Second-to-second HRM or BPM tracker?

Not sure I'm afraid but I suspect you have two problems. Firstly do you know what interval the device you are using is sampling at and secondly is the app problem. What interval do you need? My FR 610 has the option to sample at 1 sec intervals - I think this is primarily aimed at the GPS tracking but I presume it will record HR also. I would suggest that you go straight to the FIT file and look at analysing what is in there - there are a lot of threads on editing fit files and with a bit of effort I'm sure you could extract the data to excel and analyse it. I have a trial licence for firstbeat athlete at the moment and this shows a heart rate graph which seems to sample at about 2-3 seconds. At the moment my 610 is set to SMART sample rate so I expect that the Firstbeat data reflects that.

Hi I was wondering if anyone on this forum knew of a more in-depth app that shows real time bpm statistics/data? I'm doing research on heart rate/breathing techniques in a nutshell and am having trouble finding an app that can show data any finer than 15 sec intervals. If anyone has any advice/info that I might be missing, I would be deeply grateful!

Thank you in advance,

Michael T.

(using the vivosmart + HRM)

HR sensors count/average to give a number. Try it yourself. Take your pulse for 15 seconds and multiply by 4 and you will get your HR. Now take your pulse for 1 second and multiply by 60 and your HR will be 0BPM, 60BPM or 120BPM, 180BPM or 240BPM only. Not very accurate.

I see what you are saying but from observations they are doing something a little more sophisticated than that otherwise they wouldn't be able to show maximum heart rate figures or arrive at reasonably accurate figure as soon as you switch them on. I believe that they are doing more than just counting the number of beats in a specific time interval it looks to me like they are measuring the time between successive heart beats and using that to calculate a bit figure presumably then applying algorithm to that to calculate a figure for the sampling interval. This would then only give major inaccuracies where the heart beat was very irregular or the sensor was missing or adding beats due to malfunction. I guess this could be verified by setting up a workout with very short intervals and then exercising at a steady low level. If the calculation is done by counting the number of beats in the interval and multiplying up you would expect to see the average heart rate fluctuate significantly from one interval to the next whereas if it is measuring time between beats it should be much more consistent