I'm going to buy a heart rate monitor, but there's so many different ones out there. Can anyone recommend me a good one? Preferably without a chest strap. Thanks.

Hi Megan,

I can't recommend you anything, because this is like what car I should buy :)

Some guidelines:

What is your price range?

Do you want to wear watch also as daily watch and/or as "jewelry"?

What are your needs/demands:

- saving avg and max HR?

- store for more workouts?

- intervals?

- connectivity and data transfer?

- altimeter?

- additional sensors? (run, cycling, cadence, GPS)

- for which sports you need it?

- will you swim with it?

I would go for Polar, Suunto, Garmin. My vote is for Polar, even I'm not completely updated with latest stuff. I have Polar S625X and I think this is last bulletproof model (from Polar). I don't change it for nothing on world. Ok, for brand new S625X, haha :)

According to questions above decide if you really want without chest strap. I wouldn't go for t-shirt/bra version because:

- today's chest straps are very soft and machine-washable

- they are stable! even if anyone claim different...of course it can happens to slip a little bit sometimes, but you have to be expert to have constant problems

- you are not limited to one piece of clothes for base layer; I have different clothing configurations for running, cycling, fitness, mountaineering, (winter)climbing,... Strap simply gives you much more freedom

- strap life span can be for sure 2 years of daily use. I don't know how is with those clothes if you are using daily and under different conditions. Once again, you probably would need more pieces

- if you want to measure/check your pulse right after you wake up or sometime in the evening, or even during a day, you need to dress right shirt

- you can wear strap with casual clothes (eg during shoping...believe me, it's interesting! :) )

Women usually have some problems with straps because most sport bras have edge/elastic in same height as strap. But as I said, straps now are soft and you maybe have just to spend a little more time to find right combination for your strap and sport bra.

Hope I help a little and don't hesitate to ask for more help :)

BR, Gregor