Heart Rate Monitors - Unreliable

fmiller007

Is it just me?

About 4 years ago, I bought the Omron HR-100C that all the reviews raved about being a very good HRM at a very nice price.($100 or lower, I believe):
Sporadic readings right out of the box.

Ponied up and bought the more expensive Garmin 305 forerunner (around $300-400 at the time).
Same exact issues. Sporadic readings and spikes left and right with this product.

They even have a whole discussion forum dedicated to the many problems of the heart rate monitor industry:
https://forums.garmin.com/showthread.php?22255-HR-Strap-issues
https://forums.garmin.com/showthread.php?1884-time-heart-rate-readings-are-fluctuating-and-erroneous
https://forums.garmin.com/showthread.php?23984-Heart-rate-monitor-giving-strange-high-readings
https://forums.garmin.com/showthread.php?28393-Bad-readings-on-HRM
https://forums.garmin.com/showthread.php?9838-heart-rate-spikes-to-228
https://forums.garmin.com/showthread.php?28045-heart-rate-inverted-spikes-(drops)-in-8-10min-intervals
and many many many more....

Thinking that the problem was just the two companies that just happened to be poor on their part, I even ran into some polar users whom noted the same thing with their HRM(s).

Not trying to steer anyone away from HRMs, but just giving you a heads up of what you may or may not have to deal with before investing in little over half a grand into these gadgets, like I did. Very frustrating experience.