The Appeal of the Coros Heart Rate Monitor

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Having a watch with an Heart rate (HR) monitor is fantastic until you realise it’s counting 20 BPM too high, and then it’s far less interesting because it’s reporting a moderate workout as heart.

Plenty of heart rate monitors come as chest straps and that’s great if your workout starts and ends somewhere where it’s okay to strap on a heart rate monitor. In winter it’s also about convenience. It is complicated to remove five layers, to put the HR monitor on, and then start an activity.

Often I put the HR monitor on at home, and then drove or caught the train to the start of an activity, and then I started tracking. If you have hours of battery life with the HR monitor then that’s fine.

In summer wearing an HR chest strap is not as complicated. You only have one layer to remove and put back on, but you might not want to do this in the middle of the street with plenty of people around.

That’s when the arm band concept, as with the COros HR monitor comes in. You can walk with it in your pocket, to the start, lift your sleeve, place it, and then lower the street, and within seconds you have your heart rate being tracked.

When you’re cycling with the Garmin Explore 2 or running with the Coros Pace 3, or Garmin Forerunner 570, all of these devices recognise the HR monitor and accept its data.

When you’re cycling with the Explore 2 it is useful to have a quick and convenient HR monitor to wear on one of your arms, instead of going through a few seconds of setting up the chest strap.

In summer I love the convenience of rolling up the t-shirt sleeve, placing the HR monitor, going for a ride, run, or walk, and as soon as I’m done being able to remove it. It is also convenient to have 38 hours of battery and USB charging. 2032 battery HR monitors are great, but the convenience of simplified charging is welcome.

It’s worth watching the pricing trends, because it varies from 73 CHF to 95CHF+ depending on the day.