Been doing the licking for decades with good early results, but lately results have become sporadic. Wetting body did not help. However, improving belt contact by cleaning belt's rubberized contact areas with soft scrub (kitchen product for polished stainless steel) helped some. But it was only after tightening up the belt itself that continuous contact was assured. Apparently, over time my belt had stretched or loosened and wind would dry the skin making contact erradic. Snugging the belt up did the trick. happy rides
Yes many do that. I'm not sure but there might be a risk however that the acid in the saliva might deteriorate the strap a little faster. But probably there is not a big difference.
@@jamesoitzinger6640 how tight is too much ? does over tightening it might reduce the inaccuracy of the HR result it generates? mines is feeling like more than just snug.
This is the first Fitbit I have used. It has some new features th-cam.com/users/postUgkxbkrje8Y7BaqRkAjimw-55ajvVo7RbcIp and I like the information that it gives me.I think the phone app could be designed to be a bit more accommodating, as it can be confusing to use. The rubber band is comfortable, and normally I do not like rubber bands for my watches, but this is comfortable.I am looking forward to seeing if this helps me stay accountable in my fitness endeavors!My only gripe is the box was very damaged when it arrived, however, the tracker is performing perfectly!
Thanks! I was able to measure the resistance of the belt and confirm it's the problem. Prior to watching your video I just placed my thumbs over the contacts on the module and got a good HR on the watch. Your resistance test confirmed the belt is bad 2M Ohms
6 years later, just saved my HRM from the bin. Water on the chest worked! Chest strap lasted 3 years so not bad. Now I discovered the water trick I’ll get another 3 years before ordering the strap lol. Agreed regarding battery. Good quality lasts a while. Also worth remembering, whilst 6-12 months is easily achievable on a good battery, if you train multiple times a day (3-6 hours daily total) then the battery may need replacing quit a bit sooner. Thank you for the tips and hacks 🙌
I bought a new HRM strap and I was wondering why It wasn't showing my heart rate even though I was appying the instuctions, but with your trick It worked! Thank you.
I have had very similar problems with my Suunto heart-rate belt (used with an Ambit3 Peak). In my case the heart rate readings had become intermittent and incorrect, and then finally I could not get the watch to pick up anything. To cut a long story short: the problem was the electrical contact between the central connectors (where the Suunto module plugs in) and the conducting polymer strips that run to the contact pads. On one side I had a reasonably low resistance (about a 1 kOhm) between the connector and the pad, and on the other side greater than 300 kOhm. For whatever reason (poor design, penetration of sweat etc) the contact between the connector and conductive polymer had failed. My solution: I carefully slit open the rubber seal on each side of the connectors to expose the contact between the polymer strip and the connector. I then cleaned up the area (mechanically and with isopropanol) and used a silver conductive epoxy to remake the connection. Finally I sealed it back up again with an RTV silicone. Result: works perfectly now. Or I guess you could buy a new belt...although I think it is likely the same deterioration will happen over time, unless Suunto have changed the design. Final comment: I also cleaned the pads rubbing gently with water and isopropanol. I don't thing this was critical, but you can certainly improve the surface conductance doing this. If you wanted to make a conductive gel --- you could try potassium/sodium salt ( from the supermarket) dissolved in glycerol/water. This is a well known combination. Licking probably works fine, anything that is not pure water will improve conductivity.
Good video. Tap water isn't the greatest conductor, so I have thought of using saline or ECG electrode gel to put on my chest. Some say the electrode gel can cause the heart rate strap not want to stay up because it is so slick.
Note that the water is not used as a conductor but to moisten your skin. The skin contains all kinds of electrolytes, but a dry skin is bad conductor. Electrode gel is good, but be careful not to damage the strap with chemicals. It might deteriorate quicker with time if using chemicals like deodorants or gels. Also, if the gel contains silver it can give health problems if used frequently. Some people like to lick their belt, unaware that the acid will damage the belt over time.
