Ant+ heart rate strap reccommendations

daniel_b

Morning all,

Needed to change the battery on my alleged premium hr strap that came with my 1000.

Mole grips, oodles of pressure and some jewellers screwdrivers have resulted in at least 2rounded off heads. Google seems to think it'snot that uncommon. The old one has a disc you can turn with a coin.
Apparently they use loctite on them. Wtf.

I'll likely drill them out, change the battery and see if it will limp along for a bit longer, but what other options are out there, specifically NOT fitted with the tiniest screws in the world.

I do still have a new old style strap I can use, just wondered if there were any other superior options out there, maybe even, gasp, with a rechargable battery.

I need it to work with my 1000, and trainer road, which I have a suunto ant usb stick for.

One other option would perhaps be to use a bluetooth one for the turbo/trainerroad and the old hard garmin strap with the 1000.
Any issues with using both ant and bluetooth with tr?

daniel_b

That's clearly a no then, what a big gap in the market!

New old style garmin sensor bought into service this morning, and worked perfectly, and not a microscopic loctited screw in sight!

cgfw201

I've got a Garmin premium one, and now a Wahoo TICKR which I had to get for the Bluetooth functionality. Massively prefer the TICKR, both the way it feels and the way it connects together with the clip in button things (technical term).

Works with iPad Zwift via BLE and Garmin 520 via ANT+ simultaneously no trouble at all.

markhewitt1978

My Wahoo TICKR works perfectly. Bonus for it being ANT+ and Bluetooth

fat daddy

another fan of the wahoo unit .... I had a polar one, used to take ages to connect, during hard workouts it would start misreading .... the wahoo has been faultless

apart from the other day when it started to play up, but it turns out I had 2 BT connections trying to grab it, switched zwift to ant+ and all is fine again

alex222

I have a Decathlon one that works well. The version I have has been replaced by the one below, that does ANT+ and Bluetooth.
https://www.decathlon.co.uk/ant-bluetoo ... 34795.html

pirnie

I'd vote for the Scosche Rhythm +

Dual bluetooth and ANT+, rechargeable battery and best of all, no more chest strap. I bought one recently and don't think I can ever go back to a chest strap. They recommend you wear it inside your elbow, but it works juts as well on the upper arm, under your jersey sleeve. Check out DC Rainmaker's review for more info

dannbodge

I use the MIO one.
It's got the old style twist off back and is fairly small/comfy too.

daniel_b

Alex222 wrote:

I have a Decathlon one that works well. The version I have has been replaced by the one below, that does ANT+ and Bluetooth.
https://www.decathlon.co.uk/ant-bluetoo ... 34795.html

Like the look of this Alex, and a few reviews say the strap is compatible with the Garmin front piece - could you do me a favour and tell me if it requires the removal of screws to change the battery, or if it is just a twist off cover?

It's cheaper than either of the Garmin bands, and would also mean I could still hammer my original Garmin strap to get my moneys worth - in my experience, it tends to be the strap that gives up in terms of elasticity before the sender unit dies.

pirnie wrote:

I'd vote for the Scosche Rhythm +

Dual bluetooth and ANT+, rechargeable battery and best of all, no more chest strap. I bought one recently and don't think I can ever go back to a chest strap. They recommend you wear it inside your elbow, but it works juts as well on the upper arm, under your jersey sleeve. Check out DC Rainmaker's review for more info

Oooh, that looks interesting, liking the rechargeable option, 8 hours would likely be ok for me for about a weeks worth of training - how long have you had yours, and does the battery life seem to be consistent or start dropping off?
I could see if it dropped to 3 hours for example, that could get rather frustrating.

What is the charging method, is it just a stock usb cable, or some proprietary cable\connection?

With how long one 2032 battery lasted, I would have thought they would get a rechargeable one to last just as long, evidently not.

Liking the green one a lot - think this is making it onto my Birthday wish list!


