ilovebiking

I have used a Wahoo TICKR HRM for years and it's been great. However I have a condition (minor) that causes an occasional irregular heart beat. I am looking for a HRM which can detect/record an irregular event. I can do this with expensive home monitors but it should be a simple job for an everyday HRM. I greatly prefer a chest strap vs a smart watch.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Mike

pdlamb

What are you using as the head unit for the Wahoo? Straight recording is easy if you're recording a ride on a GPS. You can zoom in on a fairly short period of high heart rate (like AFib), though I don't know if you'll record more than the apparent jump in pulse, e.g. 120 -> 180 -> 140 after a minute or two.

scottfsmith

The Fourth Frontier chest strap does that, you get an EKG and it automatically detect anomalies. I bought one for the same reason you want one. Unfortunately it doesn't connect with my Wahoo head unit so I rarely use it. It only has low-power bluetooth, no ANT+, and the low-power bluetooth does not play well with my Wahoo.

ilovebiking

Thanks for your reply. Head unit is a Wahoo Elemnt. I will look into your suggestions, but what I am really looking for is a missed/extra heartbeat. That might be hard to locate in the record of a long ride.

ilovebiking

Thanks, I will look at that. I also am using a Wahoo bike computer, so that might be an issue. As I said in an earlier reply, what I want to detect is a missed/extra heartbeat. I know I have them, but so far it has not caused any more serious problems.

pdlamb

FWIW, my understanding is that an occasional skip or extra beat is nothing to worry about. Episodic spasms are bad, and they'll probably show up clearly on a long record. (What does your doctor say?)

ilovebiking

Thanks for your suggestions. Yes, occasional blips are not uncommon. I just don't like not knowing what's going on, I would prefer to record all events and know for sure how often this is happening. Probably best to schedule another visit with the cardiac doc. I was just hoping there was a HRM with this feature, but other than a very expensive Fourth Frontier unit, I cannot find one. Although it should be an easy extension of something like the TICKR or similar.

scottfsmith

Based on how often my TICKR seems completely off on the heart rate I don't think the sensors are powerful enough to pick up actual heart glitches .. they must be getting a very noisy signal which they are trying to get one number out of, and even that is often going not so well. So my guess is any such monitor with that feature will be several times the price since more leads will be needed.

The Fourth Frontier used to be $250 plus some yearly payment for the app but it looks like now you have to get lifetime app use as part of the price so it is doubled. My guess is Garmin, Apple, Wahoo etc are looking into this space and there will be cheaper options in a few years.