I got to shopping around on amazon for a heart rate monitor. One thing I always do is look through the reviews to see what people say about them. From what I am seeing all the ones that are popular seem as of late (I look at the most recent reviews due to updates and such) to have horrible reviews. Not sure if its firmware issues, poor craftsmanship or just picky consumers. From all the reviews I have read, every one of them that have issues are consistent. Either a miniscule battery life, they stop working totally shortly after purchase or they have horrendous connection problems. I know there has to be something out there that is reliable. Anybody have any good suggestions?
I use a Garmin Dual paired with my Apple TV. No issues, and no battery changes, in over 2 years.
I have the Polar H9 heart rate monitor and it works great.
I like my Wahoo Tickr v1!
I used Polar H7 (a really old one) without issues, but needed to change battery often. Now Quadlock (both BLE and ANT+).
Would not buy a no name product…
Garmin Ant+ here - swap batteries every year when I do all my Ant+ devices. Only time it played up was when it was sitting on my nipple ring 
Buy known brand and also search out for good vs bad support stories if you want more confidence.
Buy a Polar H10 that is what the expert Youtube reviewers seem to say is the best. Including that Austrian post doctoral student who reviews heart rate monitors and sports watches as a hobby.
i have a wahoo Tick R (ant+ /bluetooth) no snags in 3 years of ownership. Just annual battery changes.
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I am doing some looking around and I am starting to lean towards the Wahoo Ticker X. Anybody out there have that? Is it any good with Zwift? I hear it has a cadence feature as well.
I use a Garmin HRM3 and other than it being slow to pick up a heart rate until it’s wet/sweaty I’m happy with it. Doesn’t drop connection and batteries last a while.
For running and occasionally cycling I use this:-
Picks up HR straight away and is accurate. It’s BT and ANT+
Very cheap too.
I’ll give a different perspective.
I use a cheap CooSpoo BT/Ant + HRM.
No problems for first 3 years but then last year started having connection issues, indoors and out.
Turns out, one of my metal terminals on the back had corrosion on it.
Now I keep a small piece of 320 wet/dry sand paper by my set up and give a quick run around and no problems.
This is caused by indoor training.
After Zwifting, my HRM is soaked.
I wipe off every time.
When I changed the battery, I found some corrosion on the battery terminal too.
I scraped it off and now, in between uses, I store my HRM open with the battery out.
Every time I Zwift, I’m basically dropping my HRM into a brine solution and I’m surprised I went as long as I did without a problem.
Side note- give your front derailer some love too.
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Tickr has been great for me so far!
I received a Wahoo TICKR this past Xmas, and am not pleased with it. When the going gets tough, and it should be reading over 170 bpm, it’s showing ~130 bpm.
I’m working with Wahoo support - who have been fantastic in my past experiences. I will update if this gets resolved.
I am quite happy with my Scosche Rhythm+ optical armband heart rate monitor. The Rhythm+ is comfortable to wear and DC Rainmaker found it to be very accurate (review link). You might want to wait for the new Rhythm+ 2.0 (announcement link) that Scoshe is about to release.
Awesome… thanks for the great info guys. I know this is a question that gets asked a lot. Not only am I asking for myself, but I figured I would bring the question the front of the line for those out there that might be looking for a monitor as well.
Seems like there is a flood of info that makes it hard to wade through at times. It’s like drinking from a fire hose and it can get exhausting. I’ve been hearing of Amazon reviews being fiddled with lately for certain products for higher review standings. When I hear that, then see a product with a really high rating but on all the low ratings the same issue keeps popping up. That tends to make me skeptical. I figured I would ask those out there that actually use HR monitors for the same purpose that I would be using it for and see how they do.
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