Omron Launches Its First Ever Continuous Strapless Heart Rate Monitor, the HR-500U

Nov 192012

Omron just launched its first ever continuous Strapless Heart Rate Monitor, the HR-500U. We hope to get one soon for review. Check it out:

Continuous Monitoring Now All in the Wrist

LAKE FOREST, Ill. – Nov. 15, 2012 – Today Omron Healthcare, Inc., a leader in personal wellness products, launched its first-ever, continuous Strapless Heart Rate Monitor (HR-500U). Exercise enthusiasts can now take their workout to the next level comfortably without an annoying chest strap. Easy to use, the monitor is worn on the wrist and provides accurate, continuous monitoring.

“Our new Strapless Heart Rate Monitor can help you work out smarter. Our monitor alerts you when you are in the right zone to ensure an optimal workout. Walking 10,000 steps a day is recommended, but you can also achieve the same benefits walking 5,000 steps at a higher exercise level,” said Ranndy Kellogg, vice president marketing and product development at Omron. “It’s a simple solution to fit your everyday lifestyle and when you connect at our Website, your health data becomes visible, helping you achieve your goals of improved fitness and overall health.”

Strapless, Continuous Monitoring
Designed for use during a workout, the monitor measures heart rate via an optic sensor on the wrist and an accelerometer to determine pace, distance, and calories burned. As blood flow changes from beat to beat, the optic sensor measures the blood’s movement in and out of the capillaries and can determine the heart rate on a continuous basis.

Users can simply glance at the monitor on their wrist to check their heart rate without interrupting their workout. A color LCD light helps determine which zone they are in and alerts if they are in a zone too high or too low. Readings from their last workout are accessible on the monitor and 10 hours of data are stored on the unit which can be transferred to Omron Fitness.

Track Goals, Share Victories
By connecting the Strapless Heart Rate Monitor via USB cable at Omron Fitness, users can transfer data and track progress over time and share achievements via email, Facebook and Twitter with friends, family or a healthcare professional from their own personal dashboard. Mac and PC compatible, the dashboard is accessible on a personal computer or laptop and viewable on Smartphones and tablets.

“Tracking health goals such as heart rate to help improve your fitness is a key to getting results and therefore staying motivated,” said Oprah’s personal trainer Bob Greene. “I recommend documenting your goals and tracking your progress weekly to get a better picture of your activity over time.” Omron makes it easy to stay accountable with their new connected products and Website Omron Fitness where you can share victories and friends can keep you motivated.

Name It & Win!
It’s all in the wrist and now Omron is looking for a name for its new Strapless Heart Rate Monitor. Omron will be calling on all fans from November 15 to December 9, 2012 to help name its newest heart rate monitor. Five finalists will be announced January 8, 2013 by Bob Greene at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nev. Winners will receive Omron’s new Strapless Heart Rate monitor and a $250 gift card for fitness accessories. Entries can by submitted here. See official rules for more information.

Available for Presale November 15
Omron’s new Strapless Heart Rate Monitor (HR-500U) will be available for presale exclusively at the Omron Fitness Store for $149.99.

The Strapless Heart Rate Monitor is part of Omron’s new line of connected products, including:

Omron USB Tri-Axis Pedometer (HJ-322U), $44.99, available for November at the Omron Fitness store and Walgreens.
Omron USB Tri-Axis Pedometer& (HJ-323U), $49.99, available in November at the Omron Fitness store and Amazon.

For more information, visit OmronFitness.com, Facebook or follow Omron on Twitter .

The Sportiiiis Heads Up Display and The Garmin Fenix

Oct 222012

We’ve been running around the past three weeks with the Sportiiiis heads up display heart rate monitor. If you’re looking for a heart rate monitor that displays heart rate using an LED bargraph that can be used with your glasses, and also provides an audible indication of heart rate, check this one out. It is especially useful if you are a cyclist or runner who doesn’t want to or can’t look at your watch while you are riding or running. We can’t seem to put this one down. It is definitely a new approach to heart rate monitor training. If you want to read more, check out our review here.

We received our evaluation Garmin Fenix GPS watch for review. If you like to hike and spend any time in the outdoors, this thing might be for you. You can track your hiking and training progress, set waypoints, find your way if you get lost, geocache, and just have fun. It has an altimeter, barometer, compass, and of course GPS. You can get it with a heart rate monitor, and it works with the other Garmin training accessories. This product this might be most at home on the trail, but we will let you know how useful it is for training purposes. We’ll let you know what we think, provide updates, and give you the full blown review when we’re done with it.

For now,

Happy training!

Garmin Accessories Sale in October

Oct 082012

Hi all! I found this over on the Garmin website at Peg’s Post. You can now get 20% off of any Garmin accessories by visiting their site and using the coupon codes listed below. The sale runs through October, so if you are looking for Garmin heart rate monitor and GPS accessories, get on over and place your order.

Peg’s Posts: accessorize, colorize & save

Here’s a shopping tip for our faithful fitness fans: for the month of October, you can shop Garmin.com, select accessories to your heart’s content and save 20% on your entire order. Just enter code FALL20 at checkout. Choose from our most popular fitness accessories, like the premium soft strap heart rate monitor to newer offerings, like these colorful accessory bands for the Forerunner 910XT multisport watch. Cyclists will want to take a look at our new out-front mount, which positions the Edge bike computer in a heads-up position for better viewability and increased safety. If you roll with Garmin gear for driving, hiking, golfing, flying, boating or any other pursuit, this discount is good for all Garmin accessories (excludes map updates), so get shopping. Don’t forget to enter code FALL20.

As always,

Happy training!

