What is a good watch/ wearable to measure heart rate and heart rate variability?

I can tell closely enough what my my blood pressure and bpm are. I've had 35 years to learn well. Although, the less I know or think about it the better off I am. My bp hovers around 110/65 whileat rest, and the bpm is 60-65. If those vitals are as I say, I really don't need to know my exercising vitals because I don't go at it too vigorously. Sorry, this may not be helpful to you, but it is a position I take with watches and measurements.

Timmay said:

If you're funds limited, the FitBit Charge 5 is an ideal choice. This is the path that I went prior to my surgery 5 months ago. It satisfied all of my needs.

• GPS
• Heart rate and resting heart rate
• Waterproof
• Exercise tracking
• Bluetooth
• Sleep tracking
• Step tracking (and miles/km)

Plus it gave me a host of other valuable thigs ...

• O2 levels
• Heart rate variability
• Sleeping breaths / min
• Skin temperature

All for $120

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This looks like a great option, but I'm a bit turned off by the fact that historical data is paywalled. Did you sign up for fitbit premium as well? If yes, worth it? If not, was the weekly data good enough?

During my time in the hospital hooked up to all their monitoring equipment I had a chance to see just how accurate my name-brand fitness watch was and I have to say I was disappointed. I found that although my fitness watch seemed pretty accurate when I was in a resting state it could be very inaccurate in elevated heart rate conditions or particularly when my heart rate was changing. This was even when I insured the band was snug. That said I still use my fitness watch daily as a screening device (it detected my first AFIB event), and I find all the other functions is provides such as sleep monitoring are still invaluable.

Interestingly, I did find a low-cost alternative for checking my heart rate while in the hospital. To my surprise my inexpensive $25 fingertip blood oxygen meter tracked quite closely with the hospital monitoring equipment with regards to my heart rate and of course also provided a measure of my blood oxygen level. Now when I work out, I will periodically slip in on to get a "snapshot" of my heart rate to insure I am keeping within the limits I set for myself post surgery. This is certainly not as convenient as simply glancing down at my fitness watch, but for me at least I believe much more accurate under those elevated heart rate conditions.

Luckyguy17 said:

For Android:
Bought the Samsung Galaxy Watch4 some months ago as a companion to a recently acquired Samsung FE 5G phone. The watch provides great daytime info and fair bit of insight on sleep quality.

Am very pleased with all of the features, including a full work up of sleep analysis, workouts and so much more.
Have chosen (there are many) a watch face that includes battery charge, heart rate and steps on one screen and an easy scroll to measure a dozen workouts, walk, run, bike and more. I highly recommend the Watch 4 for Android, especially when matched to a Samsung phone. Would buy again withought hesitation.

My brother has the Apple Watch which is a better match to an iPhone, it is also full featured.

A $1 a day if it lasts a year, (likely more). cheaper than a morning coffee.

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I hate my Galaxy Gear watch. The battery life is horrid, I have to charge it daily and if I am charging it I am not wearing it. It could have something to do with the screen I chose though...

I have to say that I never really liked the fitness watches. I found them too distracting for my monkey brain. If I had an Apple watch or the Galaxy watch, I'm afraid it would drive me crazy with all the distractions it could cause me. Yes, I know I could turn off the text message alerts and all of the others, but just the fact that it could show my BP, and other items would be distracting enough.

For me, unfortunately, I wear a "smart watch"... it was the original smart watch. It tells time, and sometimes I wear one that even shows the date (an analog mechanical watch). To me, that is smart. The other side of it is I love watches and love to take them apart, clean them, and make them work again when broken... so for me, the only reason I might wear a fitness watch is when I work out, which unfortunately, because of beta blockers and other things, I don't do much of (I need to change that).

I did play around with a FitBit years ago, a Polar watch and I also had a Xiaomi Mi band. They were all nice, and did some things well, but again, too distracting.

I also bought a device that costs about $100 that can do your EKG. The problem is, with a Left Bundle Branch Block (LBBB), it doesn't tell me anything other than my EKG is abnormal. Granted, I can still see it and shoot it over to my cardiologist, so for $100, I guess that's okay.

I did really like the Polar watch. It was older, and I too had issues with the strap. Sometimes it would work, and others it didn't. I found that Xiaomi Mi band though always worked (no idea how accurate it was compared to the Polar watch though).

One thing I did recently get though was a bed that tracks a lot of your sleep info (avg heart rate, heart rate variability, etc). My heart rate variability is always very low compared to my wife (who doesn't have any heart conditions nor takes any heart meds). I don't know if the beta blockers or the LBBB might be causing that. I also don't know how accurate the variability is. I'm fairly certain the heart rate is fairly accurate as I've checked it against results from a Zio Patch and they were spot on. I didn't see the variability in the data from the Zio though.

