Customer Reviews

Timex T5H911 Unisex Digital Fitness Heart Rate Monitor Watch

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

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

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.

After trying an earlier model that would not display the heart rate on a continual basis (even with the chest strap), this one works like a charm. Press one button to start, and it stays on until I take off the chest strap. I just use a little bit of water on the chest strap before I put it on and I am fine. I have small wrists, the watch is actually too big from my wrist, but that does not change its performance one bit. At least I can easily rotate the watch around to the inside of my wrist if I want, and back again! I only need this watch for the two things that stay on the display: time and heart rate. Both stay on continually.

This heart rate monitor is pretty advance. It has all these features that you can only take advantage by reading the manual. The actual heart rate monitor seems water/sweat resistant. This is by far the best HRM i have seen and used. Used only three different monitors in the past though. In the end, it's good for someone who wants to record their heart rate and review their data after the run/workout (such as minimum Heart rate, maximum HR, medium HR, calorie burn, time, etc.).

I've been using this HRM for about eight months. I haven't had any problems with it. Some people have complained about it being hard to read, but you can choose how you want the display to show things and make the heart rate reading the main thing on the screen.

My one issue is that the calorie counts are inflated. For example, I'll spend 30 minutes on the stationary bike and 30 minutes working on weight machines, and my HRM tells me I burn around 1600 calories in that time. That would be super-fantastic, but I don't believe it for a second.

I contacted customer support about the issue when I first started using my HRM, thinking it must be something wrong with my watch. The woman plugged my stats from a workout into the formula they use and got the same results my watch was giving me, so it's an issue with the formula they use in all their watches, not an error in mine. She said with my weight (in the 240s) and my incredibly fast heart rate (around 100 while resting, between 160 and 180 when I'm working out moderately, and frequently gets into the upper 180s and low 190s when I'm pushing myself a little harder) I'm going to burn a lot of calories but that the number may run a little high as a result of the unusual combination.

It's fairly aggravating because I track calories eaten and burned in workouts every day, and I don't have an accurate idea of what I'm burning in workouts. I just enter half of what the HRM says for tracking purposes, which is really completely arbitrary and isn't based on anything. I just figure it surely wouldn't be telling me I burned more than twice what I actually did, so I at least know I'm not overestimating calories burned if I put in half.

The item was received as promised, and as advertised. I particularly like the large readout for pulse rate and for the ease in selecting that mode.

After having lost 18 lbs via exercising and keeping a food diary, I have been on a quest to find a HRM that would let me track how many calories I burn accurately at the gym and when I work-out at home. I was tired of guessing my home work-outs and do not trust the numbers on the machines at the gym, as they are known to overestimate calories by about 30%. I also wanted to make sure that I wasn¡¦t over and under exerting myself by being able to see where my heart rate was by exercising.

Pros of this HRM:
- Heart rate strap is extremely comfortable. I have heard from friends that own other expensive HRM¡¦s that the strap is uncomfortable and causes them skin irritation.
- The heart rate monitor itself seems pretty accurate.
- Allows you to set 5 target heart rate zones and alarms for each one. This allows the watch to beep when you are below or above your target heart rate zone.
- The watch is comfortable and not bulky.

Cons of this HRM:
- The calorie estimate is way off. The main factor for this inaccuracy is that device only asks for your weight when setting up. Obviously, this is not enough information to give someone an accurate calorie burn read. You need weight, height, and gender, along with your actual heart rate. I am 5¡¦6¡¨ and weight 145lbs; obviously a woman my weight who is 5¡¦2¡¨ is not going to burn the same calories as I would, nor would a man who is my exact weight and height, so why is it giving us the same numbers?
- It is hard to navigate through all the features. It took me a full 2 days to understand what I was doing and what each button was for.

Bottom line, if you are seriously trying to lose weight by tracking calories in/calories out, this HRM is not going to help you. I suggest you save $40 more and get a Polar. It¡¦s a shame that Timex didn¡¦t thoroughly think things through when making this HRM, because it has the potential to beat out all others in the market if it was more accurate. I really hope all the people who have purchased this HRM are smart enough to figure out that they are not burning 700 calories just by running for 1 mile º

I received my watch exactly two days after I placed my order (July 4th weekend). I was very pleased to see it delivered to my home on a Saturday. I opened the box on Sunday morning and unpacked everything. I was immediately happy with the look of this watch. I like the sporty, yet casual, look of a watch so this can be an individual matter of preference. It wasn't difficult at all to navigate through to set the time, date, alarms, etc. I did read the instructions to set my Heart Rate features so I was sure I did it correctly. After reading so many reviews about this watch being difficult to navigate through and set up, I actually laughed to myself at how easy it was. Maybe I'm just good with watches? I don't know, but it was very easy and pretty much like any other Timex time piece I've owned. This is my second HR monitor and so far I am very pleased. The age, weight, and max HR set up was also easy to do just as long as you know your max HR. To find this out, you subtract your age from 220 and there it is. Then came the HR strap. I read several complaints about the HR strap being small and although it fits me fine, I can see where this could be a legitimate complaint for people with larger upper bodies. The HR strap itself seems pretty sturdy and not too flimsy with some elastic on the back and sides of it to help fit your body. It is fully adjustable. With proper care, it should last a long time. My HR was displayed on the watch immediately when I put it on. A few clicks on the "Heart Rate" button on the watch and several different views came up on the display. Just find the one you think you'll find most beneficial, and it's that easy. The HR strap was also not as annoying as I had thought it would be while wearing it. I read that it was comfortable and I have to strongly agree. This is my first HR monitor with a HR strap and I am glad I made the decision to get this one.
Now the watch band. I read several complaints about the band being too thin. I found the band to be just right and not thin at all, but again, this may be another individual matter of preference. I was actually happy when I opened the box and took the watch out as the band was the first thing I checked because of the many negative reviews I read about it. The band also snaps and locks into place under the fastener and remains secured.
All in all, I am very pleased. I will suggest reading the instructions to get the most out of this watch/heart rate monitor as there are so many features that it has. Even though you can put it on your wrist as soon as you pull it out of the box, the heart rate monitor features should be learned first to benefit from it and use it to its full potential. I hope this review helps someone decide if this watch is right for them. I highly recommend it and would certainly buy the same one again.