@@TomTechVideos Thank you. My Garmin strap wasn't working well and I checked the impedance and it was over 400k. I would often use saliva to moisten the pads. This new (to me) information makes me think the saliva may have contributed to a slightly earlier demise for my strap. I have seen some suggesting saline solution (because it has similar sodium content as sweat) or Spectra 360 (sodium free electrode gel). But that makes sense that the water is not used as a conductor but instead just to moisten the skin. I have always been confused by the recommendations to use water since it is a bad conductor and you are the first person to clear that up.
Hello! I had long since given up on my Wahoo Tickr. But inspired by your video I tested the resistance of the strap. Although I had thoroughly cleaned it the resistance was over 7 kOhm. I then rubbed the pads with silicone remover and got down to about 0.3 kOhm. In today's Zwift session the HRM worked just fine. Thanks for the tipp, I wouldn't have thought of testing the resistance.
I don't know, some in-house brand of a DIY chain. But it matters not, silicone remover is basically just a degreaser. It's the same stuff used to clean parts before applying a paint-job.@@crysogonus
Thanks Tom, The resistance of my Suunto Smart Sensor belt was truly the problem. I had the fortune of being able to test your theory on a working belt and the resistance was measurably the problem. Thanks for that research!
Thanks so much for this video! The multimeter tip was a great way to confirm that yes, my belt had come to the end of its life. I got a reading of 17 kilo-ohms from it. Got a new belt, and it gave a result of about 550 ohms. Problem solved. (the problem was that during an exercise the heart rate reading would go down to 00 for several minutes at a time) By the way, some people claim that some people's sweat has a bigger impact on the contacts than others.
Great vid thanks. I tried all your tips eventually discovered that the resistance of the strap was 200K. I would never have thought of doing it that way. Also didn't know the strap could be bought separately
I submerge my belt in water completely before workout, and no problems whatsoever. It also helps the belt to stay in place, because it "sticks" to my skin and I don't have to overtighten it.
Thank you for these tips. My HRM either doesn't work, or works erratically. I'll try it one more time by cleaning the sensors more thoroughly and wetting my chest instead of the sensors. I think a gel/lubricant is also an idea worth trying.
Hi Tom. Thanks for this. I have been having issues with my polar h10 strap of recent with it just dropping out now and then. Eventually it wouldn't connect so replaced the battery which got it working but it still drops out. I have not had an issue with it for the last yr with just wetting the electrodes. But will try your method. I did just test the belt which came out good at 0.7 ohms. Thanks for posting your video. Regards Lee
Thanks, You're welcome! The 10k is from my experience and it is quite an approximate value. A brand new strap could be about 2k. A one that definitely does not work is 20k or more. The 10k is somewhere in the range that the reliability starts to go down. In a way this is related to normal skin resistance across the distance between electrodes. I might make a more detailed video about this topic later if I get enough subscribers and can start making new videos again.
My Polar H7, was not working. I measured the belt resistance and it had more than 12k Ohms. To have the information about the correct value of the resistance was very useful for me.(
If you have a polar h7 that skips and spikes during movement I fixed mine by doubling up some tin foil in between the belt and the connection domes, this basically tightens the connection. Works well
Hi. Your comments about resistance pad to pad interested me. My garmin strap stopped working....battery was down to 2.4 volts. Replacing battery with new battery working at 3.4 volts did not work. I measured resistance across pads as you suggest and it was massive...1.2mohm. I assumed strap was dead on the basis of your advice. However, I then tried shorting battery contacts as per another video on youtube and then replaced battery. Worked fine immediately. My message would be that I'm not sure your comments on resistance between pads are a reliable indicator of whether the strap is broken. Btw my strap is an old ant only 1. Ta jim uk
The resistance may vary between different models and brands. But 1.2 Mohm? That sounds like it would not work. If you measure your skin you get that kind of numbers. Maybe you did not press the pads together well enough or you had them the wrong ways and measured the resistance of your fingers. The side of the belt that touches your chest should be pressed against each other.