First Encounters With The Forerunner 910XT

Aug 132012

Chis Dwyer is the creator of One ___ at a Time. His blog One ___ at a Time is a big adventure into the little-known endurance sport of astro-athleticism and all things “stickin-it-to-the-man”. It intertwines his passion for planetary salvation, athletic empowerment, home-energy renovation, community enrichment, and general mischief. Chris is a regular and favorite blogger, Ironman extraordinaire, and close friend of us here at Fitness Electronics Blog. Today he is reviewing the Garmin 910XT, and giving us his real life experiences with the GPS multisport watch. Check out his website at http://oneblankatatime.blogspot.com.

For the last six years, I’ve merely trained and raced with a low-frill, yet trusty, Nike heart rate monitor and a not-so-trusty bike-mounted Sigma odometer. Prior to this week, I was a complete virgin to GPS watches. The good news is that I’ve lost my GPS virginity and have found each experience with the Forerunner 910xt radically better than that first clumsy encounter. This review is certainly not exhaustive of all the features on the 910xt, but merely an introduction to the equipment coming from the perspective of someone who is generally a minimalist when it comes to training with gizmos.

Why I Don’t Have a GPS Watch
Being a triathlete, the Garmin Forerunner 310xt had been on my Christmas wish list for many years. But I could never bite the bullet financially, hearing tales from the tri community that the 310xt had trouble logging swim distance/pace. The satellite connection was supposedly erratic when the watch went under water. In truth, the 310xt “isn’t really a triathlon watch, but a multisport watch”, confessed the Garmin rep at a Spinning conference I attended in Miami. I felt almost-duped. She asked me, “Then, why don’t you just get a GPS watch for runners and forget the bike mount and the swim capabilities altogether?” Instead, I decided, “I’ll just wait till the bugs are worked out, so I can get what the ‘triathlon watch’ is supposed to be.”

Why I Got the Forerunner 910xt
My good friends at the Fitness Electronics Blog were sweethearts last week and asked if I wouldn’t mind testing the Garmin Forerunner 910xt. It seemed like a peace offering given in place of what I really wanted—them, riding with me, in my first ever do-it-yourself ultra-distance triathlon I called DWYRMAN. Unfortunately, they couldn’t come due to their newborn baby, the bar exam, and general life craziness. DWYRMAN was supposed to be a celebration of summer with some of my best cycling, swimming, and running friends. The course was to circumnavigate five state parks with lakes around Cincinnati, passing through Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky, totaling 5 miles of open water swimming, 190 miles cycling, and 32 miles running. It was all theoretically possible based on my tinkering with maps and recon rides over the years. My Fitness Electronics Blogger friends thought the 910xt would be a cool addition to the DWYRMAN in their absence.

How the Forerunner 910xt Faired
As the host of DWYRMAN, my mind was primarily focused on making sure everyone was having a good time, being safe, and getting our mission accomplished. While riding without my glasses, I had difficulty navigating the digital architecture of the zillions of features. The additional stimuli on my wrist completely flustered me. I had a hard time figuring out what all the numbers meant and which of the six buttons did what. It was just information overload. Race day is not a good day for one’s first orientation to new gear. So when we got to the first open water swim, I had to ask for tech support from my buddy Rob, a Garmin-devotee, and he changed the settings for me to “open water swim mode. This is where it got cool.

We took off toward the opposite shore of the lake. When we got to the other side, the watch indicated that I had gone 506 yards. Rob’s watch said 501 yards, but I’m pretty sure he swims straighter than me, which could explain the discrepancy. Then we turned 90 degrees and swam along the shore and traced out a triangular path. The watch indicated ~28:00 and ~1600 yards back at the boat ramp, so we called it a “Kentucky mile.” From the image below, you’ll see I forgot to hit STOP on the watch.

At the upper left vertex of the triangle, the satellites think I went up on shore, but I didn’t. So the map features have bomb-dropping, but not fly-swatting, precision.

Throughout DWYRMAN race day, I basically ignored the watch except for the open water swim sessions. I’ve come to discover that there is basically a six-workout learning curve for a newbie to figure out the full power of A) the watch in the field and B) the Garmin Connect data analysis back home. I needed two workouts in each triathlon discipline to finally have that eureka moment.

The Hardware
The night before DWYRMAN, John handed me a zip lock bag containing the Forerunner 910xt contents: 1) watch (with the rubber wrist-strap option)

2) heart rate monitor

3) USB recharger

4) ANT+ device

Strike 1 – The Software
I first went to the Garmin website and try to find a “Quick Start” manual, which was easy. But then I devoted 45 frustrating minutes proving that despite meeting the system requirements, my MacBook with Mac OS X 10.4.11 operating system was incapable of downloading the second of the two necessary software packages – 1) Garmin Connect for analyzing your data, and 2) ANT+ hardware installation (for wirelessly uploading the watch’s data to your computer).

It wasn’t until after DWYRMAN that I resorted to using my wife’s newer MacBook (with the Mac OS X 10.6.8 operating system). It took about one hour to install the softwares and upload my first workouts. Since that first lengthy installation process, uploads from the watch to the ANT+ have been wireless and easy, which is cool. All you do is turn the watch on when it’s within 5 feet of the ANT+. By the time I checked my email for the day, my first 15 workouts were uploaded from the watch to my desktop. Details of each could be explored ad nauseam. The details are where it gets really fun and nerdy.

The Summary page in Garmin Connect shows all workouts and is sort-able– by date, sporting discipline, duration, etc. Workouts show up as “untitled” files, but can be re-named by route or date or whatever you like. They can also be exported as *.CSV files for easy manipulation in common spreadsheet software like Excel.

As soon as the workout is over, it’s fun watching the data re-tell the story of the workout. Where was I trying my hardest to keep up with traffic? Did I let my heart rate sink too low while coasting down that hill? How long was that potty break at the gas station?

