Sports Tracker is now shipping its Bluetooth Heart Rate Monitor, a chest-worn unit that pairs with a smartphone app for viewing stats in real-time as well as storing your data on the company website or sharing it with others through social media.
The heart rate monitor works via a Bluetooth belt that you must first wet before wrapping around your chest (under your shirt). Wetting the back of the monitor ensures that the electrodes read your heart rate properly. Once connected, grab your smartphone and choose "settings" and then "heart rate belt" on the Sports Tracker app. Once it finds the heart rate belt, click "connect" and then enter the pin code "0000" to begin tracking data. Once you see your heart rate on your phone, you are ready to go.
The system has an extended range of up to 20 meters (65.6-feet), so can store the phone in a back pocket, back-pack, or on an armband. Charges is via USB and the unit is claimed to be good for 40 hours of use on one charge.
As you run, your heart rate is tracked along with additional data such as speed, distance, time, number of steps, elevation, and even the musical playlist you were listening to while exercising. If you take photos along the route with your phone, they are automatically geo-tagged and show up on your map once you sync the device to the Sports Tracker website.
After you're finished exercising, you can view all of the data from your smartphone. When you return home, you can sync it to the Sports Tracker website, and view the data on the big screen, as well as share it with others on Facebook or Twitter.
The Sports Tracker app doesn't do anything mind-blowingly different to similar apps on the market like Nike+ and Run Keeper, but after testing the app and exploring the beautiful interface Sports Tracker uses, I'd say the difference is just how well it does them,
The Sports Tracker heart rate monitor costs EUR69.90 and the free app is available on iPhone, Android or Nokia Symbian platforms.
