are heart rate monitors worth it? Is it accurate?

I think they are relatively accurate - if you really want to get one check out the consumer reports to find out which one gives you the most accurate reading for the money.

Accurate for what?

Heart rate? Yes.
Calorie burn? No.

Please elaborate.

Accurate for what?

Heart rate? Yes.
Calorie burn? No.

Please elaborate.

Not much to elaborate. HRMs measure your heart rate. There is not a direct proportionality between heart rate and calorie burn. Using properly measured VO2 max stats you'll get an ok estimate for steady state cardio, but for running/walking no better than the estimates provided by standard calcs based on distance and body mass IMO. For things like lifting which rapidly raise your heart rate with a brief explosive effort they are worthless.

Using HRMs to measure calorie burn is just a way to sell more HRMs. You can save your money by just using the standard estimates and then adjusting for actual vs observed results.

Enough said. Cheers. Was thinking of getting one too but won't bother now.

They are worth it for sure. Any cardio activity you engage in will ultimately have the same benefit if you maintain your target rate for the 20-30 minutes recommended. That includes cycling, running, power walking, stair climbing, eliptical training.....

I know Polar has some models with less options which I think are good. Some allow you to look at calorie burn for your specific profile. I like that kind myself.

Yes, athletic performance is where HRMs become valuable. Though I would still argue they are a luxury item, and not worth it if it means scrimping elsewhere to afford it. There are plenty of ways of estimating the effort required to put you into your target hearts rate. The average Joe does not need such tight monitoring.

Personally I have been using Couch Jack Daniels' (no really, that's his name) VDOT method to great effect. No HRM required. One day perhaps someone will get me an HRM as a gift and I'll happily use it. But I doubt I'll buy one myself unless I get hit by impulse at the counter.

I have a Polar FT4 and I love it and it's worth every penny.If I'm out walking and my pulse isn't where I want it to be, I pick up the speed. If I'm running and my pulse gets too high, I slow down a bit. That is valuable for my weight loss and health, main due to meds I'm on.
Also, it inspires me to do better than the last time I worked out, whether its weight lifting, walking, running, swimming, hiking, gardening, or even house cleaning. To see that 600-1000 calorie burn.. well, I just love it!
Just make sure that if you get one, it has the chest strap to measure heart rate.

I LOVE my Polar FT4 and as far as price...I got it for about $62 from Amazon which is not that expensive.

I agree. I love the Polar FT4. It is affordable, and easy to use.

I have a Polar RCX3 and I find it a great motivator, as others have said. My fitness has definitely improved since I've been using it and i've found the heart rate zone training programmes really useful.

The calorie burn is only an estimate but it seems to be a lower estimate than I get from any other source, and it does have another variable (e.g. heart rate) that it is taking into account so better than nothing. Presumably there will be some correlation between how fast your heart is beating and how much blood sugar the muscles are drawing from reserves, and this will be less meaningful for short periods of exercise and better for longer aerobic exercises, perhaps? Outside of a laboratory any calorie burn figure is an estimate....

Polar do claim to have attempted to validate their calculations in a laboratory (although obviously their self reported findings have to be treated with caution) and suggest a slight underestimate of the mean reading in women and a slight over-estimate in men with a standard deviation from the correct reading for men of 1.4 cal per minute (a little less for women). I interpret that as meaning that 95% of people will have an accuracy within +/- 2.8 calories per minute assuming a normal distribution. So, to give an example, my 2 1/4 hours in the gym last Friday burning 1,241 calories per my HRM will most likely will have had a "true" burn of somewhere between 863 and 1,619 kcal. If your only motivation in purchasing a HRM is to measure calories burnt then it a personal call as to whether that level of precision is cost effective for you. I find the information valuable and accept its limitations, and see the true benefit in improving my fitness and logging all my runs etc. I try not to eat back more than 70% of calculated exercised calories to allow for possible over-estimation and so far this has worked for me, but other's experience may differ.