Heart Rate Monitors

Heart rate monitors. Need them? Want them? What the hell are they? 

First let me tackle what they are. And the focus will be heart rate monitors used in fitness tracking not for medical conditions. 

Through fancy voodoo science with LEDs and electrodes, heart rate monitors can detect a person's pulse with each beat of the heart. The electrode kind senses the electrical activity given off with each heartbeat. The LED kind uses light beams and absorption to signal a heartbeat. 

So with all the wild science stuff out of the way, which device is better? Which one do you need? 

The truth is unless you have a medical condition requiring you to monitor your heart rate or you're an elite athlete, you don't need any of them. As I posted previously in a blog about heart rate zones and their relation to overall weight loss knowing your heart rate won't amount to much. 

But since they are fancy electronic gadgets you're going to want one. So which one is best? 

I've had experience with three different monitors. I had a Withings Pulse O2 and currently have a Wahoo Tickr and an Apple Watch. Now the Withings was a fitness tracker first and a pulse/ox reader second along with the magical sleep analysis thing. The Withings was great at tracking steps and sleep but wasn't amazing at tracking the pulse. I had to be still during the reading process. So it goes to the bottom of the list. 

Next up is the Apple Watch, and like the Withings used a beam of light to find the pulse. It tracks steps and activity, and with a third-party app, it'll track sleep but not as comprehensively as the Withings. But this isn't about sleep so I need to stay on task here. The Apple Watch will track pulse in real time every ten minutes or so, but the accuracy is more than suspect. I'll add the numbers later. 

My Wahoo Tickr tracks the heart rate in real time as soon as its strapped on. And uses electrodes to detect pulse. The Tickr doesn't track steps or record oxygen saturation. But it clearly tracks the pulse with more accuracy than either of the other devices. 

Here are some numbers from tracked heart rate doing the same exercise at the same time with both the Apple Watch and the Wahoo Tickr:

Maximum heart rate as recorded by the Apple Watch was 132bpm. The average heart rate of the same exercise as recorded by the Wahoo Tickr was 138bpm with a maximum of 153bpm. So as you can see the Apple Watch leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to accurate pulse recording. 

If you plan on purchasing a heart rate monitor because you want one, I suggest sticking with the type using electrodes and a chest strap, breasts or no breasts. 

Sources:

http://www.wareable.com/fitness-trackers/heart-rate-monitor-accurate-comparison-wrist

http://www.macworld.com/article/2911939/how-the-apple-watch-heart-rate-sensor-works-according-to-apple.html

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rrNCmo61UIA