We’re preparing to test our next batch of fitness trackers and smartwatches, some of which include an inbuilt heart rate monitor. More and more brands seem to be adopting this feature, so we’re looking to see how important this feature is to you, when considering your next fitness band purchase. This will ensure our research provides relevant information for our members.
So, Choice Community members who are interested in fitness bands or smartwatches, could you take a few minutes to answer this questionnaire, if you own a fitness tracker, or are considering purchasing one. Please note that our questions only concern the inbuilt heart rate monitor.
Does your fitness tracker have a heart rate monitor?
Yes
No
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Do you use the heart rate monitor in your fitness tracker?
Yes
No
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How important do you consider a heart rate monitor on your fitness tracker? (1 being the least important, 10 the most important)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
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Do you use the heart rate monitor all the time (such as when counting steps or completing daily tasks) or only during scheduled exercise periods?
All the time
For exercise only
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If a heart rate monitor is important to you, please tell us why in the comments. We’re also interested in any general comments you have about fitness trackers, so please add them below.
Can you please highlight the evidence that the entire assortment of fitness trackers are unhelpful. The best thing to do is minimise how much you pay for it. Ideally nothing.
Interesting article @rosalieschultz20a, thanks for sharing it. I suppose the psychology of training is coming into effect here? The fitness band could be seen as a distraction for some people, or a tool that says ‘that’s enough’ rather than letting people push to exertion.
Personally, I have a free app on my phone instead of a wearable. I don’t always use it, but one of the features is that it compares my times when running and cycling to other app users on the same route, making it a bit more interesting when you’re doing the same route all the time by adding that competitive element. However, there are times when I turn it off to avoid logging a ‘slow’ session (if I’m going to take it easy). I suppose I could see how that could be a barrier as well.
Trust me, I’m a Doctor on SBS had a segment on fitness trackers recently and determined that the HRM in many of them was hopelessly inaccurate.
Personally I wouldn’t waste my money on one.
However, I have been using Garmin bike computers (Edge 305, then 705) since 2006, which include GPS and HRM- the HR signal comes from a chest strap, and I’ve found the HR is accurate, except near the start of a ride in cold dry air if there isn’t good enough contact between electrodes and skin, when static electricity from my cycling shirt causes the HR to be way too high. I often race my virtual self from a previous ride over the same course, or could load someone else’s course from Garmin Connect to race against that if riding a route other people have ridden (very rare).
The firmware can calculate kcal (Americans mistakenly call them Calories) burned for the ride, which seems reasonable most of the time, although the count does accumulate way too fast at high speed when going down steep hills, when gravity, rather than physical exertion is doing most of the work.
Garmin Connect tells me I’ve used over 13000kcal during over 350km of riding the mountain bike so far this month.
Nice, 350km in eight days is an admirable effort, and the virtual race sounds like a decent motivator. The app I am using (called Strava) has monthly challenges, so for example the March challenges are to ride over 1250km, 7500 metres of climbing, run 10km and so on. It’s a curiosity but it does add a layer of interest for me.
Interesting about the heart rate tracker accuracy. I’d be pretty freaked out if my heart rate was artificially high at the start of activity! Glad it all appears to be working accurately though.
I aim for 1000-1200km/month, but that is a bit difficult sometimes, such as when it is wet and stormy or when we had a few days of thick bushfire smoke in Feb- not what I want to be breathing in in large volumes!
It’s obvious when the static electricity issue is happening- usually a flapping shirt at the start of a ride when going fast down hill (can’t avoid that, living on locally high ground!). Holding my shirt against my chest shows what the real value is. Once I work up a bit of a sweat the false readings stop.
I’ll probably manage those Strava cycling challenges this month, even on knobbly tires- more effort than on a road bike with slicks. A 31 day month helps
I don’t have a fitness tracker. CSIRO Total Wellbeing Diet allows Fitbit & Garmin users to download their data to avoid manual entry. I don’t know if it fills in the health assessment section as well as the exercise diaries & calculates kj burn. Could be worth considering the connectivity / compatibility of these devices and their conversion of effort to kcal/kj. Would they be reliable enough to indicate, to a medical professional, abnormalities in heart function?
For older people HRM is important as it may be relatively easy to exceed the recommended HR limit. However, as someone below has already said, existing HRM’s in wearables are inaccurate to the extent of unusability.
As a 68 year old I just like to keep an eye on my bpm during exercise and when resting. Should there ever be a marked discrepancy I would see my GP asap.
I want to keep fit and use the heart rate monitor on my fitbit to check my resting rate and when I’m exercising. I realise it might not be totally accurate but it does serve as an encouragement for me to exercise harder to increase my heart rate. It has 3 levels and I try to get to the 2nd level “cardio”. It might be a psychological thing but I feel as though I’m achieving something!