One weakness of the watch showed up in while lap swimming. The screenshot below is from a swim that lasted about 60 minutes. It included an extended warm up drill and then some 100 yard repeats—all freestyle, mind you. So, why does the 910xt think that I threw in a length of backstroke after completing a length in 0.0 seconds? I can only hope that the quirks like this average themselves out over the course of the workout.

Pros:

Accurate swim distance
Comfortable heart rate strap
Heart rate signal detected almost immediately
Heart rate strap is waterproof
The fully charged battery lasted just over 15 hours on day one of DWYRMAN
Not overly big and clunky like older Garmin watches
Can measure everything important in a multitude of ways:
Heart Rate (beats/min, % of max, zone #, average),
Speed (Instantaneous, average)
Pace (instantaneous, average)
Strokes, Power, Cadence, %Grade, Altitude, Position,
Communicates with other ANT+ devices (which I didn’t test)
Once you upload your data, at the GarminConnect.com website, you can name your routes, share them, and compare them to previous performances
The data analysis experience was clean and intuitive there
Personalized settings so I could share the watch with my wife who has her own settings

Cons:

Heart rate fabric feels wimpy and prone to stinking (compared to my durable 6 year old Nike HR monitor strap)
Heart rate monitor does not work under water
“Multisport” setting is not a convenient setting for a non-traditional triathlon sequence like DWYRMAN (i.e. bike-swim-bike-swim-bike-swim-bike-swim-bike-swim-run-bike)
Menu/buttons are hard to navigate for a newbie—(Would it possible to engineer a Blackberry-like trackball or scroll-button? It could be a business opportunity for the sinking ship that is Blackberry’s maker, Research in Motion. Or maybe touchscreen is the way and RIM is just doomed.)
Tough to read while riding the bike. The bike mount accessory (~$15) could be helpful but too timely to operate for a speedy race day transition. I’d rather just have a dedicated bike computer.
The Mode button is difficult to push without simultaneously pushing the “Scroll up” button, which is the top secret button sequence that inconveniently locks all keys when you don’t want it to
Can take several minutes to find a satellite connection
Battery did not last the claimed 20 hours on a full charge
The data experience at Garmin Connect was not a social experience like the experience at strava.com or trainingpeaks.com, which deserve their own review in a future blog.

Conclusion
My favorite feature is the accuracy of the swim workouts, whether lap swimming or open water. Everyone knows they need to do more open water swimming and we’d all love to look at something other than the black lane lines at the pool. The watch can also push you to swim faster than your previous workouts by setting up the Virtual Partner feature. This is where it stands out from all other Garmin watches.

My second favorite feature is the post-workout analysis. It’s so convenient that much of my training diary is basically written for me in a thorough and objective way. However, the analysis feature I was most hopeful for, but didn’t find, was a method of measuring and displaying the duration of time I spend in each heart rate zone. Even my low-frill heart rate monitor does as much. And that’s the most important metric I keep track of in my training diary. With the 910xt it would be possible to export the Garmin Connect data to an Excel spreadsheet and make the calculations myself, but it seems like an easy enough feature for Garmin to include in a future software update. Their inclusion of their “Training Effect” metric is a poor substitute that lacks the transparency and objectivity of a more thorough heart rate analysis.

After I conquered the initial software hurdles and figured out how to navigate the plethora of options, I really came to enjoy training with the 910xt. Then I made the mistake of letting my wife try it. She’s been hoarding it ever since.

We have been doing a lot of trail running this year in preparation for our first 50 mile race in Madison, Wisconsin, in September. She loves it so much, she just ordered the 910xt for herself, (since we have to give the demo watch back to Garmin, of course). Her rationale was that the battery life, unlike other Garmin models, would last long enough for the 50 miler cut-off time of 13 hours, which the other Gamin GPS watches would not. Also, since most of her training is on trails in Cincinnati parks, without the GPS it would be tough to measure distance and altitude, which are important metrics to her. All-in-all, my earlier excuse for holding out for a great “triathlon” watch is no longer valid. It’s even family-friendly.

Chris

As always,

Happy Training!!

Week In Review – August 11th, 2012

Aug 112012

It’s been a light week for us here at Fitness Electronics Blog. I’ve been at an all week work offsite up in Michigan, where we had limited internet access. I did manage to squeeze in a little fishing. All in all, it wasn’t a bad week.

Next week, we will be back to our regular posting schedule.

BE SURE TO “LIKE” US ON FACEBOOK.

Why? Who the hell knows.

There’s really no real major benefit to you.

But that’s Facebook for you. You will get our posts conveniently added to your news feed. It’ll make us look good. We’ll be able to tell people “…hey, we have X amount of Facebook followers…” and they’ll be all “wow, cool” and that’s about it. It’s shallow but, well, there you go.

Anyway, give it a think.

Again, there’s virtually nothing in it for you but, hey, social media.

Thank you.

Here are all of the posts from the last week:

Monday – Polar H7 Versus Wahoo Fitness BlueHR Bluetooth Smart Shootout!

Sunday – Week In Review – August 5th, 2012

Polar H7 Versus Wahoo Fitness BlueHR Bluetooth Smart Shoot Out!!

Aug 072012

Today we are comparing Bluetooth Smart heart rate monitor straps; the Polar H7 to the Wahoo Fitness BlueHR. We have reviewed both of these Bluetooth Smart heart rate monitors in past posts. The links to these reviews can be found at the end of the review.

Polar H7 Versus Wahoo Fitness BlueHR Bluetooth Smart Shoot Out!!

