No question, wearing a fitness tracker can have a positive impact on your health. But if you really want to have the best indication on the level of your fitness then you have to keep track of your heart-rate. Monitoring your heart rate will offer a better idea into the effectiveness of a workout, how well you have trained and the rate of your recovery. Although wearing a chest strap is more accurate, it can get uncomfortable after a period of time and it can be quite inconvenient. This is one of the many reasons why fitness watches with heart rate sensors are becoming popular as it offers simplicity, convenience, and feedback on your quality of training. Here we will look at 3 affordable wrist styled heart rate monitors from $52 to $150.
Mio Alpha 2
The original Mio Alpha was groundbreaking as it was one of the early pioneers in introducing the wrist-styled heart rate monitoring devices. That meant, no external chest strap was required to record the heart-rate.
And with the Mio Alpha 2, it has two kinds of heart-rate monitoring modes. The first mode will monitor your EKG heartbeat and will alert you if you exert beyond the single zone. Whilst the second mode allows you to configure the preferred heart-rate for 5 types of workout zones.
Other features include all day general tracking like step counting, calories worked off, distance covered, and it has a memory capacity that allows you to store a maximum of 25 hours of your workout numbers. The ergonomic design of the Alpha 2 is built to last the rigors of sports, and although it is relatively big is in size, it is quite an attractive looking one.
The Mio Alpha 2 is waterproof and has a battery life of approximately 3 months.
Xiaomi Band 2
For bargain hunters who wants an affordable fitness tracker with heart rate sensor and value for money, you cannot go past Xiaomi Band 2. Fur under $52, you get heart rate measurements (resting bpm), automatic sleep tracking, step counting, non-movement alert, calories burnt during the day, the ability to set many vibration alarms for a wake-up alert, and wait there is more, smartphone messaging and call alerts!
But do note the instructions that come in the box are in Chinese. So you will have to play around with it to make sense of it, and you do not need a bachelor degree to figure it out.
Lastly, the fitness tracker is comfortable to wear and it is light, and unlike other fitness trackers, the Band 2 has a battery life of an average 5 days, the Xiaomi Band 2 can stretch to around 14 days!
Garmin Vivosmart HR
Garmin has a wide variety of waterproof fitness trackers, and amongst the pile of Garmin products that will suit most the everyday fitness goer (not the fitness geeks) is the Vivosmart HR!
This versatile fitness wearable is the best fitness watch presented in this article. The Garmin Vivosmart HR not only tracks everyday activity from steps, calories, distance walked and ran, heart-rate, quality of sleep, the number of stairs walked, music control, it also offers a platter of smartphone push notifications from caller id, text messages, emails, third-party messages like Whatsapp. This is almost a smartwatch, but with an emphasis on fitness tracking. To top if off, it is waterproof with a 5 ATM rating, and it has a battery life of 5 days!
Although it is the most expensive of the 3 wrist heart rate monitors, you get an advanced fitness watch that does more than a great job in performance and better yet, offers a decent value.
If you are in the position to buy a fitness tracker, a wrist styled heart rate sensor will provide a better insight into the state of your health during and after a workout. Best of all, fitness watches like the 3 devices above offers simplicity and quick data access to your progress and they can really motivate you to put in that extra effort to meet your target. What’s more, you can get one on your wrist now for as low as $52.