COROS Arm Heart Rate Monitor Review

COROS has captured a fair market share in the world of athletic smart watches. Recently, I tested out the NOMAD, and I understand why. They deliver on user-friendliness and clear data, and they don’t sacrifice on quality either. From features to user interface to hard componentry, they’re dolling out what a runner/biker/hiker/climber/etcetera needs to keep in touch with activity data easily. One major component of that is heart rate. Whether it’s a desire to get a more accurate reading or it’s a practical reality of not being able to wear a watch during activities like crack climbing, the COROS Heart Rate Monitor fills a gap that the watches can’t touch. I’ve been using one for a few months now and have a couple things to say about the experience.

COROS Arm Heart Rate Monitor Features:

• Comfortable and simpler to wear than a chest strap.
• Easy to adjust the fit and remove the sensor for quick cleaning.
• Our latest multi-channel optical sensor for precise measurement.
• Up to 3 simultaneous connections with Bluetooth-enabled devices.
• Wear detection allows for automatic device pairing for new workouts.
• 38 hours of full operation or 80 days in standby mode on a single charge.
• Rechargeable with a magnetic USB charging cable.
• MSRP: $79

I Heart This

Let’s start with this: If you’re wearing a watch that’s monitoring your heart rate, why also wear a heart rate monitor? Great question, Nate! Basically it comes down to this: the farther away your device is from the heart, the less accurate the heart rate reading tends to be. So, if you monitor heart rate on the heart, you’re going to be pretty spot on. If you monitor it on the upper arm, you should be pretty dang good. If you monitor it at the wrist, it’s a lot more accurate than guessing, but results may vary.

I won’t focus this review on comparative values from my Heart Rate Monitor and my watch, but they were different. Instead, I’ll tell you about my experience with it, starting with comfort. The Heart Rate Monitor is pretty low profile, and sits on a stretchy nylon band. The band itself is comfortable against the skin and adjusts easily to a wide variety of arm sizes, maxing out at a circumference of 14”. I had my initial reservations around the comfort of the velcro closure and monitor itself, but they vanished on my first run. It’s just not super noticeable.

Connection was easy from the start too. As soon as I paired the Heart Rate Monitor with my COROS app (a simple process), all I needed to do was put the band on and start an activity. That’s perhaps my favorite feature. I don’t need to think about anything beyond putting the Heart Rate Monitor on. When I do, it flashes its little green light, automatically pairs with my watch, and all of a sudden, the data I’m reading from my watch shows my heart rate as measured by the Heart Rate Monitor. That is, it naturally overrides heart rate data coming from the watch in real time, treating the Heart Rate Monitor as the source of truth and adding a little “Ext.” to heart rate metrics on the watch to show that it’s measured externally. It’s very cool.

Battery life is good, in my experience. This summer, I took the Heart Rate Monitor on a handful of multi-day climbing and mountaineering trips. I wore it 24/7 on those trips. Yes, that could be seen as a little gross, but put that thought aside and think of the science happening. Battery life easily lasted 2 consecutive 12+ hour activity days in a row. When it comes time to charge, it just takes a couple hours. I do wish that COROS would use a more standard charger instead of creating yet another specialized dongle, but hey… I suppose it does work well. I’ll just have to make sure never to lose it.

As a climber, I have a long history of removing my watch before I get going. You kind of have to. As such, the Heart Rate Monitor had the most appeal to me for crack climbing. It gave me a way to get some sort of metric from my big days where I physically couldn’t wear a watch without destroying it completely. The Heart Rate Monitor was excellent on those days. I could stow my watch in a zippered pocket or some dark nook in my pack, and just keep getting data from the arm band. It’s a pretty cool thing.

I will say, in my review of the data during certain points, heart rate just doesn’t paint the whole picture. Stress and bad head-space can have a real physiological presentation which aren’t always captured by heart rate. Situations like these are common in climbing, especially while moving carefully with no protection on exposed terrain. Still, heart rate is a useful metric, and miles better than nothing when you’re trying to track the effort of a big climbing day.

As a final note, let’s talk about price. COROS lists this little guy at $79, which is on the low end for heart rate monitors out there. If you’re already using a COROS watch and you value the increased accuracy or flexibility, the price really makes it an easy call. There are certainly tougher pills to swallow.

Buy Now: Available at COROS