Will Garmin introduce an intergrated Heart Rate monitor...I hate straps.

Does anyone else do this? I know it is possible, but the methods that I know of are much more costly (in terms of battery life) than the existing strap solution.

Travis

there are other solutions (I think the basis b1 iirc, and the upcoming Samsung gear fit). However, DC rainmaker reviews suggest that the optical technology in watches works well for at rest, but becomes very inaccurate during exercise. so think the tech has a wee bit of a way to go...

Agreed the technology becomes extremely innaccurate during excercise and is very variable even at rest in my experience - in the past this has often been a feature on low end fitness watches

there are other solutions (I think the basis b1 iirc, and the upcoming Samsung gear fit). However, DC rainmaker reviews suggest that the optical technology in watches works well for at rest, but becomes very inaccurate during exercise. so think the tech has a wee bit of a way to go...

It depends actually on who makes the sensor. For the sensor in the Basis watch, the statement above is correct - not at all useful for exercise. However, for the sensor used by Mio in a variety of units (Mio Alpha, Mio Link, Adidas Smart Run GPS, TomTom Cardio), the sensor is very accurate in exercise. In fact, just as accurate if not more accurate in most real world cases than a traditional heart rate strap. Oddly enough, see my review yesterday on TomTom's latest optical inclusion. I included lots of run data in there with both measurement types concurrently.

yeah, sorry for the inaccurate quote - I read your TomTom review this morning, and realised I had picked up the mistaken impression that all optical sensors weren't up to much, and was going to correct it when I got on tonight.

good to see progress in this area - I don't mind wearing the strap, but handy to not bother wearing it.

+1 if it were in the watch then you'd have HR in the swim!!!

Interesting I should have read rest of the reviews :o

Certainly having everything in one unit would be much more convenient especially if as jmartin above says it would work for swimming too

+1 if it were in the watch then you'd have HR in the swim!!!

or you just wear a mio wrist band next to your 910 and put it in running mode and you get hr (there's a review of the mio on my site with a chart clearly showing that the ant+ signal can travel a wee tiny bit through water)

now if the sensor were integrated into a garmin (like the tomtom cardio for example) then voila!

however i've also tried the mio band + 910 and wetsuit and it didn't like it at all...strange very high results. so the water must affect the signal (in the sense of getting in the way of the optical sensor)