Polar H7 and Wahoo Fitness BlueHR

Before we get started, we should tell you a little bit about us and how we perform product evaluations. We have a group of 4 people who do the evaluations of all of the stuff. One person is the lead on a piece of gear, but everyone gets an opportunity to evaluate the product. We have 2 guys and 2 ladies, so it’s a good mix of people. It gives us better insight, and we get a better review overall. Everyone has an input to the review, and if there is a major disagreement, we will note it in the review. If you want to know who these people are, check out our About Us page. Four of us are seasoned triathletes, and 2 of us are are also full time Pilates instructors. Jennifer Lynn, who is a guest blogger, is a full time Pilates/spinning instructor. All swim, bike, run, do Pilates and Yoga, and use all of the gear on a daily basis. Many of you have read the FitnessElectronicsBlog disclaimer, but here it is in case this is your first time reading one of our reviews. For the record, we are in no way connected with Polar or Wahoo Fitness or any of the companies whose gear we review. We love playing with the latest technology, and we couldn’t keep our hands off this stuff if we tried. We typically don’t take gear for free, and there is never give-us-gear for a favorable review, or anything like that. We call ‘em as we see ‘em. It keeps us honest. Typically, if we like the product, we spend our own money to make sure we have it around to use. it helps us answer questions, and compare products, and check out the latest software updates. So, enough with the babble. Let’s get to the review.

We will start off by giving you the manufacturers specs. Here they are:

The Polar H7 heart rate sensor features are shown below:

Compatible with iPhone 4S and Motorola Droid Razr
Bluetooth Low Energy transmission
Compatible with Polar training computers, including the FT series, RS100, RS200, RS300, RS400, CS100, CS200, CS300, and RCX5
Also compatible with Polar compatible gym equipment using the 5 Khz coded protocol
Can transmit up to 30 feet
Battery life up to 350 hours
User replaceable battery CR2025
Soft, washable strap
Suggested retail price $79.95

The Wahoo BlueHR Bluetooth Smart heart rate features are shown below:

Compatible with iPhone 4S and later iPhones
Bluetooth Smart (Bluetooth Low Energy 4.0) transmission
Typical transmit range greater than 10 feet
Battery life up to 1 1/2 years with typical usage
User replaceable battery CR2032
two-snap connection is easy and fast and includes adjustable length strap
waterproof up to 5 feet
Soft, washable strap
Weight - Sensor Pod: 0.6 ounces, strap: 1.0 ounces, Total: 1.6 ounces
Suggested retail $79.99

To start off, lets talk about some of the product similarities. Both products use the new Bluetooth Smart protocol (a subset of the Bluetooth 4.0 Low Energy protocol), and are made to work with the iPhone 4s and later. They both pair easily and work well with the iPhone 4s. They have adjustable soft straps, and are comfortable enough to wear all day (which we’ve done). They both have user replaceable batteries, and claim 350 hours and 1 1/2 years of battery life, which is longer than standard Bluetooth HRM straps. They are both waterproof in normal swimming conditions. They both retail for about $80.00. The straps do snap/clip differently, so we thought we would show you. The Polar H7 has a hook that slides into a loop on the other end of the strap. The HRM transmitter can be snapped in or removed, with the elastic band staying in place:

The Wahoo Fitness BlueHR strap is snapped together with each side of the transmitter:

Both worked well, and I can’t say that one method is better than the other.

Ok, that’s great. So how well do the electronics work?

They both work well when you are within 8-10 feet of the iPhone, which is more than enough distance if you have your iPhone in a pocket or somewhere on your bike. We did not have any connection issues with either heart rate monitor straps. No connection drop outs, or any connection issues at all. Both heart rate monitors also picked up my heart rate easily after the straps were wet. I use tap water to wet the pickup sensor locations on the strap. No heart rate dropouts were noticed on either HRM strap. Also, neither strap had an issue getting a reading when my shirt was really wet due to excessive sweating in the heat. I’ve had some other heart rate monitor straps stop working under these conditions.

So they sound pretty much the same, right? Well, there are a few differences that you may care about. The Polar H7 will also work with some of Polar’s heart rate monitor and bike computers Here is the current list:

Compatible with:

CS100
Cs200cad
CS300
CS600x
FT1
FT2
FT4
FT40
FT60
FT80
RCX5
RCX5 Tour de France
RS100
RS400

The Polar H7 is also compatible with most gym equipment like ArcTrainers and treadmills via the H7′s built in 5 kHz transmitter.

On the other hand, the Wahoo Fitness is compatible with more iPhone apps. Here is the current list of apps that work with both heart rate monitors:

Polar H7

Endomondo Sports Tracker
Endomondo Sports Tracker PRO
Cardio Mapper
runtastic
runtastic PRO
iSmoothRun

Wahoo Fitness BlueHR

321Run
321Run Free
Cycle Log
Cyclemeter
Cyclist PRO
cyclist Ultimate
cyctastic
Endomondo Sports Tracker
Endomondo Sports Tracker PRO
Heart Rate Monitor
HeartWorks
iBody
iBodyHD
iSmoothRun
Jog Log
MapMyDOGWALK
MapMyFitness
MapMyFitness+
MapMyHike
MapMyRide
MapMyRide+
MapMyRun
MapMyRun+
MotionX GPS
Pedometer Free GPS+
Pedometer Ultimate GPS+
RaceByHearts
RitmoTime Stroke Monitor
RitmoTime Stroke Monitor Free
seconds Pro Interval Timer
Strava Cycling
Strava Run
Wahoo Fitness
Wahoo Fitness Sensor Utility
Walkmeter
walktastic

Thoughts, Opinions, and Summary

Both heart rate monitor straps work really well. The main difference is that the Polar H7 has a 5 kHz transmitter that works with indoor gym equipment and some Polar watches and gear, and the Wahoo Fitness BlueHR works with more apps.