I'll have a look at the other recommendations as well!
Thankyou all.

alex222

My Decathlon one is the twist off cover, but as this is an updated version I don't know whether it would be the same or not.
Probably worth e-mailing them to check.

pirnie

Daniel B wrote:

pirnie wrote:

I'd vote for the Scosche Rhythm +
Dual bluetooth and ANT+, rechargeable battery and best of all, no more chest strap. I bought one recently and don't think I can ever go back to a chest strap. They recommend you wear it inside your elbow, but it works juts as well on the upper arm, under your jersey sleeve. Check out DC Rainmaker's review for more info

Oooh, that looks interesting, liking the rechargeable option, 8 hours would likely be ok for me for about a weeks worth of training - how long have you had yours, and does the battery life seem to be consistent or start dropping off?
I could see if it dropped to 3 hours for example, that could get rather frustrating.

I haven't noticed any drop in battery life, but I haven't tried to push it past 2 or 3 hours recently and tend to just stick it on the charger after each ride. I agree if it gets too short it would be a pain. Not heard of anyone complaining about it online though.

Daniel B wrote:

What is the charging method, is it just a stock usb cable, or some proprietary cable\connection?

Unfortunately a propriety USB cable. A bit of a pain if you travel I guess but I just keep it plugged into my PC.

Daniel B wrote:

With how long one 2032 battery lasted, I would have thought they would get a rechargeable one to last just as long, evidently not.

Yeah, for a classic HRM you'd be right but this is optical, so relies on flashing LEDs to read your HR, meaning its much more battery hungry.

Man Of Lard

Daniel B wrote:

With how long one 2032 battery lasted, I would have thought they would get a rechargeable one to last just as long, evidently not.

Rechargeable cells almost always have a higher self-discharge rate than conventional non-rechargeable... it's the result of design compromises required to make the cell rechargeable (also the energy density of a rechargeable is typically lower than a regular cell) - so you have the double whammy of "not as much juice in it" and "the juice leaking away faster"

Personally I'd just buy a decent PH00 screwdriver in the first place for a couple of quid (Mine is black & yellow lol)

stueys

Tickr x, does both bluetooth and ant, very comfy and does lots of useful running stats if you run as well.

FatTed

markhewitt1978 wrote:

My Wahoo TICKR works perfectly. Bonus for it being ANT+ and Bluetooth

Me too

mamil314

I bought the scosche suggested earlier and went back to the old Garmin chest strap pretty quickly. I could never find a spot on my arms where it would work reliably and having to charge it multiple times a week with a proprietary cable became too much of a chore.

daniel_b

Thankyou Alex and Pirnie (Highly detailed) for those replies, much appreciated - I will wing a mail off to Decathlon.

And thankyou MOL for the battery details, had no insight as to that at all, as you can tell :oops:
And yes you are likely right, I should likely just buy a proper screwdriver - I'll see if I can find one that is not technically a 'jewellers' screwdriver, if I am using the right term.

Interesting feedback from mamil314 on the Scosche as well, I guess they suit some people, and not others, bit of a gamble I guess.

Man Of Lard

@Daniel B - as a for instance (00 size... )

http://www.uktoolcentre.co.uk/Shop/p~54 ... ?pid=45005

ryan_w-2

markhewitt1978 wrote:

My Wahoo TICKR works perfectly. Bonus for it being ANT+ and Bluetooth

Some of the best money I've spent this year along with their BLE / ANT cadence sensor...

daniel_b

Man Of Lard wrote:

@Daniel B - as a for instance (00 size... )

http://www.uktoolcentre.co.uk/Shop/p~54 ... ?pid=45005

Cheers MOL, familiar with the Fat Max range, V Good quality.
Looking for one without a spinny top - not sure if that one will or won't have, I'll google some more.

Man Of Lard

My (4 years old now) FatMax PH00 certainly doesn't have a spinny top... But obviously they may have changed that to "improve" it.