Thanks for the video. I've had bogus readings 3 straight days with my Polar chest strap. The strap looks great, but tested terribly. I have several other straps that tested well & look forward to trying one of them tomorrow.
Polar used silver wires in their fabric straps some time ago. I have such a model and those gave a good contact. But I think they then changed to plastic. Maybe because it might not be healthy to have silver contacting your skin. Even the silver containing electrode gels might not be good to often use.
@@TomTechVideos My guess is Polar switched to the cheaper material simply because it's cheaper. Unfortunately I believe every device is now made in China for low cost. So far, a few days into using a newer Polar Strap (It came with a defective sensor last year, so I never really used the strap), I haven't had spikes or drop offs. This Polar strap has a much larger rubberized contact area on the chest side. Not sure if that helps with conductivity or not. Kiitos! I've never been to Finland, but have Finn blood on both sides of my family.
That's a valuable video, thanks. Iam having a Wahoo Tickr one and its sensor pads are coming out of the strap, can I fix it with a glue or replace it, please suggest.
Hi. I'm no familiar with Tickr but I guess you could try to glue it. A normal glue is electrically insulating so you can not try to re-connect a broken electrical connection, but if it is just mechanically loose from the strap, then gluing should not be a problem. I guess superglue or rubber glue could work. Some glues might damage the electrode chemically so be aware of the risk and be careful to not contaminate the contacting surface of the electrode with the glue.
@@TomTechVideos Thank you so much Tom, yeah it is mechanically getting uprooted, will try a rubber based adhesive to fix it. Fevibond should work on it.
Nice tips. One question. Will the sweat on the chest’s skin moisturize the contact? It’s almost always that I sweat in the area where the sensor sits. A good practice is to wipe the belt with warm water after each use to keep it clean and germ free. Just my 2 cents worth. Thanks.
Yes, if you sweat you don't need to add water. And the key point is that the belt contact doesn't need to be wet, your skin needs to be wet. Moisturizing skin before starting an exercise helps in the beginning before you start sweating. Also, moisturizing skin is better than moisturizing the belt because skin absorbs much more water and in a larger area, keeping a good contact even if the belt shifts in place and this larger area also neutralizes static electricity from your shirt much better.
I've used a H10 sensor for about 2 or 3 years, but the belt has broken down. I was doing the chest-moistening trick but also putting some water on the belt, even though I noticed the same issue (the plastic pads are hydrophobic). However, even though I don't use the belt super often, cracks started to appear in the contact pads. Yesterday the HR updates got slower and slower, then stopped. My suspicion is that the way I stored the belt caused this -- I was basically folding it over itself, which obviously caused elastic deformation stress over time. My next belt will be gently rolled up instead, I think.
Very useful information. Nice to know how to measure the resistance, and very good to say what it _should_ be. I was able to eliminate increased resistance from the belt as a reason for my apparently non-functioning HRM. I had tried shorting the contacts, in addition to changing and leaving the battery out for several minutes. The last thing I tried was deleting the HRM from my watch, and rediscovering the HRM. It turned out that it changed it's "name" from whatever it was previously (a six digit number) to "496158". By re-discovering/pairing, I was able to use it again.
Thank you very much Sir, so much that I learnt in this video, but I couldn't see how to measure the resistance of the belt strap , maybe you should make it more easy for us to understand in another video, and do you sell, heart rate belt so I can buy from you sir?
I don't sell belts. You can find them on many online shops. I did try to show how to measure the resistance. Just press the electrodes together and measure the resistance between the metal contacts. Meter should be in the ohm-position. Check that if you directly connect the meter probes together the resistance should show zero, or a very small value.
