Heart Rate Monitor Review

Do you need a fancy heart-rate monitor?

Heart-rate monitors are an integral piece of exercise equipment for many athletes. Monitoring your heart rate while you exercise can let you know if you're working hard enough to get cardiovascular benefits. Likewise, a heart-rate monitor can tell you if you are working out too hard, which can be ineffective and lead to injuries. Heart-rate monitors can have a host of features, but the most basic monitors track heart rate only. More advanced monitors also track calorie expenditure and provide personalized workout recommendations. Most dedicated heart-rate monitors don't include lap timers or GPS functionality; if you want these features, see our companion report on sports watches.

The best professional review of heart-rate monitors comes from ConsumerReports.org, which tests several different types of monitors in a recent report. Which? magazine, the British equivalent of Consumer Reports, also conducts independent testing on heart-rate monitors. Reviews published in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times and Runner's World are also helpful, but their testing is less detailed. As for owner feedback, Amazon.com provides the most comprehensive coverage of heart-rate monitors, with some monitors receiving hundreds of individual reviews. Many of these reviews are quite detailed, and they give a good sense of long-term reliability that is not determined in professional tests.

Most heart-rate monitors use a chest strap to monitor your pulse rate and transmit the data to a wristwatch display. There are other models, like the Mio Shape (*Est. $60), which use a fingertip sensor on the watch to measure heartbeat. This means there's no chest strap, but reviewers say these monitors are less convenient for serious athletes because you often have to stop exercising to get a reading. Many users also claim that it often takes several tries to get an accurate reading. Overall, reviews for strapless heart-rate monitors indicate they are limited in their usefulness and not the best choice.

Reviewers also suggest avoiding ring-type heart-rate monitors like the LifeSpan MyBeat Heart Rate Ring (*Est. $36). This heart-rate monitor is a small ring designed to be worn on your index finger. A reviewer for the Los Angeles Times finds it slow and inaccurate; the device takes more than 20 seconds to get a reading that is way off compared to conventional heart-rate monitors. Independent testing also shows that the MyBeat ring does not provide accurate heart-rate readings.