If you’re looking for an insight into how fit and healthy you really are, a heart rate monitor can be an excellent purchase. While a step counter or calorie tracker can provide useful short-term metrics, using a heart rate tracker while you exercise can help you work at the right intensity, whether that’s pushing extra hard during a HIIT session, or ensuring you’re not pushing yourself too much during long runs.
Tracing your peak and resting heart rate over time can also give a good idea of how your fitness is progressing. Or indeed regressing, but let’s hope for the former. Heart rate monitors are now built into trackers of all shapes and sizes, but the most popular options are chest straps and wrist wearables. You’ll find the best of those, plus a couple more niche monitors, in this round-up of the top ticker trackers on the market.
How to buy the best heart rate monitor for you
What kind of heart monitor should I get?
The most accurate monitors are chest straps: they sit closer to the heart than wrist-borne trackers, and don’t shift around as much during exercise. They’re also generally cheaper than fitness trackers with heart-rate monitors built-in.
That said, a wrist heart rate monitor is likely to be more convenient than a strap, and more comfortable - and the best of them are more than accurate enough for amateur use.
A third option to consider is heart rate-monitoring headphones. These are usually quite accurate because the skin in your ear is thin, making readings easier to take. Aside from that, there’s an increasing range of trackers that attach to other body parts, such as the temple or upper arm.
How much do I need to spend?
Even the very best chest straps will only set you back around £50 to £70; budget options can come in under £40. You’ll have to fork out a bit more to get a wrist fitness tracker with integrated heart rate tracking – expect to spend somewhere between £100 to £150. More expensive still are do-it-all waterproof trackers that have a built-in GPS tracker as well as a heart-rate monitor: these will cost around £200 as a minimum.
What features should I look out for?
The first thing to check is the type of connectivity offered by the tracker – Bluetooth, ANT+ or both. This will determine whether you can pair it with phones, third-party apps and gym equipment. The best chest straps will offer both Bluetooth and ANT+, while most wrist trackers and headphones tend to only have Bluetooth.
You can also look for other features, in addition to heart rate monitoring capabilities. Some trackers will coach you through training sessions based on what heart rate zone you’re in, and use the info they collect to estimate your VO2 max and resting heart rate, both of which are great indicators of overall fitness.
Other things to check on are whether the heart rate tracker will work in water (most don’t), how long the battery lasts, and whether the battery is rechargeable or has to be replaced.
The best heart rate monitors to buy
1. Polar FT1: Best budget heart rate monitor
Price:£39 – Buy Now from Amazon
Whatever kind of heart rate monitor you’re after, and however much you’re looking to spend, Polar will have an option worth checking out. The cheapest is this reliable budget tracker: it links to a chest strap to show your heart rate during exercise (including swimming) and will give a summary afterwards, including your maximum and average heart rate.
The chest strap isn't the most comfortable on the market, and it has an annoying habit of popping open when you try to adjust it, but the accuracy of the FT1 can’t be faulted, making it a great-value choice.
Key specs – Connectivity: FT1 and strap only link with one another; Battery life: Two years; Battery type: CR2032; Suitable for swimming: Yes
2. Garmin HRM Swim: Best heart rate monitor for swimmers
Price:£55 – Buy Now from Amazon
Wrist trackers don’t normally work in the water, and many chest straps also struggle to provide a reliable reading or stay in place when submerged. This Garmin tracker however has a super sticky strap, so it stays put even when you push away from the end of the pool at the end of each length.
The strap is also designed to withstand constant exposure to pool chemicals without degrading, although it can also be used for open water swims and other types of exercise. Our only caveat is that the sticky strap might get a little hot and sweaty when out of the water.
Key specs – Connectivity: ANT+; Battery life: 18 months; Battery type: CR2032; Suitable for swimming: Yes
3. Wahoo TickR X: Best chest-strap monitor
Price:£65 – Buy Now from Amazon
With both Bluetooth and ANT+ connectivity, the Wahoo Tickr X links with pretty much all trackers and phones easily. It also offers a host of clever extras, including rep counting when following HIIT workouts on the partner app, and run tracking when using a treadmill. If you use the Wahoo RunFit app while training, the Tickr X will even give feedback on your running form, including cadence and ground contact time.
If you don’t care about those extra features, there’s also a basic Tickr model available for just £40. Like most chest straps, the Tickr and Tickr X both have an internal memory, so they can store your training stats and sync to a phone later. Unfortunately, neither is suitable for use while swimming.