Hello. Thank you for the very informative video. I owm a Brytom 610 cycling computer. When I'm using the heart rate strap, I see a light verifying that there's a signal. But, within riding the signal is very intermittently working. I just tried the Ohm resistance tip. My meter continues to display 'old. No numbers are displayed. The batteries are fairly new. Any other suggestions? Thank you
@@richardcoppedgejr6871 That DCV is the voltage from the sensor - that could be OK. But the 'old (overload) when measuring resistance means there is no contact at all. You can try to connect the ohm meter probes together - it should show a very small value. Then you can measure one half of the strap at a time - from one sensor contact to the electrode. Maybe one half shows overload and the other some proper value? Then the overload half is broken. If it works intermittently there can be a broken contact that sometimes makes contact when it moves. It might be difficult to fix if you don't see any damage. Conducting glue could be used to fix some cases but it might break soon again.
Hehey thank you Tom. I checked my old ant belt step by step you showed and found that the problem probably, if not definitely, in resistance of rubber contacts. Why probably, because I haven't that measure device but with method of deduction, checking other variants and connectivity with the watch was the same - no outputs - I stopped on this. Even visible it could be seen a little dust and micro damages around the corners. I tried to clean from dust, it almost the same, some outputs were 2-5 seconds but then again no outputs. I think it's time to replace with new belt and test it with my old ant sensor, I suppose it still works because 2-5 seconds of outputs say it still alive :) Or may be take completely new one with new standards. Again thanks for advices, keep it doing. Nice channel, useful advices :)
Tom Tech Yea thanks. Sure. Firstly I checked the trick with moisture as you showed, then replace with new batteries. No outputs. Then I washed the contacts gentle cleaning it around - after that there was some stirring up for a short time when I tried to check it again, there was some outputs on the watch for some seconds and that's all. Surely the contacts are already too old, I bought it in 2013 :) Used not so often but belt seems like worned out
Great video, thank you. What is your take on the chest strap heart monitors that pair with your watch? I've been hearing good things about it. But logically thinking, with all that radiation, and bluetooth rays going and working to and fro around your body, with one of them right on top of your heart, is it really "not" dangerous from a help perspective? Anyone?
Thanks! Yes these straps are good. The optical wrist heart rate does have problems. For some exercises and some people they work OK, but for some other they are unreliable or don't work at all. Chest straps works almost always, especially with my tips, except swimming. Also, women have sometimes problems with their bra pushing the strap or going under it. Bluetooth is quite low power and 2.4 GHz radiation does not penetrate deep below skin. Cell phone in pocket, or hand is a much bigger source of radiation. Bluetooth headphones or earbuds next to your brain could be more concerning than heart rate straps. They are emitting more energy than the heart rate strap.
Hi! I have a garmin 310xt and it is shown at rest 190bpm witch of course is wrong. Do you thing is the belt or the sensor that should be checked? Thank you!
I'm not experienced with the Garmin, but it sounds it could equally be either one. If you do the checks and tricks I mentioned in my video and they don't work, it must be the sensor that has failed.
Hello Tom, I used my strap over a year. Battery ran out. I replaced and ran out after 2 runs. This happened 3times ever since. I used batteries from other stores, even good brand.
Sound like it might be broken. Also make sure that when you store your belt that the pads are not touching each other - otherwise the belt will transmit all the time. It shuts down after a while when the pads are not touching anything.
Sure you can use gel but water is easier because you probably have it already available and it works equally well. Air humidity does not matter much. This is about your skin humidity, which depends more on your hydration level and perspiration level. Perspiration will keep a good conductivity during latter part of your exercise. In the beginning extra moistening will help before perspiration kicks in. Water on your skin will mix with your body's natural salts and make a perfect electrode solution. No need for the stickiness of the gel either because when you cover your skin with the belt the moisture will stay there and not evaporate or transfer to your shirt. Chemical gels might not be as healthy, depending on their compositions. Silver in particular might have unhealthy effects especially under repetitive use.
I found where the problem is with pairing belt- after some time without using, I can't pair my belt with Suunto watch. Try to reset belt, but without success even battery in watch is new. Then I change battery in watch - even watch works well, and now paired successfully.
