I love this watch. I've had it for about 3 weeks now and it does it's job perfectly. I love the zone system. It allows me to run much farther and for longer than I have before because I don't exhaust myself by running faster than my body can manage. The beeping feature (that can be turned off) that features two tone beeps to let you know whether you need to slow down or speed up to stay in your zone allows you to pace yourself without having to look at the watch. This model features a bar at the top of the display that shows the lower and upper limits of the zone you want to be in and where you are within (or outside) the zone. This is particularly useful if you decide to turn the two tone beeps off. Not all heart rate monitors from Timex feature this.
The batteries on the chest strap and the watch can be replaced by the user - an uncommon feature I believe.
The chest strap is quite comfortable and picks up signals very well - my wife tried it and she had no trouble with it either (the strap sits on the lower side of the chest). I found that if I put it on about 15 min before I exercised, my body would generate the sweat needed for good pickup.
Some reviewers have commented that the indiglo feature where the numerals light up (rather than the face) made for difficult reading. I found that if I tilted the watch slightly (rather than place the face at right angles to the line of sight), the numerals were clearly visible. I think I prefer this to the old method of lighting the face.
It is a fairly handsome watch - a bit on the thick side (about 14 mm x 42 mm or so wide) - perfect for a man even for daily wear but certainly large for a woman.
It took me a while to decide on buying this watch. Lack of clear size information (their midsize, large and extra large size indications are meaningless) on the Timex website meant that I had to scour shops and call customer service a couple of times to have them measure the watches for me.
PR Timex T5H911 Unisex Digital Fitness Heart Rate Monitor Watch
The last Polar HRM I had died and I assumed it was the battery. Nope the whole thing died. So, I decided to get a Timex this time. I liked that the watch battery has a long life and you can change it yourself, vs mail it back to Polar.
The use of this HRM is a little tricky. You HAVE to use the CHRONO feature or all you get is HR, no calories, etc. Now that I figured that out, I love this HRM. It gets a signal much faster than the Polar, and it seems accurate. I love the zone feature and the recovery feature that keeps track of how much your HR drops in the 1 or 2 minutes after you stop your workout.
This HRM is SO worth the money - equal in features to HRMs that cost hundreds more. I am very satisfied with this purchase!
Update - almost a year to the day, the heart rate button stopped working, rendering it useless. :(
I'm 6 feet 4 inches and 210 pounds. The watch is just the right size for me and the band seems quite heavy duty and has a nice feature where the tail of the band has a tab that fits into a notch in the buckle piece so it doesn't flap. The HRM sensor fits comfortably on my 42 inch chest with the detachable band expanded to it's maximum extent. I think it would be too tight for larger chests.
I run the sensor electrodes under the tap and strap it on and the watch always gets a solid heart rate signal. I wear it while using a number of cardio and weight-training machines and in exercise and stretch classes flexing into a lot of crazy positions, and the sensor has yet to drop out. The batteries were fine out of the box.
The watch has a number of fancy watch features, most I don't use. One great feature is the dual timezone setup. I keep the second zone set to UTC and a push of the "start split" button accesses it. If you are into HIIT, note that the timer feature doesn't have the capability for doing (for example) 30 seconds HI and 60 seconds recovery.
The only problem is that I have been unable to get the sensor to work wirelessly with the Precor and Nautilus machines. Note that the product literature doesn't claim that this should work and there doesn't appear to be any standard for interoperability between machines and wireless HRM devices. Some reviews for Timex HRM devices claim that the sensors DO talk to machines. If someone has gotten THIS specific product to work with machines, please tell us how in a comment to this review.
Otherwise I think this product gives very good value. I give it 4.5 stars and if it worked with the cardio machines I would give it five stars. Some may feel it is unfair to downgrade a product rating for lacking a feature it doesn't claim to have: I think a five-star rating should indicate total satisfaction. I really wish the industry would get together and create a standard so these things can work together!
I had used a Garmin E305 to monitor my heart rate and performance on my bicycle during rides. As the Garmin became more flaky, I decided to take a step down to less complex tech... something that gave me the information I needed without complicated features that could become intermittent and frustrating. I decided to use a simple heart rate monitor (HRM) for information about me, and an old wired bike computer for information about the ride. After some research, I settled on the Timex T5H911. Here's the details:
1) The buttons are reasonably easy to learn to use. As with most such items, there are few buttons. So they are multi function. That's not terribly intuitive. You need to read the instructions to figure them out. I did read the instructions and I still have to fiddle around with them from time to time. But it is far from the most confusing piece of gear I've ever had to puzzle out.
2) It captures heart rate quickly and accurately.
3) The booklet that it comes with describes two simple exercise tests that you can do in your own home with the HRM on to determine your max heart rate It only takes a few minutes. After that, you can have the HRM calculate your zones. It also allows you to define custom zones if you want to.
4) Here's where we start getting to the cool stuff... you can select a target heart rate zone before you start exercise. The HRM will measure the full duration of the exercise AND the amount of that time you spent in your target zone. This is a really cool feature to help you determine if you are exercising at the level you want to.
5) It calculates calories. As with most such HRMs, I think it is generous in its calculation to make you feel good about yourself. This isn't a failure of this one product... it is a feature of ALL of them.
6) And another cool feature... you can select whether you display actual heart rate or percent of max heart rate. So if you have trouble remembering the heart rate zone boundaries (let's see, 92 to 110, 110 to 128, 128 to 146, and so on...) you can just just ride the percentages (oh this is easy! 50% to 60%, 60% to 70%, 70% to 80%, and so on...)
7) And yet another cool feature... one of the best ways to take a quick snapshot of your fitness is how much your heart rate drops over a fixed time interval after you stop exercising. This is called initial recovery. The more fit you are, the larger the drop in heart rate. This HRM will automatically measure your initial recovery when you press the stop button. You can select either a one minute interval or a two minute interval. As you become more fit, you will see a greater drop in your heart rate over that first one (or two) minutes after you stop exercising. I had always done this math in my head. It is MUCH easier to have the HRM do that for you while you are still struggling to bring your blood oxygen level up to where you can remember your own name (much less remembering how to do math!).
I strongly recommend this product. It is reliable. Relatively easy to use. Has great features. Get one. - Calories - Watches - Exercise - Heart Monitor Watch'
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