HR-strap take priority if you pair it with a Garmin with wrist-HR

Yes, I absolutely love my wrist optical HR. And no, it is not as reliable as a chest strap. However, it is more than good enough. My 735XT was nearly perfect for the first few months I had it. Then, it started getting cadence lock somewhat frequently. I suspect a firmware update toasted it. But, I am optimistic it will come back. The comfort and convenience of wrist HR far outweighs the occasional glitches.

The key to good wrist optical HR is to wear the watch snugly. It does not have to be so tight it turns your hand purple, but it cannot move around loosely on your wrist. When I get cadence lock, it usually happens when I forgot to tighten it one notch from my normal wear.

And, as walie pointed out, you can pair the watch with any other Ant+ HRM (chest strap or optical arm, like the Rhythm+).

I had problems with chest strap, enough that I got fed up with it over the 5 years I was using them all the time.

All of the would work great for 2-3 months. Mild annoyances with rubbing and sliding until I get the perfect fit, but otherwise really good performance. Then after 3 months, it starts dropping out here and there. By 6 months, it's so annoyingly inconsistent that I'm losing good chunks of my workout when it just goes haywire and puts my HR at 190+ for several minutes.

I've tried all the straps, even the Polar ones, replaced the Garmin pods numerous times under warrantee, used electrical conducting gel, everything. Same thing, every time. I really felt like I spent most of my time with an 80% functional HRM given it's rate of decline.

I've since gone to the Scosche armband as per DC Rainmaker, and I'm never going back. I get really bad results if I position the optical sensor at my wrist, but at my inner biceps, it's super solid, near-flawless and now I'm 8 months in, and it works as well as new. No annoying gradual deterioration of the signal over the months.

My only major gripe with it is that I haven't figured out a great way to use it effectively on race day, which is indeed an annoyance. I'm afraid it'll fall off my arm in the swim with my sleeveless wetsuit, and it's a bit annoying to spend some time in a harried transition putting it on in T1. But even with this drawback, I'm sticking with it - the long term stability is wayyy more important to me compared to those ever-failing HRM straps.

I can first hand tell you that my wife would 100% prefer an optical heart rate sensor vs having to stuff the chest strap under her bra. It is an convenience/annoyance factor they are trying to solve, it's just that it's not really good enough yet to replace a good chest strap.

No I have been preaching this for the entire last couple of years. They are great when they work but they often don't work, get caught up on things, make mistakes etc. Not to say that chest straps don't also make mistakes.

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I don't think optical will replace chest straps...but circumstances where using a watch with optical has been nice, maybe even recommended:

• HR during the course of an entire day/may assist is measuring recovery and calorie expenditure rate
• Morning HR for recovery
• After returning from a trip to the Dominican, when on vacation and running on the beach, go with the watch, chest HR looks a tad silly : )
• And some fun stuff like checking your HR after thought you were going to die on a roller coaster, or any other "extra curricular" activity : )

Those are just a quick few...If I was training solely on HR, I would strongly recommend a strap...early testing on the Suunto Optical is promising for SS type workouts, pretty well anything besides VO2 type efforts...So far, only straps are good at such type of intervals.

Love the optical HR on my fenix5 for daily HR and sleeping but I use my strap for any real training. It's also nice for when you go digging in your bag for a lunch run and realize that your strap is still at home. Glad I have optical but it won't replace my strap anytime soon. The wife on the other hand is "endowed" and is celebrating the loss of her strap and the great little rash line that accompanied it.

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To dumb to quit

Running in Houston means I'm not wearing a shirt 90% of the year. I do not like rocking the shirtless chest strap, nor do I like the tan line it leaves if it's sunny.

For 85% of my running (endurance paced), the wrist sensor works fine. It doesn't need to be that instantaneously accurate to notice aerobic improvements over time.

For the real work, or racing nothing beats the chest strap though.

Even though I am now using the 935 I still wear the strap, the data is more consistent and accurate.

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-Of course it's 'effing hard, it's IRONMAN!
Team ZOOT
ZOOT, QR, Garmin, HED Wheels, Zealios, FormSwim, Precision Hydration, Rudy Project

I prefer the optical pulse wrist over the HR chest strap. I know the chest strap is supposed to be superior and be actual heart rate vs pulse rate, but my experiences with the chest strap (limited) were more problematic. Got sick of licking that darn thing only to have it work sporadically. The optical pulse feature is quite reliable; more so than my experiences and frustration getting the chest strap to work.

Are you using the more recent strap with run Dynamics? That one is super reliable and more comfortable and doesn't need to be wet, it has an extra sensor on the side.

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-Of course it's 'effing hard, it's IRONMAN!
Team ZOOT
ZOOT, QR, Garmin, HED Wheels, Zealios, FormSwim, Precision Hydration, Rudy Project

I strongly disagree that the optical can't do VO2max workouts.