The strap can be washed (at least the Suunto one). But I just let it soak in cold water for a short while after use. Depending on detergents, some detergents may reduce the life of the belt more than others.
what kind of battery is used in Polar H 10? The one where voltage slowly goes down to zero, or the one where voltage is constant 3V during the lifetime, and then it suddenly drops to zero? Or, in other words: how can Polar measure your heart voltage in micro-volts, but can't display if a battery is 3,12V or 1,97V ?
My brand new suunto Smart Sensor spikes to heart rates of over 200 bpm, while my max heart rate is 189 bpm. I wash and dry it after each training. My polar H7 works perfectly fine. Suunto has problems.
Static electricity from a shirt might cause these kind of wrong reading. Some people slightly wet the shirt too to reduce static. Or the belt may be broken.
thank you for your video. I found this very helpful. Question : How can I measure HR belt's resistance if the module is not removable such as Garmin HRM tri?
Proper measurement is probably not possible for such one-time use systems. You can try measuring the resistance from one end to the other of the visible part of the pad, for each pads. But if there is a problem in the non-visible parts it won't show.
Okay this worked for me. I tried everything and even at my gym class i was sweating bullets so i figured the belt was wet anyways from sweat. But wetting my skin after putting the belt on worked. I was so sad that I couldn’t get this damn think to work. Thanks
Hi. How strong should I press while measuring resistance? For if I press slightly with approximate power on my chest, then it is above 20 oms. But if I press hard, I can reach about 9 oms. So what power is OK? And one more question - why you say 10 oms are the line I can through my strap off? :)
In theory you should not need to press very hard - only as hard as the belt would press against your chest while in use. The unit is kilo-ohms. Yes I said 10 kilo-ohms and that is a very approximate value from my experience. There is no exact limit, the results will slowly get worse the higher the resistance will get. A brand new belt can be something like 2 to 3 kilo-ohms I believe. Your belt sounds like it is on the edge. You might try to clean it. A clean belt does not depend so much on the pressure. Maybe gently scrape the electrode surface with something to get any possible thin coat of dirt off it.. Detergents might help but they might also do more damage than good if they contain the wrong chemicals. Then after cleaning measure again. If you get the 9 kilo-ohms, or less, without pressing hard the belt should work for a while longer.
Hello, can you show me how to clean the central button (Suunto Ambit). Is that when I squeeze it, it gets stuck or it is difficult to return to its initial position to tighten it again. Thank you
Hi! Thanks for your request! Yes maybe I can show that. I have done just that a couple of times for my Ambit. I'm a bit busy at the moment but will consider.
Thanks for the video. 99% isopropylic alcohol restore the resistance to my 2 belts. My old one had no reading and after vigorous rubbing with IPA , it now read less than 500ohm. My newer one reading went from 800ohm to 220 ohm.
…...4 year old belt, well used, intermittent heart rate readings, soooo...I washed it, replaced the battery, reset it, washed the strap, washed the contacts etc and having established my belt was defunct. I sourced a replacement for £20....then decided to use fine sandpaper on the rubber contacts on the belt to rough it up a bit and in theory improve connection.....success, belt back fully functioning.
Just measured my Polar straps. 165k Ohms... No wonder the system was giving me issues! How do you know that 10k is too high? Just curious as how you found that 10k number? Thanks!
The 10k number is approximate and I have found by comparing belts that Suunto belts work well if the value is below this limit. Other models of belts might have slightly different limits but the human skin resistance sets a base level.
Yes, gels work too. But water is more easy to find. Even outside if one finds that the HR does not work, one might find a lake or river or even wet grass to grab some humidity with the hand and apply. Regards, Tom
Hmm, strange. I get extremely high resistance values between the two points where the sensor connects (100k-300k, sometimes way more, with the electrodes together of course), but the pads themselves seem fine. With both probes on one of the electrodes, I measure 580-700 ohms from end to end. Far less when the probes are close together. However, the resistance between each pad and its connection point is very high (80k-200k for one, 20k-30k for the other). It's like the connection between the two is poor.
one other youtube video suggesting cutting the belt so that the contacts are on the sensor is connected to two separate sensors (no longer connected via the garter between them). This solved things for me. i had a new sensor, new belt, and new batteries and still had issues. But all was fixed after cutting the belt. Do you think that cutting the belt actually fixes the resistance issue too?
