With a long standing interests in fitness and technology I have been around the block with a lot of the different heart rate monitors that have been and are available. Focus here will be on watches that just do heart rate and the ability to get data off the watch. I’ll leave devices that can also do GPS and various bike sensors for another day.

Used to be mainly a Polar guy, but the models after my old Polar S810 have just been hideous, and for a plain old heart rate monitor I like to be able to also use it as a daily-wear watch. I mean look at this thing. Gross!

So after my Polar S810 I think I had a few different Timex models (Ironman Speed & Distance, plain old Ironman, etc.) and at least one Nike (triax elite). Both those brands used a USB dongle to get data to a computer, which is a bit slicker than Polar’s old infrared thing. Polar software was probably better, though none of this stuff was Mac friendly. Timex models were disposable since the bands are not replaceable, for me they last a couple of years. The Nike actually had a replaceable band, which is a nice feature for a somewhat expensive watch.

Next I tried a Suunto t6d. Reasonable size, and seems like they make nice watches (and dive computers, where they really got their start), but pricey, at over $300. But just try getting data off the thing. First I used a clip with their discontinued Suunto Training Manager, and that worked OK. Then I updated a computer or two and I was stuck with their Movescount website and file transfer utility. Former only works sometimes, and latter only lets you export in xls format, which can be uploaded to TrainingPeaks, yay, but not to WKO+, boo. The Suunto chest strap is also lousy, the elastic scrunches up and there are electrical connections where you fasten the strap, which is a bad idea for something that gets soaked with sweat. I get all kinds of spurious heart rate readings with the Suunto. It does have a replaceable band, though (good thing for a $300+ watch).

So I have liked a number of the Garmin devices for GPS and other (I think I have had almost every Forerunner and Edge model), and their software seems to be getting better (they even put out Mac versions), and they now make a daily-wearable heart rate only monitor/watch. So the Garmin FR70 became my current experiment.

I have had it a few days, and I like it.

It is a good size, not too big. Here are pictures (left to right) of it with a Suunto t6d, a Garmin Forerunner 410, and a Garmin Forerunner 910XT. Smallest of the bunch.

Data recording is glitchless, I like the standard and especially their fancier chest strap, which handle sweat well and don’t shrivel up (Suunto, take a look and try to learn). Transferring data to a computer works well, and there is even a TrainingPeaks Device Agent you can use to upload to your TrainingPeaks account.

Nice job Garmin.