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Hi,
I currently use my phone to record my rides on Strava but after a slight health scare I want to keep an eye on my heart rate and blood oxygen levels.
I'm thinking a watch would be best to collect the data and record in Strava.
I'm not flush with cash atm so have an eye on upcoming Black Friday/ Tech Monday to see if I can get a deal.
I guess my first question is am I right to think a watch and Strava is the best thing to do? If not I'm open to suggestions.
And then, does anyone have a recommendation for a decent priced watch which would collect accurate data.
This is all new to me so any advice would be great.
Thanks
A chest strap is generally better for HR than a watch, which optically reads your HR. Although you can use chest straps with most HR watches - but then you may as well use your phone - unless you want 24/7 monitoring?
Something which has decent battery life. I had a vivoactive, that would just about do a 6 hour ride, now have a Fenix 6, which does multiple days of riding, links to the bike (spesh eeb) and other ANT sensors.
Yeh a chest heart rate strap (blue tooth) will work with strava if you have the subscribed account, that's what I do with my android phone and Strava.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/CooSpo-Monitor-Bluetooth-Running-Cycling/dp/B09CD29FJW
I have used a fitness watch before with wrist HRM (some sort of vivoactive) and it was pretty consistent compared to the chest strap with me. Worn with sensor on inside of wrist.
I swear by my amazfit t-rex
its cheap, tough, battery lasts for literally weeks, i dont know about pinpoint heartrate accuracy, but it certainly tells me if my heart is going to explode, I'll be buying the t-rex 2 models at some point no doubt
A Garmin watch gives you free access to Garmin Connect which has all the health stats you can think of. For what you're after, a watch will likely be more convenient than a chest strap too. (do any chest HRs do blood oxygen monitoring?).
VivioActive range is good. Fenix is better.
I don't think the oxygen monitoring on watches is any good.
do any chest HRs do blood oxygen monitoring?
Not that I'm aware of.
I don’t think the oxygen monitoring on watches is any good.
Dunno, I've compared my Garmin Instinct 2 and a fingertip O2 monitor, and they're usually pretty close. That's in close to ideal conditions of course: sitting down, relaxed etc. And either way Strava doesn't care about SpO2.
Anyway Garmin would be a great option, but I don't know which models include SpO2 monitoring. All the recent more expensive models certainly do, but you say cash is an issue. In that case how about a Xiaomi MyBand? Does sport monitoring, SpO2, connects to Strava, and pretty cheap. My wife has one and is very happy with it.
Apple Watch 3 has been fine and HR compares with my chest strap. Buy used from CEX as people are upgrading. It does help I you have an iPhone for functionality.
Just moved over to a Garmin Venu after a couple of Samsung's and an Amazfit. The Samsungs were fine until their gps became erratic and unreliable. The Amazfit was reliable and had much better battery life but the app/experience isn't as good as with the garmin. After a bit of a test against the garmin chest HRM the Venu is as good and broadcasts to my edge while being less irritating. The transfer of info to strava is seamless.
The forerunner 245 does pulse ox but it is a massive battery hog, you can have it set to measure in sleep or manual spot checks.
Think that's the cheapest option that has it, the forerunner 45/55 don't list it as a spec.
I swear by my amazfit t-rex
why spend more? Never got on with Garmins and these these do the job fine. Strava'd the west highland way there and back no probs.
Bonus is the chinese government know my whereabouts and activities at all times (don't actually use it that much - just for long days where I want to save my phone, or the rare occasions I don't want to carry a phone. They do want to know all about your life, tell you about your sleep quality etc etc, stuff I've zero interest in.)
I need to keep an eye on my HR while riding. I found that regular glances at my Garmin Instinct while riding was more likely to cause me harm through a fall than the risk of a naughty HR peak, so swopped over to a Garmin 530 on the bars. Much safer ! I use a Garmin dual HR chest strap.
VivoActive 4 has SpO2. Refurbs are available from £120 or so.
This has it for £45...
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B091G3FLL7/ref=ox_sc_act_image_1?smid=A22KL4R3SR9NNI&psc=1
Tempted myself
I currently use my phone to record my rides on Strava but after a slight health scare I want to keep an eye on my heart rate and blood oxygen levels.
Would HR or SpO2 actually show up anything useful?
Mostly my instinct (which only does HR) just corroborates / conformationally biases what I already know, i.e. I'll look at the averages at the end of the week and think "ohh I really did feel crap on Tuesday, my resting HR was 15% higher than average, must have had a cold".
You said funds were an issue, just wondering if it's one of those things where spending £50 doesn't get you what you want so it's not worth it even if it's not the £300 of the expensive iWatch that does ECG montoring.
FWIW I really like my £50 Garmin Instinct (eBay 'refurbished'), solves the problem of not being arsed to start up strava every time I get on the bike to run errands, but still like to log the miles. And I prefer clutter free handlebars so it's just enough of a map to avoid 95% of the map checking.