Key specs – Connectivity: Bluetooth and ANT+; Battery life: 12 months; Battery type: CR2032; Suitable for swimming: No
4. Moov HR Sweat: Best for coached HIIT workouts
Price:£76 – Buy now from Moov
This tracker offers something a little different. For a start, it sits in a headband to measure your heart rate from your temple. It also acts as a coach, offering live feedback on several kinds of training. To use it, simply pick your workout through the app – you can pick between interval runs, cycles or several kinds of bodyweight workout – and the Moov will talk you through the training, giving feedback on whether you’re working hard enough to have your heart rate in the correct zone. You can also link the Moov HR with other apps for your non-coached training.
Not everyone will like the headband look, but it results in an accurate heart rate reading with no lag. That’s perfect for HIIT workouts: it’s tricky to spike your heart rate in line with instructions if the tracker only shows what your heart rate was 20 seconds ago.
Key specs – Connectivity: Bluetooth and ANT+; Battery life: Six Hours; Battery type: Rechargeable; Suitable for swimming: No
5. Jabra Sport Pulse Special Edition: Best heart rate-monitoring headphones
Price when reviewed:£110 – Buy Now from Amazon
If you like to listen to music, podcasts or audiobooks while you train, there’s no more convenient way to track your heart rate than with your headphones. The Special Edition version of the Jabra Sport Pulse offer better audio quality than the standard version, which makes them worth the extra £30 in our eyes.
The Jabra Sport Pulse SE also calculates your VO2 max score, and, like the Moov HR, offers real-time feedback and coaching during your training sessions through the Sport Life app. It’s an impressive all-round package - and you can also use the Sport Pulse headphones with third-party apps like Strava.
Key specs – Connectivity: Bluetooth; Battery life: Five Hours; Battery type: Rechargeable; Suitable for swimming: No
6. Fitbit Charge 2: Best heart rate-monitoring fitness tracker
Price:£115 – Buy Now from Amazon
Fitbit offers two excellent heart rate-monitoring fitness trackers in the £110 to £130 bracket, namely the Charge 2 and the Alta HR. We prefer the former, mostly on the basis of its slightly larger screen, which makes it a bit easier to see your stats during exercise.
The Charge 2 does a solid job of recording your heart rate in everyday life and during steady state exercises like running and cycling. It might lag slightly during HIIT sessions, but you get a fairly reliable graph of your heart rate in the Fitbit app afterwards.
What’s really impressive is what Fitbit does with the data. Each user gets a Cardio Fitness Score - equivalent to your VO2 max, which is as accurate a snapshot of your general fitness as you can hope to get from a fitness tracker. Your heart rate also provides insight into the quality of your sleep, showing how long you spent in light, deep and REM sleep.
Key specs – Connectivity: Bluetooth; Battery life: Five Days; Battery type: Rechargeable; Suitable for swimming: No
7. MyZone MZ-3: Best for gamified training
Price:£130 – Buy Now from Amazon
The MZ-3 is very expensive by the standards of chest-strap trackers, but it offers something unique with its MyZone Effort Points (MEPs), which are awarded in line with your effort during exercise. Whatever exercise you do, be it running, cycling or weight training, you can earn MEPs by ramping up your heart rate.
It’s not just for solo exercise, either: the MyZone system is integrated into many gym classes, so you can track your effort compared to other participants in the class, and you’re also ranked by effort points against other MZ-3 owners in the partner app. The battery will last you several months before needing to be recharged even with regular usage, and the strap has both Bluetooth and ANT+ connectivity so it will work with pretty much every tracker and app.
Key specs – Connectivity: Bluetooth and ANT+; Battery life: Seven Months; Battery type: Rechargeable; Suitable for swimming: No
8. Polar M430: Best heart rate-monitoring running watch
Price:£175 – Buy Now from Amazon
The M430 tracks your ticker with impressive accuracy, even when you step up the pace on your runs - but what really sets it apart is the way it seamlessly integrates your heart rate into training sessions and programmes. If you’re a runner training for a particular event, or just looking to improve your running generally, Polar will generate an entire training programme for you with multiple sessions a week based around heart rate, which the M430 will then guide you through. The focus on heart rate means these programmes are suitable for all levels of runners, as you’re coached to hit particular effort zones, rather than absolute pace.
Heart rate also feeds into Polar’s Running Index measure, which gives an indication of your overall performance and improvements as a runner, complete with predicted race times. The M430 will even advice on recovery time after each workout, again based on heart rate.
It’s all accessed via a very simple and intuitive interface that even beginner runners will be comfortable with immediately. The Polar M430 might not be the most attractive running watch on the market, but for heart rate-based training, it’s tough to beat.
Key specs – Connectivity: Bluetooth; Battery life: 8 hours GPS, 20 hours watch mode; Battery type: Rechargeable; Suitable for swimming: Yes, but heart-rate monitoring will not work reliably in water