I also use the fitbit to check my calories in and out by logging my food intake. Before I used the app I had no idea how many calories each food was worth, so this together with the exercise all helps my fitness. The tracker reminds me to get up at 10 to whatever time, to do some steps, so I’m not sitting for more than an hour at a time.
Fitness trackers are not accurate, I recently got to my daily target of 10,000 steps while I was doing the dishes. But they can be helpful if you factor in the inaccuracies. Easy to check the HRM, simply take your BPM on your other wrist and compare it to the read-out on your tracker.
However, RosalieSchultz20a - a fitness device is a fun way to keep track of what you have actually done physically each day…as I walk a lot everyday, I predominantly wanted to know how many km’s per day I might do - it adds up quite quickly - I am now also able to earn qff points[maybe not for all, we live remotely, so every saving on travel costs is appreciated] with qantas assure - I wonder at the fitness of the person whom wrote the article…it’s not for everyone, but, quite interesting - my fitbit doesn’t have the heart monitor - as a senior person, I am disappointed about this - but, I’ll upgrade - I have the One - it is a clip - it’s a shame all these items aren’t as practical - wrist attachment being the common design, but, very impractical…
Michael Moseley Trust Me I’m a Doctor recently covered fitness trackers and their HR Monitors, and basically said they are useless. Both the fitness tracker and the HR, likewise with wrist based blood pressure measurement.
I use a HR Monitor with a chest strap and link to my bike computer. Have found the current technology, as opposed to that of less than a decade ago to be very reliable and accurate.
Although the absolute values and their averages are interesting, as a training tool their relative measurement and averages seem to be far more useful, eg, intensity level.
With the current media fad about HIIT, when I say intensity, I’m not talking about maximum intensity, you don’t need a monitor for that, but if you are an athlete training for an event, then the appropriate intensity for the performance change you are seeking becomes far more important. In fact for endurance a far more difficult thing is getting competitive athletes to train at low intensity, eg, try riding or running uphill and maintain only 70%max.
On the question of accuracy, it is not surprising that there is a lot of variation as some use chest bands and some rely only on contact with the wrist. Of those, accuracy will be greatly affected by how tight the wrist band is. The slim-line wrist fitness trackers have little contact with the skin anyway.
As an active sports person, I have to use a HRM when following my team’s fitness program. (A number of exercises designate a HR zone.) I used to use one with a chest band as I was aware that wrist-only ones were not regarded as accurate. However in the last couple of years I have been using a Tom-Tom which I tested by using it on one wrist while wearing the chest band of the other one and its receiver on the other wrist. I found that they agreed within 1-2 beats per minute. That is accurate enough for knowing which zone I am exercising in. (I did find that the monitor with the chest band was quicker at detecting a change in HR, whereas the Tom Tom took a second or two to react if I slowed down or sped up.)
Having arrhythmia medicated successfully for 10 years I check my average heart rate a few times most days and sometimes after swimming. I have tried Samsung but it died when they did not update the software and now have a Garmin HR but text is too small and it does not work for swimming.
Thinking of trying Swimmo to count my laps. I swim 68 laps of a 15 meter pool and frequently loose count
The monitor is nice to have, but once I started using it, I realised that it did not really add to my training. Speed, distance and average more important. Accuracy very important and this varies significantly.
I bought a fitness tracker with HRM as I was just returning to exercise after a break and wanted to gradually increase effort over time. It was hopelessly inaccurate! I took it back for a refund. I will not buy another one.
I wanted to track my heart rate… I have arrhythmias, and wanted to show my cardiologist what was happening. Sadly the Holter Monitor I’ve had a couple of times never managed to catch anything. I found that my fitbit blaze was pretty useless. I’ve ended up getting an Apple Watch and currently use HeartWatch as my go-to, it seems to do a reasonable job: it checks the rate every 5 minutes or so and more often if theres some anomaly (like your rate jumping from 60 to 120 in a matter of seconds, whilst you are sitting, reading). I also have a bit of gadgetry called Kardia, from Alivecor. It has two electrodes, and takes the approx equivalent of a one lead ECG. Its not for fitness or checking heartrate whilst exercising. However, its expensive, and its slow because when you detect an arrhythmia, you need to open the app on your phone and take a reading, by which time it may have subsided. There’s a band for the watch as well, and when I can, I will be buying that.
I guess I am saying overall, that the monitor on my watch is something I want and need. The fitbit blaze was useless by comparison.
I bought my tracker primarily for the heart rate monitor function, to help to motivate me to work hard enough. Making sure I spend enough time in the training zone by checking my heart rate when cycling, rowing or walking stops me slacking off or talking myself into a feeling that I am pushing myself, when in fact I’m not. It has a chest strap and I have found it to be very accurate. My research prior to purchase indicated that wrist-only models weren’t accruate at all, which is understandable when you think about the intermittent contact a watch has with your wrist and the weakness of the pulse signal on the back of your wrist.
