Wrist based HRM...

Mikey23

Any one had any experience of these such as the mio link? Having a band tightly strapped around my chest and its unreliability has had me thinking about the mio link... Anyone use one and had it paired to garmin?

NUFCrichard

Check out DCrainmaker, he seems to like the optical hr monitors, but they have there own issues just like normal chest ones do, battery life being one of them.

meanredspider

I don't think they work for everyone and I think they need to be quite tight too. Maybe worth trying if you really don't get on with chest straps - personally I wouldn't bother.

Mikey23

I have COPD so really dont like anything constricting my chest ... I suppose the downside for me would be yet another device that has to to be recharged regularly and i bet it has a non standard usb connector to go with all the other non standard usb connectors

JackPozzi

Had a brief look at these recently and could only find the mio link which didn't appeal with it's maximum 10 hours battery life. Are there any other options at the moment with ANT+?

nammynake

Been using a Mio Link for a couple of months now and I really like it. I find it much more comfortable than a chest strap. Battery life is fine but you'll need to charge it after most rides. I was out for 8 hours today and it lasted.

You need to wear it higher up your wrist than a watch to get a strong signal, which did feel weird at first but not uncomfortable. I had a few instances of dropping signal but once you work out where to place it on your wrist, it's very reliable.

The sensor is charged with its own cradle via USB.

Mikey23

Thanks! On my christmas list

djhermer

Mikey23 wrote:

Thanks! On my christmas list

Mikey, have you used one of the new Garmin HR chest straps? I recently bought a new 510 and it came with the strap, even though i have two or three older Garmin and Polar ones knocking about I bought it because of the new design. The 250-300mm long plastic bar that sat across your chest plate has gone. It's now a very small (70mm odd) central sensor with the rest being all fabric and some light flexible plastic. Much less restrictive and a gazillion times more comfortable.

Mikey23

thanks @djh... have the old style one as folks say it is way more reliable. only used it a few times though...

EBEB

I have one and much prefer it to a HR strap. Did an ironman in it. To be honest after the 2.4m swim, 112m on the bike I didn't really care about my HR towards the end of the Marathon part so the battery life didnt really bother me. I'm not sure it is 10hrs. I'd say about 8hr 45min. A second advantage is that it is dual bluetooth and ANT+ so you can use it with a bluetooth phone when at the gym. MIO are however crap and the iPad App is dismal.

Importantly the sizes are misleading. The small/medium isn't really medium. The choice is basically between small and large. I don't have big wrists but had to exchange for a bigger size. There's also a Scorche armband that looks good for biking. I think it is called the Scorche Rhythm. I had ideas that I would be able to see the Mio's light flash when I pushed off from the pool wall but it is too infrequent and there are too many bubbles.

tangled_metal

I'm looking at getting a fitness tracker so have been looking around for information. Dcrainmaker website is really good for information. All these things can sync to various phone apps.

As far as optical hrm they are very accurate when used statically. They've been used in hospital for many years now. The issue is motion. Any light getting into the sensor and accuracy goes out the window. This often means mio sensors only.claim accuracy up to 14.7mph. Above that running speed light getting in and noise in the sensor means inaccuracy. Different brands also use.different algorithms to cope with the noise. Mio sensors are the most common makers with.IIRC Scocche being the other main one which is made by valencell. Scocche is a good brand for optical sensors. They.do a hrm band that goes on the arm not the wrist. Think it's not optical neither.

tangled_metal

Fitbit have a good app but their hardware is not the best.

Check out a company called Basis. They've got a new model out November called the Peak. A watch based optical sensor hrm plus many other sensors. It's highly rated b1 model is good but its weaknesses are solved a lot by the Peak I've heard. It brings activity/sleep/fitness sensors into the more sport based.training market I think.

The technology behind these things are really in the early days. They're just putting this tech together with a whole range of sensors. Then through their software apps and websites they're still developing what the data means. Some of the big brands are planning updates in the new year to add functions to the app that wasn't ready on release of the app and hardware.

One interpretation of the HR measurement is called heart rate variability. They measure the time between peaks of your pulse. The more variation in timings the less stress your under. Basically it's being used to measure recovery levels right through to mental stress depending if it's being used for fitness/training or general health and wellbeing.

Basically this optical HR sensor tech and apps are about to expand their functionality. The likes of fitbit surge and basis peak are leading the charge. The peak is on my wish list.

An interesting but impractical sensor is the withings pulse ox. It measures HR and blood saturation level too. What use that is to most I'm not sure but their app will end up simplifying it for you.

JackPozzi

If someone can invent a subtle wristband that measures heart rate, has ant+ and has a battery that will last for at least 12 hours I'd be happy...

eddiefiola

My Mrs has one of the Tom Tom Cardio watches, half the time it doesn't work no matter how tight the strap. I actually saw Tom Tom talk about issues with sweat in a forum when I was looking into issues with hers, ffs you run, you sweat, if it doesn't work because of sweat it's pretty flawed.

tangled_metal

JackPozzi wrote:

If someone can invent a subtle wristband that measures heart rate, has ant+ and has a battery that will last for at least 12 hours I'd be happy...

http://www.dcrainmaker.com/2014/05/scosche-antbluetooth-optical.html

A review of a wrist based optical HRM strap that has dual ANT+/BTLE connection. Is this any good for you? Not sure of the battery life but this guy seemed to rate it as an aftermarket HRM band. Might not be subtle enough for you. If not try holding off for the Basis Peak watch/activity monitor to come out. Perhaps that could be suitable.

JackPozzi

Tangled Metal wrote:

JackPozzi wrote:

If someone can invent a subtle wristband that measures heart rate, has ant+ and has a battery that will last for at least 12 hours I'd be happy...

http://www.dcrainmaker.com/2014/05/scosche-antbluetooth-optical.html

A review of a wrist based optical HRM strap that has dual ANT+/BTLE connection. Is this any good for you? Not sure of the battery life but this guy seemed to rate it as an aftermarket HRM band. Might not be subtle enough for you. If not try holding off for the Basis Peak watch/activity monitor to come out. Perhaps that could be suitable.

I have looked at the scoshe, think the battery life is only about 6 hours though. Will have a closer look at the peak, and also I think 4iii have got something coming out soon, mini viva or something similar. Hopefully as the tech evolves they'll start squeezing better runtime out of it...

tangled_metal

Peak officially only came on sale direct from Basis today. Might be hard to get them over here. The steel band or B1 version is available and still good.

There are some activity trackers with a watch, coin battery that supposedly lasts up to 6 months I think, but perhaps they're more lifestyle trackers than fitness trackers or for HRM use.