cheap heart rate monitors

I've been googling for info on cheap heart rate monitors without much
success. Does anyone have any comments on gpulse, or other cheap
HRM's? gpulse seem to be going for around $60 on ebay, cheap if it
works OK, expensive if it's no good. It's more of a interesting toy
for me, rather than a serious training device, I can't justify
spending $700 on one regardless of how much I'd love to have it

 

I suppose it depends on what you mean by cheap. Paraphrasing Homer Simpson, you might ask for the "best, second-cheapest" HRM on offer. Around $100-$200 range in the major brands should give you something that fits your needs.

I have a Cardiosport... something... I can't remember because it's a couple of years past my short term memory. It was about $180 when new and beeps if your heart beats outside of a user-defined range. It also records up to 30 'snapshots' of heart rates for recall at a later time. I dare say it would be cheaper these days.

Ritch

 

ritcho <[email protected]> writes:
> I suppose it depends on what you mean by cheap. Paraphrasing Homer
> Simpson, you might ask for the "best, second-cheapest" HRM on offer.
> Around $100-$200 range in the major brands should give you something
> that fits your needs.
>
> I have a Cardiosport... something... I can't remember because it's a
> couple of years past my short term memory. It was about $180 when new
> and beeps if your heart beats outside of a user-defined range. It also
> records up to 30 'snapshots' of heart rates for recall at a later time.
> I dare say it would be cheaper these days.

Thanks ritcho. Cheap would be $60. I guess for $60 I can suck it
and see, $200 is getting spendy for what I want it for. I'm hoping
someone who has a gpulse can tell us what it's like.

Do you still use your cardiosport... something... and does it have
changeable batteries?

 

On Mon, 13 Dec 2004 at 09:48 GMT, ritcho (aka Bruce)
was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:
> I have a Cardiosport... something... I can't remember because it's a
> couple of years past my short term memory. It was about $180 when new
> and beeps if your heart beats outside of a user-defined range. It also

Oh, that's handy. If you die, it beeps at you in a nice soothing tone
to warn you that you are dead.

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Chairman: We continue with an afternoon of numerical stimulations.
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"chesty" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]
>
> I've been googling for info on cheap heart rate monitors without much
> success. Does anyone have any comments on gpulse, or other cheap
> HRM's? gpulse seem to be going for around $60 on ebay, cheap if it
> works OK, expensive if it's no good. It's more of a interesting toy
> for me, rather than a serious training device, I can't justify
> spending $700 on one regardless of how much I'd love to have it



Chesty,

I bought my "Crane" heart rate monitor made by Medion (45-50 dollars from
memory) from Aldi of all places. Whilst it doesnt have all the wizz ban
features of say the more advances versions of the "Polar" heart rate
monitors, it does give you some features such as setting training ranges,
training stopwatch mode, lap time mode, lap time memory as well as those
more ubiqtuous features such as average heartrate and "supposive" calorie
consumption.

Having said all that, i have no idea where else they mabe be sold, although
there is a website www.medion.com


Cheers.

Jason

 

User defined, presumably you can set it to beep if you aren't dead.
Much more useful.

 

"chesty" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]
>
> I've been googling for info on cheap heart rate monitors without much
> success. Does anyone have any comments on gpulse, or other cheap
> HRM's? gpulse seem to be going for around $60 on ebay, cheap if it
> works OK, expensive if it's no good. It's more of a interesting toy
> for me, rather than a serious training device, I can't justify
> spending $700 on one regardless of how much I'd love to have it


Sigma Sport are relatively cheap & a globally known brand available here :

http://store.yahoo.com/idealcycles/fitness.html

http://www.sigmasport.com/index_eos.html

[email protected] Ideal

 

chesty wrote:
>
> I've been googling for info on cheap heart rate monitors without much
> success. Does anyone have any comments on gpulse, or other cheap
> HRM's? gpulse seem to be going for around $60 on ebay, cheap if it
> works OK, expensive if it's no good. It's more of a interesting toy
> for me, rather than a serious training device, I can't justify
> spending $700 on one regardless of how much I'd love to have it

You can get HRMs much cheaper OS than you can in Australia for some
reason, I've got a brother in HK and he sent me one for Christmas a few
years ago, and it worked out to about half the price it would cost in
Oz.

 

ritcho wrote:

> I suppose it depends on what you mean by cheap. Paraphrasing Homer
> Simpson, you might ask for the "best, second-cheapest" HRM on offer.
> Around $100-$200 range in the major brands should give you something
> that fits your needs.

I have had a few heart rate monitors over the past 10 years and the one
I bought from Polar 10 years ago (the Sport Tester) is the one I use
most. The others I bought when the Sport Tester was away being
serviced or for my wife.

Pursuit Performance, the Australian agents for Polar, are offering
superseded lines now at a huge discount. The Polar vantage used to
sell for $849 but is now going for $250. Jeez, I almost wish my
10-year old HRM finally died on me.
They have others, too, that they are almost giving away.

Keith

 

Comes down to what features you want.
I started with a cheapy and quickly realised that min/max recorder data would be nice. Then learnt about heart rate zone training...
Quickly wound up spending a couple of hundred on a Sports Instruments PRO9.

cheers

 

On Sun, 26 Dec 2004 09:58:55 +1100, malcomm wrote:

> Comes down to what features you want.
> I started with a cheapy and quickly realised that min/max recorder
> data would be nice. Then learnt about heart rate zone training...
> Quickly wound up spending a couple of hundred on a Sports Instruments
> PRO9.

I bought a cheap HRM on ebay a while ago (GPulse brand), and it doesn't
like overhead power lines, which unfortunately are prevalent in Adelaide.
Do well-known brands like Polar suffer from this problem? They cost a
/lot/ more for the same features.

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