Alternatives to chest HRM straps

[StephenR]

Thought I’d start this thread to prevent @Flatflr ‘s sale thread for his Garmin Forerunner 230 getting further derailed.

I know a lot of people find the chest straps on the common HRMs can be restrictive and are put off by them.

What do you use?

I bought myself a Scosche Rhythm+ strap some time ago and love it. Goes round my arm and fits so comfortably I often forget it’s there.

When I got it I ran a comparison with my Garmin chest strap and found it as accurate. It’s a rechargeable unit with pretty decent battery life (around 8 hours).

 

[amasidlover]

I've been using 'a' Mio Link for 3 years now - I put 'a' in inverted commas as its failed and been replaced twice (so poor reliability but great customer service)...

I ran and cycled with a chest strap for a few years and being somewhat hirsute on the chest had to shave two patches and use conductive, adhesive gel to get even half decent results; even then I could pretty much guarantee the first 10 minutes of a winter run would get wrong readings, after that it would be ok until either I noticed it was restricting my breathing by being so tight or had slipped down to my midriff resulting in me having to get half undressed in the cold...

The Mio Link is by no means perfect - I have to get it in just the right place on my wrist and even then I sometimes get some fairly mad readings for brief (1-2 minute) periods on very cold days where my circulation to my arms is reduced. It needs recharging daily (I do 2-3 hours of workouts a day including cycling and swimming).

But after the last one failed and I had to go back to a chest strap for a week I remembered why I switched!

 

[WiltshireWonder]

My friend uses a Mio and she loves it. That's the one I'd try if I was going to get one.