Since I also spend a lot of time in the gym, especially in the winter months, I personally would give the edge to the Polar H7. I think there will be more apps that work with the Polar out soon, and this is such a rapidly growing area that things change every day. The Wahoo BlueHR is a great piece of gear, and I think you can’t go wrong with either one.

Questions

Q. Do these Bluetooth Smart heart rate monitors work with the android phones that claim to support Bluetooth Smart (Motorola Razr Maxx, Samsung Galaxy S3)?

A. Here is a response from Polar - Polar H7 supports Bluetooth Smart Heart Rate profile fully. But the Android Operating System does not officially support it, which is why we cannot promise H7 compatibility to Android phones for now. Nor can we promise compatibility with independent Bluetooth Smart implementations made by some manufacturers of Android phones/applications. This is because they are not fully compatible with the Bluetooth Smart specifications and standardized Heart Rate Profile.

We have had many comments from users telling us that they were unable to get the HRM straps to work with the Motorola Razr Maxx or the Samsung Galaxy S3.

If you would like to read our reviews, they can be found at:

Polar H7 Bluetooth Smart Heart Rate Monitor In Depth Review

Wahoo Fitness BlueHR Bluetooth Smart Heart Rate Monitor In Depth Review

In addition, we have covered the apps that work with each of these heart rate monitor straps. If you want more in depth info, you can read these at:

iPhone Apps That Work With the Polar H7 Bluetooth Smart Heart Rate Monitor

iPhone Apps That Work With the Wahoo Fitness BlueHR Bluetooth Smart Heart Rate Monitor

If you want to learn more about Bluetooth, check out some of our pages and posts listed under the “Useful Posts heading in the right sidebar. You can also find in depth reviews on many of the apps discussed in the articles above by checking out our Product Reviews page.

As usual, I will leave you with a few videos to watch:

I found a trick on the internet that will get the Polar H7 up and running with Runkeeper. It seemed to work for me. Here is the video:

Here is a how to video for the Wahoo Fitness BlueHR:

How to pair your BlueHR with the Wahoo Fitness App:

Wahoo Fitness BlueHR – The first Bluetooth Smart heart rate monitor:

As always,

Happy training!!

Week In Review – August 5th, 2012

Aug 052012

We hope you enjoyed the DWYRMAN race report. It sounded like a blast!! We have that on our calendar to do next year. Check out the coming week when we do the comparison between the Wahoo BlueHR and the Polar H7 Bluetooth Smart heart rate monitors.

BE SURE TO “LIKE” US ON FACEBOOK.

Why? Who the hell knows.

There’s really no real major benefit to you.

Anyway, give it a think.

Again, there’s virtually nothing in it for you but, hey, social media.

Thank you.

Here are all of the posts from the last week:

Friday – Wicked Helix Headphones In Depth Review

Wednesday – iPhone Apps That Work With The Wahoo Fitness BlueHR Bluetooth Smart Heart Rate Monitor

Monday – New Features in runtastic PRO

Sunday – DWYRMAN 2012 Race Report

Saturday – Week In Review- July 29th

iPhone Apps That Work With the Wahoo Fitness BlueHR Bluetooth Smart Heart Rate Monitor

Aug 012012

Last week, we reviewed the Wahoo Fitness BlueHR Bluetooth Smart heart rate monitor strap. This is a followup to that review, where we cover the apps that work with the BlueHR HRM. The review can be found here.

We just reviewed the Wahoo Fitness BlueHR, and already we have had many readers requesting more information. One of the biggest questions that readers have is, “Which iPhone apps work with the Wahoo Fitness BlueHR?” So we set out to check all of the most popular apps that are out there. Here is the list from the Wahoo Fitness website:

321Run
321Run Free
Cycle Log
Cyclemeter
Cyclist PRO
cyclist Ultimate
cyctastic
Endomondo Sports Tracker
Endomondo Sports Tracker PRO
Heart Rate Monitor
HeartWorks
iBody
iBodyHD
iSmoothRun
Jog Log
MapMyDOGWALK
MapMyFitness
MapMyFitness+
MapMyHike
MapMyRide
MapMyRide+
MapMyRun
MapMyRun+
MotionX GPS
Pedometer Free GPS+
Pedometer Ultimate GPS+
RaceByHearts
RitmoTime Stroke Monitor
RitmoTime Stroke Monitor Free
seconds Pro Interval Timer
Strava Cycling
Strava Run
Wahoo Fitness
Wahoo Fitness Sensor Utility
Walkmeter
walktastic

Here is a video on how to pair the Wahoo Fitness BlueHR with the Wahoo Fitness app:

runtastic and runtastic PRO In Depth Review

Jul 242012

For those of you just joining us, we are on a continuing journey to learn more about heart rate monitors, and the best way to choose the right one. Our website covers all types of electronics and tech stuff, but overwhelmingly, triathletes and runners come to our site to check out methods to measure heart rate and learn more about GPS watches. We have had so many questions about using smartphones as a heart rate monitoring device, which smartphone heart rate monitor straps to buy, and which apps to use that we decided we should start reviewing the the heart rate monitor straps, and the smartphone apps that work with them. Today, we are reviewing runtastic and runtastic PRO apps for smartphones.

