HRM watch with zone vibrate?

Brendan Holmes

Hi,

My trusty Oregon Scientific SE211 watch has finally died having been subjected to one rainy run too many. It had vibrating zone alerts, by which I mean, you set a lower and upper heart-rate threshold, and it vibrated upon reaching either. Great for motivation, no more fear of exhaustion pain and always a worthwhile run. Could listen to music and run in noisy environments and still know I was in the zone.

Any suggestions for a replacement? Cheaper the better. I don't want to wear a watch generally, so non-running features are worthless to me. Not fussed about GPS either.

Many thanks

Brendan Holmes

I think I've found it: Polar A300. Certainly does zone alerts, but a bit confused how I'd have a timed workout as it has no stopwatch nor countdown timer...

Nose Nowt

My Garmin Forerunner 225 does this. Not that cheap but not bad. Wrist-based HRM built into the strap, so no chest strap. Nice strong vibration as an alert for HR  (or pace if you want to do that). I've not used the feature extensively but I have used it a few times mainly to alert me if I exceed a set heart rate (also done it so it alerts if my pace drops below a figure that I set)...  but I can see that it can cover specific zones (I think easy, aerobic, anaerobic and VO2 ranges)  I believe these are customisable but do read up on it to check.
There is a specific 'custom' HR alert setting but on the one time I set that to cover both an upper and lower level (rather than my normal upper level only), there seemed to be some limitation. I set the max and then the watch seemed to automatically fix the min level (I think it was 10bpm lower than the max I'd set)... rather than me be being able to set a tighter range.   I've not sat and tried to investigate further though...  maybe I just didn't work it out when I was out there on the road, trying to set it.