What Is The Best Heart Rate Monitor

[Shameka Roessler]

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If a chest strap is out of the question because you need to see your metrics in real time and glance at them during the day, the Forerunner 265 is a multisport watch that can deliver reliable heart rate metrics during workouts, and even when you head to bed.

When Wahoo launched its Tickr X chest strap back in 2020, it clipped on from the front (unlike most monitors) and served up practical extra metrics about your running and cycling sessions. The Trackr is a new replacement to the Tickr X, but unlike the previous best buy, Wahoo has stripped back the extras, dropped the price, and made sure you never have to deal with another battery.

While some try to dispute it, the Apple Watch remains the standout smartwatch. Part of its mass appeal is its ability to take similar sensors found inside rival smartwatches, but deliver a more compelling level of accuracy and insight. The result is a watch that makes a fine training companion and also a potentially life-saving wearable.

It is also one of the best sleep trackers in the business. The app is extremely comprehensive, and while it can't quite replace a sports watch, the Whoop will reliably capture your heart rate variability measurements and help you better understand the importance of effort and recovery. Just be prepared to pay the pricey monthly ($16/16) or annual subscription to make the most of it.

Why would you want a heart rate monitor? What kind of information do you need to see, and when and how will you wear the device? Answering these questions will help you get a heart rate monitor that not only delivers wearability, accuracy, and value, but ensuirte you strap it to the ideal part of your body.

This is a fitness metric that has been around for a long time and has been rebranded or renamed by some smartwatch makers. It wants to tell you how strong your cardiovascular fitness is, and provide a useful indicator of your endurance to sustain intense exercise for long periods. The term VO2 Max stands for maximum rate of oxygen your body can consume during exercise. Seeing a high VO2 Max score is a sign of a boost in the rate of oxygen you can consume. Calculating this accurately is done in lab conditions, so heart rate monitors and watches will use their own algorithms to replace some of that lab testing to provide a simpler way to present that metric.

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HR monitors come in two types, as George Sopko, MD, MPH, Medical Officer and Program Director of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) explains. Basic models check your HR range, while advanced models provide detailed heart rhythm information and can indicate potential cardiovascular issues.

Remember that even though some smartwatches can track your heart rate, they may not be as effective as a dedicated heart rate monitoring device. Experts say that the type of smartwatch you use can impact data reliability, especially during arm-intensive exercises, and accuracy can decline with higher activity levels or sweating.

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With so many at-home pulse rate monitors available these days, it can be hard to choose. It may help to start thinking about what you would like from your monitor. For example, if you do a lot of exercise and are trying to build your fitness, you may be interested in a device with recovery heart rate mode or time in target zone modes. But if you want to keep it simpler, a more basic device may suit you better and save you money.

If you are using a smartphone, an app that requires you to put your finger on the camera and light on the back of your phone is likely to be more reliable at monitoring your heart rate than one that uses the camera to look at your face.

\nLet's start with the basics: In the context of sport, it is a wearable device that can read your heart rate data. It will then transmit the data to a device, like a smartphone or a bike computer, that lets you see it in real time and record it for later analysis.

Recently, optical sensors have become more common, especially in multi-sport offerings. These work by shining a light into your skin and measuring the variance in blood flow. While both systems rely on physical contact to gather their readings, optical sensors tend to be used in arm- or wrist-based systems where the variance can be seen.

One problem with this is that a smartwatch is rarely worn as tightly as an elasticated chest strap and as such optical systems tend to be more prone to issues over rough terrain or when running, as bumps can briefly break the all-important contact between skin and sensor.

If you want to run a hybrid system, smartwatches will often have the ability to monitor your heart rate independently using the optical sensor on the back, as well as pair with a dedicated HRM strap for more accurate in-sport measurements.

Heart rate is often a rider's first introduction to structured training - perhaps beyond 'perceived effort' or a hill and a stopwatch - and it should always remain a key part of the picture, no matter the amount, intensity or type of training an athlete is undertaking.

Within the context of cycling performance, the best heart rate monitors are regularly overshadowed by the best power meters. These are better for monitoring your training since they offer a more immediate and consistent measure of physical output. However, even with a power meter, heart rate should never be ignored.

We, cyclists, can sometimes have an insatiable thirst for data. Speed, power, cadence, and even blood glucose (see our Supersapiens review if you've missed this phenomenon) can be monitored alongside heart rate. All of these sensors will ultimately need to be connected to something that can translate the raw data into something more visually palatable, which is usually your smartphone or a cycling computer. Most fitness equipment can connect using ANT+, which is a Garmin-created protocol. However, rarely will a smartphone, tablet or laptop use anything other than Bluetooth.

Fortunately, most heart rate monitors will have the capability to do both ANT+ and Bluetooth transmissions simultaneously, allowing you to hook up wirelessly to your cycling computer of choice and non-ANT+ devices like your laptop or tablet at the same time without a dedicated adaptor.

IP ratings stand for Ingress Protection, and the two subsequent digits represent protection against solids and liquids respectively. The first digit, representing protection against solids like dust and dirt is a rating between 0 and 6. The larger the number, the better the protection, while an X means it hasn't been tested. The second digit, representing protection against liquid ingress - ie water - is a rating between 0 and 8, and again, the bigger the number the better.

ATM ratings focus solely on waterproof pressure rating. They are most easily defined by multiplying the number by 10, to get the depth at which your device can handle pressure. For example, a device with a 5ATM rating can sustain pressures equivalent to what you'd find in water at a depth of 50 metres.

If you run or swim then a heart rate monitor can do more for you than just measure your heart rate, it can monitor your stride length, vertical oscillation, cadence, and even your swimming pace and form.

Of course, whether you actually need these features is a question to ask yourself, since smartwatches can often do the same, smartphones can often handle the running metrics, and some running shoes offer these added features. It all comes down to what you need and what you already have.

When considering chest strap heart rate monitors, if you are particularly sweaty then make sure you get something that is easily washed. The control unit of most chest straps pops off, and keeping it clean will save you from salt corrosion. Most devices recommend being hand washed after each use, and then a trip through the washing machine after around seven uses. However, since the control unit on Garmin's HRM-Pro is fixed, this needs hand washing each time. Of course, it goes without saying that different rules apply to smartwatches.

For the basic funciton of tracking your heart rate, this common question is easily answered with 'any of them,' since they are all technically Zwift compatible. However, beyond connectivity, there are some considerations that make some better than others for Zwift and the world of indoor cycling in general.

As touched on above, chest-based heart rate monitors are usually more accurate than optical wrist-based monitors, so if you're after accuracy, make sure any heart rate monitor you use in Zwift is chest-based.

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