Advice about heart/activity monitor

crank_girl

I'm trying to build my stamina after an illness. I have a condition where my heart beats too fast. Not death defyingly fast but I do have to keep an eye when exercising so I'm after a gadget. :j:rotfl:
(me exercising!)

I'm after something waterproof that will record my heart rate accurately. I need to be able to use it in the pool and for it to have a biggish display so I can check there and then.

I'm not interested in any of the sub £10 cheap stuff flooding in from China on Amazon and eBay. I don't mind paying up to £70 for summat decent that will last. Mens/unisex fine though I do have freakishly narrow wrists. Would be great if I could download data to a computer though I run Ubuntu so not holding out much hope of any accompanying software.

I have no experience in this particular arena so look forward to your suggestions. Gracias amigos. :T

flissh

I got a polar (?ft1 I think) recently. Not too expensive and can be worn in the pool.

[Deleted User]

Polar are the market leaders, I have two of them. The first is an M52 (long obsolete) which has been fine. I bought an FT4 three years ago to replace it, and that's OK too, except that the bleeper is too quiet to hear. You don't mention a bleeper, but if you're swimming I would think it would be useful if it alerts you without having to keep looking at it.

If you're not looking for an alarm the FT4 has a big display and is waterproof, but if you do want the alarm check before you buy. (My M52 is plenty loud enough, so it's not a problem with all Polars.)

Polar chest belts come in two types, one is all plastic with the battery sealed in, the other is fabric with a battery that is replaceable. The latter looks the best bet because you don't have to throw it away when the battery is flat, but that's not the case. In practice the fabric ones wear out in no time, whereas the battery in the sealed one lasts about 2500 hours, so the sealed plastic ones work out cheaper in the long run.

The chest belts use radio to communicate with the wrist unit, this means that they can be susceptible to interference. If there's a power line or railway nearby then they can sometimes read ~230bpm temporarily, which is not a problem, but if you have a heart condition you need to be aware so that you're not too quick to jump to the wrong conclusion.