heart rate monitor

[jteef]

looking for a suggestion on a heart rate monitor.

needs basic stop watch / lap tracking functions
needs some way to get a chart of my heart rate vs time to excel/calc

my target price is under $100 but i'm new to these things so let me know if that's unreasonable for what i'm asking (just did a quick scan of amazon prices)

also lend your experiences with battery life. Would I be able to sleep in it and record the heart rate vs time? Anything able to record a 24h day?

 

[dakels]

I can't recommend an exact one but I just wanted to say that you should look for chest strap ECG models. Polar is considered one of the best makers for commercial fitness heart monitors. If you absolutely cannot stand a chest strap then Mio makes some decent ones that are pretty accurate.

You may want to check out the Polar F11 or Polar F6. You can get them for under $100 with Ebay MS cashback deal. I searched for Polar F11 or Polar F6 and got 25%. The Polar F6 can be had for under $100 retail. It has really nice uplink capabilities to track your progress on your computer/online. I have not personally used this.

 

[edcarman]

If you're looking for something that can record a session that you can then download to a PC, then you're looking at the high end of the spectrum. In the Polar range, you're looking at the RS400, CS400, S625X/S725X and up.
All of these allow detailed recording and download of exercise sessions, but cost upwards of $250.

The battery life on the watch and transmitter are usually around two years. The total recording time is dependent on the memory capacity, sampling frequency and what functions you use. On the above you can record a data point every 5s, 15s or 60s and some even allow recording every 1s.
On my S725, I can get around 44hrs recording just heart rate at 5s intervals. It drops to about eight hours if I use all the functions such as altitude, cadence and speed.

 

[dakels]

Those lower priced F6 and F7's (~$100) can track per session as well and upload to PC and web, even via cell phone link.

 

[Capt Caveman]

Garmin 305 for around $150.

 

[jteef]

thanks for the tips. it seems the garmin units are the only ones with USB connectivity. The shop here has the forerunner 50(don't think it has the pedometer like amazon) for under $100 so i might just try it out and return if it sucks. can anybody confirm whether you can get at the raw data such that importing it to excel/OO.calc would be relatively easy?

 

[edcarman]

Originally posted by: jteef
can anybody confirm whether you can get at the raw data such that importing it to excel/OO.calc would be relatively easy?

First: if you're getting a Garmin, I strongly recommend downloading and using the free SportTracks software - it's streets ahead of the bundled Garmin software in terms of features for analysing your training sessions (and is on roughly the same level as the Polar software). You may even find you no longer need to export to Excel (and if you do, it has a plugin that allows exports to .csv files).

The data export process for the normal Garmin and Polar software is a bit involved, but not complicated.

Polar - the Polar software allows you to export a session directly as a text file. You can then bring the file into Excel with the Data Import function.

Garmin - export the workout as a .tcx file and then rename it as an .xml file. Import the XML into Excel and delete the unnecessary columns (there're quite a few of these)

 

[jteef]

i bought the forerunner 305 on black friday at costco. have used it for 3 runs so far and like it a lot. I've been using the garmin software mostly, tried SportTracks but i haven't figured out how to make it show a graph of my heartrate vs time/distance like the garmin s/w. any suggestions on that? Also can you recommend any sites/forums dedicated to hacking or otherwise getting the most out of the unit?

 

[edcarman]

Originally posted by: jteefI've been using the garmin software mostly, tried SportTracks but i haven't figured out how to make it show a graph of my heartrate vs time/distance like the garmin s/w. any suggestions on that?

The SportsTrack UI has some funny quirks. One them is that the menu button looks a bit like a minimise button.

Here's some instructions I made for a friend of mine:
SportsTracks instructions pic
1.) Select Daily Activity view
2.) Click arrow and select 'Workout'
3.) Select graph type
4.) Maximise graph

Two forums that might be worth looking at are the ones on:
Garmin Developer and
MotionBased