[Sportsandrec] Talking HR Monitor

[Lisamaria Martinez, NOMC]

Independent Living Aids sells wrist watches and an alarm clock that includes 
a stop watch feature that is relatively easy to use. I liked the alarm 
clock. Not only did it have a stop watch feature, but it had 4 different 
alarms. Same with the watches, too.

Again, my job, LightHouse of SF, sells these watches as well as 2 others. In 
total, you could pick from 4 different watches that contain a stop watch.

LM

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Joe Shaw" <jrs3147 at comcast.net>
To: "Sports and Recreation for the Blind Discussion List" 
<sportsandrec at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Wednesday, July 22, 2009 6:03 PM
Subject: Re: [Sportsandrec] Talking HR Monitor


> Does someone have a stopwatch that is easy to use?
> JS
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Thornbury, Kelly" <kthornbury at bresnan.net>
> To: <sportsandrec at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, July 22, 2009 1:50 PM
> Subject: [Sportsandrec] Talking HR Monitor
>
>
>> Carly,
>>
>> Oregon Scientific makes a talking heart monitor...It works, but I'm not 
>> overly happy with it. I find it to be consistently 10 or more beats off 
>> (reading high), and when I really start to sweat it jumps all over from 
>> not reading anything to reading over 250 beats per minute. Other people 
>> might have better luck with it.
>> I paid around $80 or $90 if I remember right, and this included the 
>> radio. The radio is a small, FM receiver that plugs into the HR monitor, 
>> and you plug the headphones into it, and the HR information cuts out the 
>> music when reported. Its nice if you get some decent radio stations in 
>> your area. There is a less expensive model that does not include the 
>> radio, but I'm not sure of the cost.
>> The set up of the monitor takes some playing with, but is manageable once 
>> you figure out the details. You can set it up to count down workouts 
>> (including a warm-up, workout time, and cool-down counter), or as a 
>> stopwatch, set HR zones, and it tracks your workout with average HR, 
>> cool-down HR, your total workout time and time in your zone, and calories 
>> burned (not something I trust as fact, but nice to use as a rough 
>> estimate).
>> Another talking monitor is by HEARTalker, but I've never used one of 
>> these. They are priced somewhere between $60 and $80 depending on the 
>> model.
>> I used to use a Polar monitor, which I found to be much more accurate, 
>> but I needed sighted help to set it up. These come in a wide variety of 
>> models, ranging from around $30 or so to well into the hundreds. Even on 
>> the cheaper models, you can set up your target heart rate zone and alarms 
>> will sound if you are above or below (and you can judge by how hard you 
>> are working whether its above or below). On the simpler models its pretty 
>> easy to remember how to start and stop the monitor, and works well if 
>> your workouts are generally all in the same target zone (or if you have 
>> assistance in resetting the zones). Some Polar monitors, once set up, are 
>> as easy to start as putting on the chest belt and the watch, then holding 
>> the watch close to the strap for a couple seconds...but watch putting 
>> them both in your gym bag together as they might start and run down the 
>> batteries. The chest belt batteries are not user changeable, and if they 
>> die, just buy a new chest belt, its way cheaper then sending the belt off 
>> to Polar to have the battery changed (the last time I bought one, it was 
>> around $35 to replace the belt, and around $75 to replace the 
>> battery...welcome to a throw-away society).
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>
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