Watch or Wearable HRM Link to Garmin 510

[bpsmith]

Am looking to get a HRM to link to my Garmin 510.

Just wondering if any of the Wearables out there, like the Garmin Vivosmart, are able to link to the 510 to provide the HR bit. Would prefer this over a standard HR strap type setup as easier to use and can wear continuously.

Am also intrigued by the Apple Watch. Does anyone know if it's possible to do the same with Apple's offering?

 

[Piemaster]

510 think uses ANT+ to link like all other Garmin products (I've got a Edge 100 and Forerunner15 that do anyway) so a HRM will also have to ANT+
Dunno about the Apple watch but very much doubt it, it'll use Bluetooth. Vivosmart doesn't have built in HRM, it will use ANT+ to link to one.

Don't know if you can link any of the new wearables with the built-in optical monitoring to a 510. Might be more info on dcrainmaker - good source for all sporting geeks.
Maybe one of the multisports watches might do it, but they are at such a price that they may well cost more than the 510.

Personally I'd say just get any ANT+ HRM strap. I use a Wahoo TICKR. It uses both ANT+ and bluetooth so can use with the Edge or connect to the phone if I'm inclined.
Mio now do some wrist worn units that use LED lights to pick up your pulse, but they apparently can be a bit picky over how they are worn.
Be aware of the Polar HRM, afaik they aren't compatible with Garmin stuff.

 

[amasidlover]

The only device I'm aware of which acts as a watch/fitness device to some extent and also re-transmits ANT+ HR (which is what all Garmin's need, including the vivoactive as it doesn't have a built in HRM) is the Mio Fuse. I almost bought one, but eventually bought a Mio Link (which is the HR monitor transmitting ANT+/Bluetooth only and not doing any recording or having any display beyond a flashing multi-coloured LED) as currently there is no way of exporting data from Mio's devices to either TrainingPeaks or any similar training website.

There are pros and cons...

Pros:
Reasonably comfortable to wear it has to be worn quite tight, but not uncomfortably so; I'd previously used both Garmin and Polar soft straps and found them uncomfortable and prone to slipping.
Once you've found a good place to wear it (for me, on the inside of my wrist about 5 cm from the wrist bone bump) it seems pretty accurate (based on a couple of hours of parallel testing against a traditional strap and perceived exertion / comparison to previous workouts since).
You can get swimming HR when worn right next to a watch (ANT+ goes 2-3cm through water) - sadly no watch manufacturer appears to enable this in a mode that also provides swimming metrics so you have to chose one or the other...

Cons:
More than double the price of the soft strap.
Needs daily charging
Latency... readings seems to be 5-10s behind a soft strap usually - apart from going from resting to HR zone 2 or higher very quickly, when it can be 30s plus before it registers the rapid rise in HR.

Overall, I would be very reluctant to go back to the soft strap. For my purposes daily charging is a minor issue as I just plug it in at the same time as the watch. The latency only affects a small portion of a fraction of my workouts so has minimal impact on my training stress / calorie expenditure calculations. I don't do much strength training in the gym during the peak season, but I may find when I get back to doing that that I switch to the soft strap for those workouts as they tend to be resting followed by a very brief burst of zone 2 or 3.

Your other option is the Scosche Rhythm+ which is again not a watch in itself just a HR strap, but is apparently slightly more accurate - I didn't go with it as its not rated for swimming use (although waterproof enough to wear in the rain).

And as piemaster says the reviews on DC rainmaker are superb.

 

[amasidlover]

I forgot to say that I could get anything up to 10 minutes of Max HR + 10 reported by the soft strap at the beginning of a workout on a cold day even when using a wetted strap or adhesive conductive gel (same stuff used for ECG machines) which actually made a fairly big dent in my time in zone results for the workout (and possibly for the week if I got a few workouts like that).

Having said all that, I found that; providing I ran the soft strap under running water before putting it on and did it up really tight, then it wasn't too bad to wear on the bike, it was when running where it repeatedly drove me insane by sliding down, sometimes to the point of failing to get readings at all.

 

[bpsmith]

Awesome detailed replies there guys. I am aware of DC RainMaker and totally agree.

The 510 supports BlueTooth, as links to my iPhone for tracking and uploads. Not sure if it can support HRM's via Bluetooth though.

Off to google some more.

 

[amasidlover]

All Garmin devices exclusively use ANT+ for sensor connections (they do use Bluetooth for phone notifications and uploads in some cases though). I suspect this is because they own Dynastream, the company behind ANT+...

 

[GrumpyGregry]

No reason why you can't wear a Garmin HR strap continuously, that I can think of.

 

[Piemaster]

No reason why you can't wear a Garmin HR strap continuously, that I can think of.

Find one with an LED and you could pretend to be Tony Stark

 

[bpsmith]

Find one with an LED and you could pretend to be Tony Stark

I already have the goatie, so part way there. The LED sounds like a whole new level...

 

[bpsmith]

Garmin use BlueTooth 2.1, rather than 4.0, so never going to support sensors whatever the do to the firmware.