chrisl wrote:Hi DJL, thanks for the clarification. How are you finding the Scosche in use, in particular how it feels to wear and how it acts during the physical act of rowing? Have you got it on your upper arm? I read some reviews of it a few days ago and it looked pretty good. I bought a Garmin Vivosmart but returned it the following day. It had a loose clasp and gave very intermittent heart rate readings and felt annoying to wear higher up the wrist. The Geonaute belt is working well with the PM4 and PM5 and also the spin bikes at the gym, so a nice find for very low price. I don't mind heart rate straps, I don't notice them after a few mins.
I did consider a Garmin 235 but I don't really need a GPS enabled smart watch, let alone one as configurable as the 235, nice as it would be to play with (I've used Walkmeter on the iPhone for years now for outdoor tracking). I've found loads of cheaper heart rate watches but they all use proprietary analogue belts, so I may have to end up getting a standard Garmin 25 or something just to get the watch capability. I'm not a fan of Garmin Connect or sharing GPS data with such social networks, so was after something equivalent to the Polar FT1, but alas it seems there are no ANT+ watches to be had which don't also have all kinds of bells and whistles.
Chris, I wear the rhythm like a watch when I row, it works well, doesn't bother at all. When I cycle or run its on my upper bicep, it's hardly noticeable . It does drop out occasionally when I row, but my watch doesn't loose the signal, so I'm thinking it's the PM5 dropping the signal. Again, I don't wear it any higher than a regular watch, and it comes with a larger and a smaller band that clinches with Velcro, so there's plenty of room for adjustments.
David