I'm still using my Apple Watch 7. It wasn't worth it to me to upgrade it (although one of us here somehow got the right paperwork, and the right insurer to get an Apple Watch 9 Ultra - I'll have to try this when the 10s come out).

The 7 has worked fairly well. It tracks my heart rate. An app also shows current rate continuously - this was useful when I was having aortic fibrillation. The application is called FitOn. I have a pacemaker and arrhythmias so I sometimes get goofy heart rates (the arrythmias confuse this - and have also confused monitors IN the hospital). The heart rate sensor can watch my maximum heart rate.

The watch is useful for heart rate variability - an app detects and calculates these items - HRV awake, HRV asleep - and this might be somehow useful.

I agree - an inexpensive Pulse Oximeter will probably give you results more quickly and accurately than a watch (my watch has a hard time getting blood oxygen when I actually want it), but even as small as they are, the pulse oximeters are still a bit clunky.

I'm not unhappy with my watch.

I love mechanical watches and this was all I wore until I got the Apple Watch 7 - primarily for some of the monitoring features.

Here's my Amazon review of Fitbit Charge 6:
I bought this in March 2024 and mostly have liked it. However, every once in a while a feature stops working and there is no clear solution, just lots of time googling and trying this, trying that. Most recently it has shown sleep data but no sleep score. A couple of months ago the activity tracking stopped. I finally found a solution but I think the charge 6 takes far too much time to maintain. I probably wouldn't buy another one. A few years ago I had the small Fitbit step tracker (can't remember the name). I bought one and it stopped working after a few months. I bought another because I thought maybe getting it wet was the problem, but it also failed in a few months. Buying the Charge 6 was the triumph of hope over experience. It is my last fitbit anything.
Edit

https://www.amazon.com/reviews/dele...=UTF8&asin=B0CC62ZG1M&reviewID=R14P14QRMSO6S7

I love the Garmin Fenix 7. I've had Polar and I liked that as well, but Garmin has more activities in my opinion

I like my Fitbit Luxe a lot. It has many convenient features, is easy to use, and looks sleek instead of clunky. It tracks HR but not HR variability or EKG, so it wouldn't be right for everyone.

Thanks to everybody who shared the experience! The information is very useful. I know I'll be on the market for another watch at some point. My Fitbit Versa 2 is still going after about 4 years. So it seems like a waste to dump it. But HR numbers above ~120 look suspect to me, Mr. Google decided to negatively improve the interface, and at some point the device will just stop. Sic transit electronics

V__ said:

Sic transit electronics

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agreed, and the more "connected" it is, the shorter its lifespan seems to be.

I preferred my original Polaris which just gave me summary data and I wrote it into a spreadsheet

https://www.wired.com/story/strava-heat-map-military-bases-fitness-trackers-privacy/

all because people are too lazy to write it down themselves.

LOL

tommyboy14 said:

Hi Team,

I am looking for something wearable (wrist preferably) that will help me measure heart rate, Heart rate variability while I sleep and how many steps per day. In an ideal world also tells the time.

I am interested in a device that does these four things well. I couldnt care less about any other features.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

(I had a fitbit charge 3 but gave up on it because could never get the display to be really light...)

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My Apple watch picks up my heart rate, does a good job at the resting heart rate and the heart rate when I'm exercising. It doesn't pick up PACs as heart beats, which is a good thing because they're not. Those monitors they put on your finger will pick them up so they don't give me an accurate heart rate. My watch doesn't pick up when I get a run of afib, but instead just goes blank.

Note that heart rate and heart rate variability are two different things. Only the more recent wearables can measure heart rate variability, and my Garmin Fenix 5 doesn't. The lack of this feature is what makes me consider upgrading.

I have an AppleWatch 7. It may not specifically pick up HRV, but my Autosleep app DOES. I don't know if it reviews continuous HR coming from the watch.

On my watch, I can't get an ECG because of a persistent arrhythmia. (I currently have persistent aortic fibrillation - it doesn't seem to show up on the watch and confuses the hell out of EKGs in the doctor's office).

Lisa from LJ said:

My watch doesn't pick up when I get a run of afib, but instead just goes blank.

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Might be time for an upgrade (perhaps software even) as I thought they did.

@ncw3642 is your watch Apple?

pellicle said:

Might be time for an upgrade (perhaps software even) as I thought they did.

@ncw3642 is your watch Apple?

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Yes-- I bought the Series 9 right before my surgery. But every series after Series 4 has a ECG. I don't know if mine is more accurate being a later version- but I know they are about to go on sale due to the Series 10 releasing sooner vs later.

It detected (so far) the only run of A-Fib I had the other night and is reassuring to me that I can check it at any time to see if I am in sinus, A-Fib or having tachycardia. It only detects A-Fib and high/low heart rates so if you have another arrhythmia (PVC/PACs RBBB etc) it will say "inconclusive" but that still gives reason for you to further investigate.

Here is what my readout looked like during the A-Fib episode and the resulting sinus after a couple minutes.