Before we get started, we should tell you a little bit about us and how we perform product evaluations. We have a group of 4 people who do the evaluations of all of the stuff. One person is the lead on a piece of gear, but everyone gets an opportunity to evaluate the product. We have 2 guys and 2 ladies, so it’s a good mix of people. It gives us better insight, and we get a better review overall. Everyone has an input to the review, and if there is a major disagreement, we will note it in the review. If you want to know who these people are, check out our About Us page. Four of us are seasoned triathletes, and 2 of us are are also full time Pilates instructors. Jennifer Lynn, who is a guest blogger, is a full time Pilates/spinning instructor. All swim, bike, run, do Pilates and Yoga, and use all of the gear on a daily basis. Many of you have read the FitnessElectronicsBlog disclaimer, but here it is in case this is your first time reading one of our reviews. For the record, we are in no way connected with runtastic or any of the companies whose gear we review. We love playing with the latest technology, and we couldn’t keep our hands off this stuff if we tried. We downloaded and purchased runtastic and runtastic PRO from the iTunes and Android Play store. We typically don’t take gear for free, and there is never give-us-gear for a favorable review, or anything like that. We call ‘em as we see ‘em. It keeps us honest. Typically, if we like the product, we spend our own money to make sure we have it around to use. it helps us answer questions, and compare products, and check out the latest software updates. So, enough with the babble. Let’s get to the review.

So who and what is runtastic? runtastic is an app aimed at logging your fitness in a number of different activities and sports. Here are some of the apps and sports that runtastic have created:

The apps that we are reviewing today are runtastic, and runtastic PRO. These apps are centered around running, and logging your run.

So how did runtastic start? Here s a little bit of the company history:

runtastic was founded in 2009 by four friends with a shared passion for combining exercise and technology: Florian Gschwandtner, Alfred Luger, Rene Giretzlehner, and Christian Kaar.

The idea for the company actually began two years earlier, when Christian and Rene were master’s students at FH Hagenberg. Their thesis project, called mSports, focused on using GPS technology available on smartphones, such as the Apple iPhone and Google Android phone, to track race positions for sailboats and racecars. Using a smartphone mounted on the boat or in the car, sailors and racecar drivers could track their overall location and position using the mSports application.

The project was interesting, but purely experimental, and neither Christian nor Rene had any business background to take mSports from a great technical idea to a commercial product. As graduation neared in mid-2009, Christian secured a job offer in Amsterdam and was set to pursue an exciting new career. In the meantime, Rene approached his old friend, Florian, who had more business know-how, with the idea to productize mSports in some way. He was intrigued, enlisted his friend Alfred with whom he was studying at FH Steyer, and the two business-focused men decided to help Rene during his off-hours.

runtastic can thank the economic crisis of 2009 for the rest of the company’s history. Three days before he was supposed to leave Austria, Christian’s potential employer rescinded the job offer! Seeing the opportunity that presented itself, both Florian and Alfred quit their existing jobs to join Rene and Christian and found runtastic.

Today, runtastic develops a series of apps and gear that help athletes of all levels track their activities, share progress with friends, track their heart rates and locations, and many related features. runtastic apps are available on the iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Windows 7, and bada platforms. Tens of thousands of runners, walkers, hikers, bikers and other athletes enjoy runtastic apps every day.

The company is headquartered in Pasching, Austria with an office in San Francisco.

One of the founders of runtastic, Florian Gschwandtner is the CEO of the company and is responsible for overall business development and product development. Prior to founding runtastic, Florian was an international project manager at NTS Wincash GmbH, which develops and installs point-of-sale (POS) systems for mobile network providers worldwide, such as AT&T, Verizon, and Vodafone. Florian holds a master’s degree of science and engineering in mobile computing from the FH Hagenberg (Austria) and in supply chain management and e-commerce from the FH Steyr (Austria).

**Typically, the first question we usually get is, which phones work with runtastic?**

iPhone 3G, 3GS, 4, 4S. If you want to use a heart rate monitor, you can use the runtastic Receiver and chest strap on any of the iPhones listed above. If you want to use the Wahoo BlueHR or Polar H7 heart rate monitor straps, these are only compatible with the iPhone 4s.
Android Phones. If you want to use a heart rate monitor, you can use the runtastic Receiver and chest strap on any of the Android phones.
Windows 7 Phones. If you want to use a heart rate monitor, you can use the runtastic Receiver and chest strap on any of the Window 7 phones.

So what are the features?

Here are the features of the runtastic free app:

Map your workouts in real-time with built-in GPS and monitor your progress (time, distance, speed, pace, calories, altitude, etc.)
Personal workout diary and metrics
Weekly, monthly and yearly statistics
Mapping: Detailed live mapping and historical mapping of previous sessions (Google maps)
Dashboard configuration: Display preferred statistics
Graphs: Get charts with altitude, pace, speed and heart rate information
Performance analysis with lap times
Enjoy your workouts with the integrated iPod function player
Set goals for time and distance
Accurate calculation of elevation gain and loss
Manual entry of workouts: Add treadmill, spinning and weightlifting workouts
Share your success on Facebook and Twitter
Don’t train alone! Sexy voices will give you feedback about different statistics (distance, speed, pace …) and our cheering feature will help motivate you.
You can save all your workouts at www.runtastic.com.
Using the online community you’ll get further analysis, metrics and comparisons to your friends. Additionally, you can choose a training plan and track your body statistics. Share all your workouts easily with the facebook and twitter connect.

The runtastic PRO version has all the features of the free app plus:

Voice feedback during a workout: Get audio feedback for each mile or kilometer
Live tracking: Show your friends and family where you are
iPod integration: Listen to your music while you are training
Power song: Activate your power song to give your workout a boost
Cheering: Hear cheers and receive messages live from your friends and be motivated to go even further
Interval training and coaching: Improve your performance by gradually increasing your training
Heart rate support
Competitions: Challenge yourself or your friends. The voice coach supports you and tell you how you´re doing.
Split table for each mile or kilometer
Calorie goal: Set a specific calorie goal and use the voice feedback to reach your workout goal
Pace goal: Define your favorite pace
Geotagging: Take pictures during a workout and see these pictures online at your map trace
Weather and Temperature: Receive live weather information and save weather data automatically after a workout
Prediction of sunrise and sunset
Landscape mode
Remote control for pause and resume a session
Heart rate zones
Weather integration
Ad free

So what’s new?

