Gladius

I've had several Mio Link HR wrist straps that connect to my Garmin via ANT+. I replaced the first when its battery wore out; I lost the second one this summer. They don't appear to make them anymore, and I'm looking for a good replacement.
- I don't want a chest strap. Not interested in hearing about how they are more accurate. For convenience and comfort, I prefer something that goes on my wrist.
- I don't want a $500 watch or a Fitbit that does a million other things - I have watches, I just want an HRM.
I see the Wahoo TICKR FIT is out there. Anyone have that? Any other alternatives?

Iride01 

Does your watch have HR? Some can broadcast the HR to another device such as a Garmin Edge.

tomato coupe

Scosche Rhythm+

fooferdoggie 

yes a lot of the garmin watches do ANT+ this guy works well https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

John_V 

Go to the Mio Link page on Amazon (Mio Link) and scroll up to see the "Products related to this Item" section and the sections below it to get some other ideas on some other products similar to the Mio Link.

inf3rno

Just great, my strap is broken, and the company just told me they don't have any inventory of "legacy" products. I try to get a new strap, but I guess I am out of luck here. Buying a Polar OH1 is a possible solution. Another possible solution is ordering the mioPOD from the company for a similar price as the Polar or currently they have discount, but there is a big chance that you will run into the same support problems. Though for the mioPOD you will be able to use almost any strap. Buying a replacement charger appears to be a lot easier. The HR on Garmin watches sucks, don't buy that. Polar can do it properly. Idk why, both companies bought the patent from Mio, so in theory both should be able to do it, but somehow Garmin cannot. I fail to understand why people hype Garmin so much, their GPS and HR sensors are crap compared to companies like Mio, Polar and Suunto. If you check fellrnr GPS acc tests you don't see any Garmin near the top. Probably their extra stats like balancing, etc. are better, but I won't buy any watch which cannot do the basics. Another thing I don't understand why people integrate optical HR sensor into watches. I guess it works in Florida, but where I live we have winter and a separate watch is a lot more practical here if you want to watch heart rate while running or cycling and you don't want your wrist to completely freeze.

philbob57

I've had 2 Tickr Fits, and I've had several fits over my Tickr Fits. Both examples (bought one, got the 2nd as a warranty replacement) sometimes turn themselves off and back on. I use Bluetooth, though; maybe they're better on ANT+. My 'piter doesn't do Ant+. I really liked the OH1 I had, but the battery charge lasted only for a ride and a half. My next one may be a Scosche, but I'm afraid that has problems, too.

seypat

DC Rainmaker recommends the Polar OH1+.

https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2020/11/...020-2021.html/

philbob57

OH1+ is still available from retail outlets, but it's been replaced. The replacement claims longer battery life both in terms of how long each charge lasts and how many charge cycles it will sustain before the battery loses capability. Given Polar's experience producing good with HRMs, the Verity Sense might be the best option going.

OTOH, the manual says EMI could affect its accuracy, so I wonder if my problem with the Tickr Fit is due to EMI....

RandomDesign

I've been very happy with my Powr Labs armband HRM.

Seattle Forrest

I love my Garmin watch, but I wear a chest strap when that's important to me.

inf3rno

I wanted to glue the strap, but today I tried to turn on my Mio Link and it did not react. It turned out that the covering of the power button is broken too and probably the sweat shorted it. It lasted 5 years. I wanted to buy a mioPOD to replace it, but importing it makes it expensive here, so I'll rather buy a Polar OH1. Hopefully that works too. I am really sad about my Mio Link.

philbob57

If you get a Polar, will you come back and report on how long a battery charge lasts? I for one would really appreciate it.

inf3rno

Sure.
I found other alternatives too; the Wahoo TICKR FIT and the Scosche Rhythm+ 2.0. The latter one is a lot more expensive as the others and had connectivity issues during the reviews I read, that's why I did not investigate it much further.
The MioPOD is similar to the Scosche in delay, maybe around 5 secs and they have better peaks than the Polar. The Polar's peaks are 2-5 beats lower and it has 10 secs delay. The Wahoo is even worse from this perspective. They use moving average I think, that's why the peaks are lower. The Mio Link had around 15 sec delay I think, though I never measured it. I am not sure about the peaks, I never zoomed on it or compared them to the chest straps, probably they were lower too. I guess the Wahoo is only a little bit better than the Mio Link.
The battery time is 12 hours for the Polar, 24 hours for the MioPOD, 30 hours for the Wahoo according to the specs, but in reality it can be lower.
The weight is 5, 30 and 20 gramms, so the MioPOD is pretty heavy compared to the alternatives, but in my experience anything below 200 gramms is pretty much non-existent when I am running.
The Wahoo is barely water proof, only 1 meter, the Polar 30 meter, the MioPOD 50 meter.

All in all I still don't know which one to buy. Certainly not the Wahoo and the Scosche. Meanwhile I found a webshop in the EU that sells the MioPOD for around 100 EUR and there is a webshop in my country that sells the Polar for 85 EUR. I would rather buy the MioPOD because of the low delay and better peaks, but I worry about the warranty. Another impression that the Mio company has problems, at least they announced that they will develop a sport watch and the deadline was last year for the project and nothing happened...

philbob57

Thanks. Those are the claimed battery times. As I wrote, I found the Polar OH1 to be more like 'a ride and a half ' (6 hours at the time) instead of the claimed 12 hours. I'm actually getting at least 12 hours from my Tickr Fit. Each charge lasts long enough that recharging isn't an inconvenience for my 2-3 hour rides.

The Scosche 24 reports cadence as well as HR, so the extra expense (compared to Polar and Wahoo) may be worth the extra $20 if you don't have a separate cadence sensor.

inf3rno

I have a Suunto Ambit3, it logs cadence. For me 6 hours is definitely not enough. I mostly run less than 3 hours, but rarely I cycle long distance, something around 12-16 hours. It would be nice to have heart rate data from these rides, so I'll definitely go with the MioPOD if the webshop I found is legit. I guess the 24 hours means 12 hours with the MioPOD, which might be enough. It would be nice to have a HR monitor I can recharge without turning it off. I can recharge my watch from a power bank even when it is logging GPS data.

JohnJ80

Either the Scosche or the Wahoo optical version that go around your arm are great. Done many rides with them. I've had both and would be happy with either one.

I've had the chest straps which I hated.. I also had the Mio wrist one which I thought was a piece of crap. Never was reliable.

mattcalifornia

I use the Scosche Rhythm 24. Battery life, pairing and accuracy are very good. I'm done with chest straps.

inf3rno

For me the Mio Link was pretty consistent, I used it for 5 years and it always measured the same values. The max HR was 199, max long distance anaerob was 187, anaerob threshold around 170-175, easy 160, very easy 145 and so on. It always gave me the same values consistently for the same intensity. I am not sure if these numbers were the same as the chest straps would have measured, maybe not, but they were consistent and for me that's what matters the most. For intervals it was crap though because of the 15 sec delay.