I work out in the gym 5 days a week, for 45 to 100 minutes per workout. I am 51 years old, 6'' 2" and today weigh in at 216 lbs. I regularly use a heart rate monitor because the feedback motivates me to keep going. I generally need the chronograph to show me total time of my workout, and I like a calories burned counter to encourage how much fat burning I have done.
I could not believe the price on this item and ordered it primarily to check it out and have an extra heart rate monitor for when my others fail or have a battery go out, etc. I don''t like being without a heart rate monitor for my workouts. I have used this item for 3 workouts now and can recommend the product with a few caveats.
At less than $20, this item cannot be beat. The chest strap alone is worth more than what you would pay for this whole system. The watch allows entering personal user data such as gender, age, height, weight, maximum heart rate and even VO2Max. It will display your BMI based upon the entered data, and obviously uses the statistics to calculate calories and fat burned based upon heart rate and time of exercise.
The biggest negative about this item is that the display is difficult to read. The background is dark green. My other heart rate monitors have a light gray background and are much easier to read. I don''t know if contrast needs to be adjusted on it or what, but the watch is not as easy to read as my other watches. I have learned to tilt the watch at a 45 degree angle to read it the best, but the angle has to be just right to be able to read it. Also, it helps a lot to have light directly overhead. When I am in a dimly lit hallway, I have a very difficult time reading it. A backlight does come on when a button is pressed, but it does not stay on for long and I actually think the backlight makes it even more difficult to read. Nevertheless, keep in mind that my eyes are tired and old at 51 years of age, and I often reach for reading glasses and turn on a light in order to read. Younger individuals may not have as difficult time. This one negative issue, however, drops the rating from 5 stars to 4. It is a serious consideration in ordering this watch.
Another criticism I have is that the watch regularly cycles screens during a workout. This is nice when on an elliptical or treadmill, because you can just look at it and watch the different statistics show without having to push buttons. However, I like to use it while lifting weights, to make sure I don''t rest too much between sets, and to make sure I am pushing myself hard during the workout itself. For this activity, I would prefer to know exactly what screen is on when I go to look at it, and if I want to see calories, then know to hit the button twice to get to that screen. With the constant cycling, I don''t know what screen will be displaying when I look at it. I have to pause, squint at the hard to read screen, and figure out what screen it is on. It would have been nice if I could push or hold a button to turn cycling on or off.
The instruction manual is a little difficult to understand. It took me awhile just to figure out how to set the time. Once I figured out the logic of the buttons, however, using it is rather straight forward and not difficult at all. Following is a link to a manual to a similar watch which has option to transfer data to PC. This watch lacks the COMM option on the menu, but the other menu items are very similar.
One nice feature of this watch not normally found in watches costing $50 or less is that it will store data for your last 40 exercises. The stored data are also tallied, so you could see how much time, calories, and grams of fat were burned for the entire time you have been storing the data. I plan to use it for weekly totals since I generally track my progress by the end of each week. There are enough slots to do this for the month as well, or if you work out only 3 times a week, two months of data could be stored. You can traverse the menu to see each exercise individually as well. It will show the date and time of the workout, the average heart rate, the percent of maximum heart rate the average heart rate represents, the maximum heart rate during the exercise, the minimum heart rate and percent of maximum heart rate that it represents, the heart rate at the end of the exercise and its percent of maximum heart rate, the calories burned, the grams of fat burned, and items set in the user setup screen used in the calculations, such as your weight, height, and type of exercise (aerobic, exercise bike, stair stepper, treadmill, jog, walk, bike, or other).
A very nice feature I found that my other heart rate monitors do not have is a battery saving feature. I regularly have to replace batteries in my other heart rate monitors, and they stay in the drawer all the time except when I exercise. This watch allows me to turn the display off by holding in the Mode button for a few seconds. To turn it back on, press the mode button. Nice. I am using this feature regularly and trust that it will minimize how often I have to replace the battery.
The watch also allows setting up three zones for heart rate and will show a graph of where you are in the zone and whether you need to push harder or less, but I personally do not care about this feature and do not use it. I know what I want my heart rate to be while exercising and do not need a machine to tell me that.
The chest strap has a user replaceable battery, and it wirelessly transmits to the ellipticals and treadmills in my gym. I am very happy about that. I don''t like having to hold the monitors on those devices. It also works with my other watches, so if I decide I want an easier to read watch, I will use one of them with this chest strap. However, this watch tracks much more data than my other monitors, and it saves them. So for now, I am going to use this watch and see if I get use to using it.
Some reviews complain about the monitor being off on the heart rate. In my experience, all heart rate monitors suffer from this problem. The first time I used this, before I had worked up a sweat, the heart rate was erratically high, then low. I licked my fingers and wet the pads on the chest belt with my saliva. The monitor quickly became steady and consistently accurate. I have compared this to other more costly monitors and have found it to be close enough for what I do. I have absolutely no gripes about how well this heart rate monitor tracks heart rates compared to other monitors. In my opinion, it does the job and does it well. Users, should expect that many issues can affect the monitor, including whether or not the chest strap is wet (the instructions say to wet them with water before use), some shirts, especially microfiber, can interfere with it, and proximity to radios, magnets in speakers, fluorescent lights, etc. can all cause issues with the function of a heart rate monitor. Some more expensive monitors use digital transmission to try and remedy these problems, but it seems to me unfair to criticize this heart rate monitor in this area. This heart rate monitor works just as well as other heart rate monitors I have from Polar and Life Wise that cost three times what this one costs.
Overall, you just cannot go wrong for $20. If nothing else, it makes a great backup, but I think this may become my primary heart rate monitor now. The truth is that I probably will order another one to keep at home (I use this one at my office). The price is just too good.
compared to other items with similar features, this was a steal. I''ve only had it for a few weeks, so time will tell how durable it is. As it stands now, it''s got good features. good data storage. quality hr monitor. so-so on user friendliness.
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I was very impressed with this product, how it kept track of so much information and seemed pretty accurate, and was comfortable to run with. Unfortunately, after three weeks it started giving wild readings. I am about to send it back, but I''m debating with myself whether to replace the battery, though that shouldn''t have died after a dozen uses.
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I purchased this item to monitor my heart rate while exercising at the gym. The monitor also includes other functions but they are difficult to set up as the User''s Manual is poorly written and not helpful.The monitor works at times (maybe 50% of the time). Generally it does not work when you need it most that is when running on the treadmill. I usually get readings of 30 to 40 (well below the trigger rate of my pacemaker) or on the opposite a rate of 180 which is well beyond my reach at my age. The only positive point of this monitor is its price. It is cheap... Cheap is a good summary for this item.
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Tells time fine. Knowing nothing about heart rate, I can''t speak to its accuracy, but it goes up as I work out. Only flaw is that it dose not have a light.
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this is so cute! the lid is easy to un/screw & is secure. the graphics are very clever/cute just as pictured.
