HR monitors, fitness watches

Whats your experience with these contraptions, Id like to buy one but preferably solar powered. So I can rock it without worrying about charging.

Can you recommend some?
Experiences with accuracy?

Waste of money. Just do starting strength and lift heavy. Moron.

Heart rate monitoring and step counting are very accurate on higher end models.

Calorie burning counts are more accurate than the machines if you're doing cardio, but still can be off by 20% either direction.

which brands?

Got a FitBit Charge 2 for half off a few months back. Compared heartrate with a dedicated reader my mom has to use for her health, and it seemed to be accurate for both exercise and resting. Pace functionality when running seems to be accurate also. Can't comment much further, but I think the main perk of these things is the guilt it inflicts on you for not doing your cardio. If you've got a few normie friends with them then the competitive nature of the app also helps encourage you, but you could probably just buy a cheaper band and hook it up to the app for the same effect.

Get a Garmin 235 refurbished for 200. Very accurate step count, tracks your runs with gps and has the heart rate monitoring

OP, they're garbage. They don't actually help you at all with fitness or training, all they really do is provide a way for the parent corporation to violate your privacy, gather data on your daily habits and interests, which they sell to 'partner companies' (read as: MARKETING companies) so they can target ads at you for shit you don't need and don't want.

If you want to monitor your heart rate for some reason, then get a real heart rate monitor like from Polar or similar, but if all you're doing is lifting at the gym, that particular metric is meaningless to you anyway. If you want to wear a watch, then get a decent and stylist watch. Otherwise don't waste your money on this garbage.

I used to have fitbit charge hr. But it broke. Now I use samsung gear fit 2 with my oneplus 3T and I love it. Its a little addictive to take 10k steps everyday and walk my stairs but i do it every single day for 6 months now. I can also read facebook messages and email on my wrist. 8/10 would recommend

I plan to get both.

good to hear :)

I can imagine some friends get one after I do it. Competition ftw.

The decent fitness watches are nice if you do triathlons, one device to track all your training.

For everything else they are probably useless.

Love my vivoactive hr. Has all of the fitness stuff i want and need, display is able to be customized, is water proof and very durable, great battery life, and shows me texts, calls, and emails. I had the Microsoft band but broke it twice just from my sweat. Then the basis peak after that which was fabulous, but was recalled for burning people (lol). Its very accurate when i compare it to my HR chest band, and pretty comfortable. I also refuse to get on the apple and fitbit cult train.

apple is shit overpayed watch.

Even though Im writing this on mac, nothing comes close to mac for productivity.
But fuck that watch seriously.

its a fedora for your wrist

I bought a new Garmin Forerunner 235 for 200€ a couple months ago. Works pretty good for tracking my runs with GPS, and all-day step count and HR. If you can afford it and think it will motivate you then buy it.

Also the battery lasts roughly 8 to 9 days.

I started with a hand me down fitbit charge he but fairly quickly updated to the refurb Garmin 235.

Its much, much better, and the are even apps for it that make it helpful for tracking lifts. I don't even run, and I still think it was worth it.

Yeah garmin seems nice. Like most of their design too.

Can u give example for apps? In what way it helps?

I've only used three, but I have a Strength app that helps keep track of sets and gives a minute rest countdown in between. It isn't the best, but it works well enough for my purposes.

I also have a hiking app that gives heading, elevation and distance, and a stopwatch app.

>Yeah garmin seems nice. Like most of their design too.
>Can u give example for apps? In what way it helps?

Garmin 735xt here
More for cardio good for keeping in a heart rate zone and keeping track of long runs. good for tracking pace too. expensive, the 235 would have been enough.

the apps i mostly just use the apps that garmin put on it, kinda nice to automatically update strava.
haven't use it to track reps or anything, i use my phone for that. but i've got a nexus 6p, bit bulky for running with.

>keeping in a heart rate zone

yeah this is what I had mostly in mind.

thanks

How accurate are the blood pressure monitors on these?

Looking to start monitoring mine closely because the last few times I've checked it it has been 139/89; 1 short of being high.

Dont worry about 140/90, cut some salt and ul be right as rain.

t.doc

Uh, as far as I'm aware they don't have blood pressure monitors, just heart rate. I've been using a separate blood pressure cuff to check, although my BP is now in the normal range thank goodness.

Chances are the guy taking your bp isnt even doing it right. Diagnosing hypertension has a lot of technicality attached to it. Not that im against you improving yourself

>showerproof
>decent battery life
>doesn't die in winter conditions

Does she exist?

Garmin 235 is waterproof, but I don't know if waterproof is water vapor proof. I wouldn't take any sensitive electronics into a steaming hot shower.

Battery lasts me about a week, but I usually have Bluetooth and GPS turned off. I only use GPS occasionally and I really only use Bluetooth to transfer my activity data, but you can get very basic smartwatch features (weather, calendar, message display) if you are willing to sacrifice the battery life. Might be worth it on a long run.

I'm not sure about winter conditions, though.

I find them useful only when doing cardio/cycling. The "smart" functions kills the battery of my phone...

I've been thinkig about switching from garmin to polar. for some reason, the garmin vivo series automaticly counts calories without grabbing your heart rate. i have to use a seperate calculator for my calories burned by using garmins avg hearf rate data.

not sure if the automatic calorie count thing is a garmin vivo only. or all of garmin. nor do i know if polar does the same bullshit.

>Garmin 235 is waterproof, but I don't know if waterproof is water vapor proof. I wouldn't take any sensitive electronics into a steaming hot shower.
Ive showered with the 735 many times, never had any problems with it. The 235 is pretty much the same watch.

Garmin forerunner 235
very happy runner/biker with them
Im a data freak so makes me literally happy