Customer Reviews

LifeSpan Fitness Heart Rate Monitor Ring (Colors may Vary)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

The monitor seems to be fine when the pulse was around the resting rate but can't keep up when the heart rate climbed with exercise. Can't blame sweating or finger movement as I was cycling indoors on a trainer and wasn't even sweating when the monitor started to lag behind. I even kept the hand off the handlebar to minimize any movement. The gap in reading was especially pronounced in the beginning as the heart rate rapidly climbed. Around the true rate of 50's to 70's the monitor seemed accurate. However, by 90's it was about 20 behind, and by 130, it was at least up to 40 to 50 behind. With steady exercise, the gap gradually narrowed, but at a steady rate of 150's the reading was still about 20 to 30 behind and then would drop down to 70 to 90s for many minutes. When my heart rate climbed to 160 to 180s, the reading became totally unreliable. I tried holding the sides of the ring to keep the sensor steady, using different fingers, and repositioning the sensor etc. but didn't make any difference.

The sensor and the light (infrared?) source are on each side of the ring and am guessing that they detect the change in light transmission through the finger as the blood flows through the fingers. The reading isn't instantaneous but seems to take an average or a reading every few seconds. It'd have been fine if the readings were accurate.

There is a reason this heart ring is getting bad reviews. It doesn't give a good reading when you exercise. While I was resting the monitor ring seemed to work fine, but when I started exercising it showed my heart rate went down from 80 to 40. When I turned the heart rate monitor on, it would stay on for a few minutes and then just shut off. The clock mode will only give you 24 hour time with no way to change to 12 hour time. If it worked as described it would be worth the money, but learn from my mistake and others. Look for something better. By the way, on the second day that I owned this heart ring I got it wet. I went and looked at the manual that came with the ring. No were did it say it was water proof, much less water resistant. As you might guess it stopped working, so I threw it straight into the trash were it belongs. This LifeSpan fitness heart rate monitor ring had a life span of less than 36 hours.

Heart rate is not correct. It is convenient, however, that this item has a stopwatch function, which allowed me to time a minute while counting my heart beats for myself and find out that it is off my as many as 50 bpm.

The LifeSpan Heart Rate Ring simply does not deliver what it promises. It is difficult to get consistent and reliable readings because of what appears to be poor contact with the skin. You have to hold still and press the strap against your skin to get a reliable and stable reading, which takes about 30-60 sec. Since its primary use is during ones exercise routine, trying to stay still is a challenge ! The Ring is also very difficult to program, and appears to have a bug which puts the ring into the program mode during use. I would not buy another one, nor recommend it. It is just another tech toy.

Screen is easy to read, easy to switch between stopwatch and pulse rate.
I suggest you use it before and after exercise (or pause just long enough to get a read), but NOT during, as almost any motion causes highly inaccurate numbers.
For example, when I've used it during workouts, there's no way my heart's going 255 a minute, but if I stop for the 5-6 seconds it takes to get a reading and then keep going it seems to work just fine.
Convenient and useful tool to help make sure your workouts are getting to your target heart rate.

I bought this monitor to replace my monitor that uses a chest strap.
Unfortunately it doesn't work well at all. It only seems to work when I am very still and I have it positioned in exactly the right place. I have tried it on all fingers, with and without the spacer they provide. Essentially it is worthless in a workout environment. Even at rest I have to fuss with it to get an accurate reading.

I tried to use it with my stationary bike and unfortunately it doesn't work. It will not give you consistent readings when your heartbeat rises, so it's useless while you're exercising. It's now sitting at the bottom of my trash bin. The only good thing about buying it was that I could keep the two new CR2032 batteries for other gadgets -- pretty expensive batteries these two. Avoid it at all costs.

This is not a good replacement for a more expensive hrm, but it is good for a quick check. I used my more expensive one at the same time I used the ring and was amazed it worked so well.

I used my heart rate monitor ring today and it took only a few minutes to figure out that it was worthless as a heart rate monitor. It typically read 20-50 beats below my heart rate as measured by a high-end heart rate monitor with chest strap. It wasn't even directionally correct. When I was huffing and puffing up a very steep hill, this monitor actually dropped to 82 bpm -- I was actually at about 135 bpm. I'll have to say that it is accurate when I used it while sitting in my office or reading, but definitely not while exercising. In my opinion, if you had my experience with this device and you actually made decisions about your exercise level based the displayed heart rate, you could make some risky mistakes by exercising at too high an intensity, I'll be taking mine back to the store for a refund.

I was hoping this would be an easy way to monitor my exercise level without the chest strap. Most of the time it read between 70-85. In the store when I tested it my heartrate was about 77. I thought it was possible to be right, but my resting rate is lower than that. Bought it anyway. I'm on the treadmill sweating up a storm and my ring says 85. I stepped off the treadmill and counted 150. So if a ring just randomly changes throughout the day between 70-85 it'll be right a couple times during the day. I guess the technology just isn't there yet.