Here is what’s new in the latest versions of the app:

Cadence and Heart Rate Zones You can now analyze your heart rate and cadence splitted in zones visualized in a pie chart. At the moment this feature is available for activities which include heart rate or cadence values tracked with a runtastic iPhone app in combination with hardware supported by runtastic.

Big runtastic hardware launch! Get the runtastic GPS watch, the runtastic heart rate equipment and the runtastic Sports Armband in our online shop.

Activitiy Import and Export Now you can easily import and export your GPX/KML/TCX files to and from our fitness site.

Advanced GOLD statistics Now you can use the advanced statistics as a GOLD user. You can analyze your sessions even more detailed in order to improve in your future workouts.

Gift Cards Finally the holidays are here: Now you can give a runtastic GOLD membership and/or training plan to your loved ones. Start your family and friends off on the right foot in the new year and keep them active and fit. Give a gift of health, give runtastic.

Refine elevation

Refine elevationThis feature helps you to correct sessions which have been inaccurate because of weak GPS or wrong elevation calculations. The elevation will be calculated from scratch and the right numbers will be displayed immediately.

Custom Time and Date Formats You can now choose between the 12 and 24 hour time format and the Standard or American date format.

Advanced Filters With the advanced filtering you are able to filter your sports activities by activity, duration, distance and calories directly on your dashboard. This way you can easily keep track over your sports activities and analyse them.

Custom Cheering You can now send personal cheers to your friends who are doing sports live. With the help of the live-tracking feature you can follow them on the runtastic fitness portal in real-time, do recordings of max. 5 seconds and send it to them immediately.

Training Plans Now you can enjoy your training with runtastic training plans by Olympic champion Dieter Baumann and the runtastic voice coach.

Find your friends Find your facebook and gmail friends on runtastic and add them as friends with just one click.

Advanced Weekly Statistics Find new splits on your dashboard. The different sports types are highlighted in different colors. Sort them by activities, distance, duration or calories and keep track of your activities.

Using the app

We will dive right into using the runtastic. Once the app has been downloaded, you will be taken to the login screen:

Here you should login to your runtastic account. If you haven’t created one, you can create one through the app, or go online to www.runtastic.com and do it. It only takes a minute. After you have logged in on the phone, it’s time to make sure you have the app settings configured the way you want. Click on the Settings icon in the lower menu bar, and you can see all of the settings that can be changed:

Clicking on Activity takes you to the Activity screens, where you can choose your activity. You can choose from 28 different activities:

After you have chosen your sport and setup your distance and temperature units, you might want to setup Voice Feedback. You can set the volume and language of the voice, and the feedback interval:

You can choose which metrics use the voice:

Clicking the Live Tracking setting allows you to connect with your friends, and share your workout:

Selecting the Interval setting allows you to set up an interval workout. We will cover this in more detail later:

You can choose to turn headphone control on or off. If you are using Apple iPhone headphones, you can use the button to start and stop your workout:

The Social Network Accounts setting allows you to post automatically to Twitter and Facebook:

If you have a heart rate monitor, you can pair and connect it with the Get Heart Rate Monitor and Heart Rate settings. You can use a runtastic heart rate receiver and chest strap, an ANT+ dongle and heart rate monitor strap like the Wahoo Fitness Run/Gym Pack for iPhone, or a Bluetooth Smart heart rate monitor like the Polar H7 or the WahooFitness BlueHR (note – the Bluetooth Smart heart rate monitors only work on an iPhone 4s or later). For my tests, I am testing a Polar H7 and Wahoo Fitness BlueHR heart rate monitor strap. I will start out with the Polar H7 HRM:

When you have paired and connected your heart rate monitor strap, you can set your maximum heart rate and heart rate zones:

Clicking Invite a Friend lets you send an email to a friend without leaving the application:

Clicking the Website icon in the lower menubar shows people around you, and live workouts taking place:

Now that you have the application setup the way you want, it’s time to get going and start a workout. My first workout with a new phone app is typically a walk around the the park that is down the street. There is a short 4 mile loop that I walk around, and while I’m doing this I check out the app. So the first thing I did was to fire up the app, and pair it with a heart rate monitor strap. This time, I paired it with the Wahoo Fitness BlueHR Bluetooth Smart heart rate monitor for the iPhone:

Next, I went to the Session screen, and started my workout:

Click on the Session icon in the lower menu bar. You will see the main screen of the app:

There are 5 main screens that you can view during a workout. They are the music screen:

The main workout screen (there are different metric display settings which I am showing):

The full screen map view:

The metrics graph view:

And the Compass screen:

On the main screen, pressing the landscape button gives you a full screen view of the map:

I’m walking around the lake that is shown on the map:

After you are done with your workout, you can upload it to the runtastic website. You can add any notes and observations during your workout before you upload:

You can also set up your own workout. On the main Session workout screen, before you start your workout, you can see in the middle of the screen a button to change the type of workout. If you select this button, you get the following screen:

By selecting Workout, you can select interval training. You can choose from one of the three standard interval workouts, or create your own. You can add a Warm Up and Cool Down, and add as many repeats of different times and speeds as you need:

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You can also create a Target Pace workout, by selecting your target pace, and hitting the start button. This is a great way to maintain your pace on a tempo run.

You can also also purchase a training plan from runtastic. This will add the workouts in your schedule:

Overall, the app is very easy to use, and worked very well to this point. Now that I had logged some data from my walk, viewed it on my phone, and uploaded it, it was time to go online and see what capabilities the online website had.

