however, track your speed through it's GPS capability (Watch has to be Series 2 for standalone or have an iPhone connected if Series 1) which I believe is how the Strava app does it. The iPhone Strava app does support speed, cadence, HRM, and Power (stages) through BTLE. The question that needs to be confirmed is that if you record this between the phone and watch Strava apps, is the HR data captured from the watch included in the ride data from the sensors connected to the phone. Other than that, I don't know of any way to incorporate Apple Watch (or most other wearable HR data) into the rest of the ride data.

With respect to bike computers, the most sensor smart device are the Wahoo bike computers. I would guess the second most would be Garmin who also can have the ability to add sensors (I believe) through their 3rd party app capability. Everyone else is a distant third place after that.

What I would like is to be able to connect my Apple Watch to my bike computer as a HRM where the Apple Watch would measure heart rate and transmit as a BTLE HRM on the appropriate profile. That capability does not exist to the best of my knowledge.

J.