differences between brands of hrm?

SkateboardFi

so i'm balling on an exTREMEly low budget and just bought a sportline s12 heart rate monitor to count my calories and also track my running on the pedometer, i entered my age, gender, weight and height and it also requires stride measurements for the features. will this be accurate enough for me? i'm seeing that most people on here have a variation of the polar model and i'm trying to make sure i don't have a wasted investment on my hands (no pun). thanks!

AHealthierRhonda

My Sportline Duo would not sync up so I couldn't count my cals, which was the main reason I bought it!!!!!!! I now have a Polar and love it! It was more expensive but I had an Amazon gift card so it took $50 off what I had to pay. I hope your SPortline works far better than mine did.

Chiqui74

Does it have a chest strap and does it take your heart rate into account to calculate the calories? If it is only the type you have to put your fingers against to see your heart rate then it's useless, IMO. Those are goods for doing things like weight training when you don't need constant monitoring but not for cardio. I don't know how extremely low your budget is but Walmart sells a Sportline monitor with chest strap for about $40. I used it for a long time and it was good.

Edit: it also syncs with the gym equipment, if that's important to you.

dad106

If it doesn't have a chest strap then no, it will not be accurate and you need to return it for one that does have a chest strap.

If it does have a chest strap that info is what you need for an accurate calorie count... plus Vo2Max if it has that option.

I personally have a Polar and know that not all HRM's are equal. Before my Polar, I had a Timex and the calorie count on it was through the roof because it did not have all my information and thought that I was a male when I'm a female..

SkateboardFi

Does it have a chest strap and does it take your heart rate into account to calculate the calories? If it is only the type you have to put your fingers against to see your heart rate then it's useless, IMO. Those are goods for doing things like weight training when you don't need constant monitoring but not for cardio. I don't know how extremely low your budget is but Walmart sells a Sportline monitor with chest strap for about $40. I used it for a long time and it was good.

Edit: it also syncs with the gym equipment, if that's important to you.

i do a lot of circuit training with weights so i guess it will be useful for me? but one thing i'm confused about is how do i sync it with anything? this is my first hmr and the instructions are pretty much useless to me, i've been trying to figure out this gadget all day

Chiqui74

I'm going to go ahead and say you'd benefit more from one with a chest strap. As far as syncing, you don't do anything. If the strap is compatible with the equipment, the equipment will pick up on it's own. I believe Polar cardio equipment accepts the Sportline straps.

SkateboardFi

okay then, i'm going to take this bad boy back tomorrow lol