I've been using it for 7+ months now, and I've done plenty of 400s,800s,1200s,1600s at VO2/5k running pace, and I've had no problems with the data. I have mine set on 3-second average, and I don't feel that there's any significant lag aside from that averaging effect.

Keep in mind I'm using a Scosche Rhythm with the optical at my inner biceps though - I've seen more complaints than good results at various paces using built-in Garmin optical watch sensors worn at the wrist, and I def can't get reliable data from my Scosche if I place it at my wrist.

Garmin acknowledges that in general the straps provide more reliable data. The issues with the optical sensor range from how tight the watch is around the wrist, it has to be pretty snug. The sensor can also be adversely effected by skin color, darker skin won't read as well, and even use of sunscreen can effect it.

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-Of course it's 'effing hard, it's IRONMAN!
Team ZOOT
ZOOT, QR, Garmin, HED Wheels, Zealios, FormSwim, Precision Hydration, Rudy Project

Sounds about right to me.

I've never been able to get my Scosche to give consistent, reliable reads at my wrist, even when I cinch it like a tourniquet! I think that at some point it loosens and starts sliding.

At the biceps though, it's super-rock-solid. Even on VO2 and anaerobic intervals - I really don't know what the critiques of optical HRMs are talking about given how problem-free my experiences have been with such intervals, unless they are specifically referring to wrist-optical sensing, which for me doesn't even work well for easy steady runs. (Seems to only work reliably at rest for me.)

Nope. I'm sure what I used was not to the quality that might be out there now. After I went to a pulse optical I just didn't retry the chest strap. No other reason than the optical is working well enough for my liking. Now if I was really training hardcore and HR was a significant factor, I'd probably be exploring the newer options.

The modern chest strap produces more consistent and reliable information than any optical devices, although I am currently wearing the Scosche armband. Its good enough to fall just into the acceptable category, but it is not the equal of a Garmin chest strap....at least imho. The chest straps can also be idiosyncratic at times, but in general if you want the best data the chest strap is the path to go.

Is your Scosche tight enough?

My Scosche is def better than any of my Garmin chest straps that were over 2 months old.

I'll give a brand spanking new Garmin chest strap the nod over Scosche only because the Scosche might slip a bit with vigorous running whereas the new Garmin chest strap is usually robust enough to capture well even if it moves a bit. Give it 2-3 months though, and for me, Scosche > Garmin, and after 6 months, it's no contest as the Garmin is dropping out significant segments of data.

Man that's odd.

I've been using Polar, Powertap, and now Garmin chest straps for 17+ years. Heck, before I got my 920xt last year, I replaced the battery in my original Polar S710 chest strap...still going strong today (not that I use it...having the 920xt, now). I've had my 920xt since September with the HRM-tri (and a standard Garmin HR strap that came with my wife's vivofit2). I do all workouts using the HRM-tri, including Swim until a couple weeks ago. I've even replaced the battery once already. Still, consistent and accurate (as near as I can tell) as day 1.

I'm not doubting you...it just couldn't be more different than my own experience over nearly 2 decades, and three vendors (Polar, PowerTap, and Garmin).

I have no experience with optical other than the doctor's office, and the cheapo android camera phone apps.

You seem to have good experiences with yours, which is great for you! Honestly, if mine worked as smoothly as yours, I wouldn't have bothered with an optical.

However, if you do a search on the forums, you'll see TONS of threads bemoaning the exact same HRM degradation I'm talking about, with the exact same time frame. And it's happend to me on every single strap.

Seriously, if it didn't happen, I would use a single HRM strap for years I'll probably use myScosche for years, unless something markedly superior shows up, if it continues performing as well as it has.

My 20+ year old Polar strap/monitor works the same as the day I bought it. It's been flawless and has been through probably 3000+ pool swims and countless workouts. I pulled it out recently just to test it. I had to change the batteries but it still works great.

I've gone through 3 Garmin straps in the last 4 months and it just never works for more than one workout. I will never throw $$$ at a Garmin strap again. I suspect it's an issue with the pod itself. I have an open issue with Garmin.

I will try the new 935.

I have a vicoactive HR. Most of the time steady state is pretty spot on except in bright light. It's strait up boss indoors and I've tested it against palp. However intervals it's been garbage. Best solution? Use both. Long steady state rides go for the wrist. Intervals strap up.

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I still lapped everyone on the couch!

Love my Wahoo chest strap but it is chewing holes in my skin.

I like the Wrist HR monitor on my 935 but sometimes it reads low if it's not snugly against my skin.

Isn’t it strange what bugs people and what doesn’t?

I have an HRM tri and a TIKR. Have used each hundreds of times. They work perfectly and never irritate my skin