You can view all of your workouts online, with as much detail as you like. Here is a map view, with elevation, speed and heart rate plotted against time:

Here you can view your heart rate. Since I was walking, my heart rate didn’t change much:

There are many other features available online, but this gives you a good idea of some of the viewing features available to you.

Thoughts, Opinions and Summary:

The app is very easy to use. Maps and data fields are easy to configure and use.
Has all of the most requested features
The heart rate zones are nice
Has Facebook and Twitter posting capability
The online workout review and graphing features are a plus
There are settings for 28 different sports to choose from when selecting a workout
The app layout is easy to navigate
We really liked the interval workout feature in the Pro version
My personal favorites were the weather and temp capabilities, geotagging capabilities, interval workout feature, remote control features with the iPhone headphones, and ease of uploading your workout

This is one of our favorite phone apps that work with both the iPhone and Android phones. We think this is one of the top phone workout apps available in the marketplace. Our testing was done with the PRO version, so make sure to compare the features and look at what you get with both the free app and the PRO version.

Would we recommend it? The answer is yes. We use this app, and feel that this is one of the top 3 workout logging apps. runtastic is free, and runtastic PRO costs $5.99 in the iTunes store. I recommend the PRO version if you are looking for the ultimate app.

As an FYI, iTunes gives the free version of runtastic a rating of 4.5 out of 5 star rating, and runtastic PRO a 4.5 out of 5 star rating. The Android Play store gives the free version of runtastic a rating of 4.5 out of 5 star rating, and runtastic PRO a 4.5 out of 5 star rating. Check it out below:

runtastic PRO - iOS – $5.99

runtastic Lite - iOS – Free

runtastic Lite - Android – Free

runtastic PRO - Android – $3.99

We will leave you with a few runtastic videos. The first is a general video showing overall features:

Here is a video on how to use runtastic abroad:

Here is a video on how to use the iPod controls in runtastic:

Here is a video on how to upgrade to the PRO version:

Here is how to record a session:

Here is how the voice feedback works:

As always,

Happy Training!!

iPhone Apps That Work With the Polar H7 Bluetooth Low Energy Heart Rate Monitor Strap(fitnesselectronicsblog.com)
LogYourRun for iPhone – In Depth Review(fitnesselectronicsblog.com)
runtastic Altimeter PRO with Weather & Compass Info – runtastic(itunes.apple.com)
If You Use Your Phone To Work Out, Read This!(fitnesselectronicsblog.com)

Week In Review – July 14th, 2012

Jul 142012

I hope you all had a wonderful week. We are glad to be back to a more normal schedule. This coming week, we will have more reviews on smart phone software apps for Android and iPhone, so stay tuned.

Don’t forget to check out our review of the LogYourRun iPhone app

And check out our post on the new Garmin Fenix

BE SURE TO “LIKE” US ON FACEBOOK.

Why? Who the hell knows.

There’s really no real major benefit to you.

Anyway, give it a think.

Again, there’s virtually nothing in it for you but, hey, social media.

Thank you.

Here are all of the posts from the last week:

Thursday – Garmin Fenix outdoor Watch

Wednesday – Training Peaks Introduces Online Data Entry

Tuesday – If You Use Your Phone to Workout, Read This!

Monday –LogYourRun For iPhone In Depth Review

Sunday – Glad To Be Home

As always,

Happy Training!

LogYourRun for iPhone – In Depth Review(fitnesselectronicsblog.com)
If You Use Your Phone To Work Out, Read This!(fitnesselectronicsblog.com)
Garmin Fenix Outdoor Watch(fitnesselectronicsblog.com)

LogYourRun for iPhone – In Depth Review

Jul 092012

For those of you just joining us, we are on a continuing journey to learn more about heart rate monitors, and the best way to choose the right one. Our website covers all types of electronics and tech stuff, but overwhelmingly, triathletes and runners come to our site to check out heart rate monitors and GPS watches. We have had so many questions about using smartphones as a heart rate monitor device, which smartphone heart rate monitor straps to buy, and which apps to use that we decided we should start reviewing the the heart rate monitor straps, and the smartphone apps that work with them. Today, we are reviewing LogYourRun and LogYourRun Pro apps for smartphones.

Before we get started, we should tell you a little bit about us and how we perform product evaluations. We have a group of 4 people who do the evaluations of all of the stuff. If you want to know who these people are, check out our About Us page. Four of us are seasoned triathletes, and 2 of us are are also full time Pilates instructors. Jennifer Lynn, who is a guest blogger, is a full time Pilates/spinning instructor. All swim, bike, run, do Pilates and Yoga, and use all of the gear on a daily basis. For the record, we are in no way connected with LogYourRun or any of the companies whose gear we review. We love playing with the latest technology, and we couldn’t keep our hands off this stuff if we tried. We downloaded and purchased LogYourRun and LogYourRun Pro from the iTunes store. As I said, we have no affiliation with LogYourRun, or the people responsible for creating LogYourRun. We call ‘em as we see ‘em. It keeps us honest. So, enough with the babble. Let’s get to the review.

First of all, LogYourRun works with the smartphones listed below:

iPhone using the built in GPS and optional footpod (no heart rate monitor)
iPod Touch using the optional footpod (no GPS or heart rate monitor)
iPhone 4s using the built in GPS, optional footpod, and optional heart rate monitor (The footpod and the heart rate monitor are not supplied. You can use the Wahoo footpad, and a Wahoo BlueHR or Polar H7 heart rate monitor strap).

This means the apps are compatible with iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, and later. Also, they are compatible with the iPod Touch, but since there is no built in GPS, you are limited to only using an optional footpod as a distance measurement tool. All of the iPhones and iPod Touches must be running iOS 4.0 or later.