You probably mean the sensor is connected to two separate pieces of belt. So cutting the belt between the two metal snap connectors. OK, if the problem is contamination between the snap connectors making a short circuit, it would help cutting away the short circuited material. I guess this would be a very rare condition. More likely there might be a lose contact between the snap connector and conductive plastic, or within the snap connector itself. Then by cutting away the belt between the contact would create a pull-force across the snap contact keeping them in constant tension and removing any slack, preventing a lose contact. That sounds logical. But I think by far the most common problem is dry skin, creating bad contact and static electricity from the shirt. This can happen even with a perfectly good sensor. To avoid breaking the snap contact of the sensor try not to bend the belt too much when removing the sensor from the belt.
And about the resistance - no, cutting the strap will not improve the resistance. If the material has deteriorated it can not be fixed, at least that way. Only if there is a lose contact, cutting the strap might help.
What is "stupid" is buying a heart rate monitor belt that is designed to not hold the water. For instance, there are belts where the contact point is made from conductive "cloth like" material that absorbs the water. There are belts that have grooves where the water is applied and these grooves hold the water via surface tension. But, if you didn't know this when you bought your heart rate belt/monitor, se la vie.
Yes but it is equally, or maybe even more important that the skin around your belt is wet too because it will greatly reduce the static electricity that will also interfere with the HR measurement.
I think it should automatically use the wireless sensor if it is paired, enabled in training mode and it is found when starting the training. Only if wireless HR is not found or disabled the wrist sensor is used. You can see from the small heart rate symbol which sensor is used for heart rate. The wireless HR has a different symbol. Try with and without the strap and see the difference..
For me, it seems the sensor gets too wet from sweat. If I dry the sensors off while cycling, it correctly records my HR. The drop off usually happens after it's >145 and I sweat more. Obviously Wiping my chest every three minutes is problematic. I have a wahoo tickr, a garmin, a kinetic. All of them behave the same. Thoughts?
I'm not familiar with those sensors. If their electrodes are not far enough apart, or the insulation in the middle is not good enough, sweat will kind of short-circuit the signals before they get into the electronics, making them too weak to be accurately detected. Swimming in salt water also causes this kind of short circuit, in addition to that swimming easily makes the belt come off your chest. A fix might be to wrap some thin plastic around the middle part of the belt to try to keep it dry.
@@aholatom Yes - I think that's the direction I was heading in - I may try wrapping it in saran wrap to protect it. I'll be riding today and will see if it works. Thanks
Water stays just fine on Garmin HRM strap.. the contact area does not roll of water like the one shown in this video.. maybe Garmin changed the material
Yes some materials might be less hydrophobic and more hydrophile than others. But the amount of moisture is never enough if you put water on the belt. The belt usually moves down somewhat after you have put it on and the moisture is left higher up on your chest leaving the skin under the belts new position quite dry. Moisturing a wide area of your chest allows belt movement.
Hello Tom, is it necessary that the central sensor (where the battery goes) is in contact with the chest? because I have pectus excavatum and this sensor is suspended in the air but the side contacts make contact with my skin but I do not get a real heart rate. Thanks you!
The sensor does not have to be in contact with the skin, only the electrodes. Depending on what materials you have over and under the sensor, however, when you run the sensor will jump around a little and rub against these materials. Not having it against your skin might make the situation worse. So if your shirt is easily generating static electricity, there might be some interference from this electricity to the heart rate measurement. In this case, making the shirt wet in the area of the heart rate belt might help.
you are going to sweat so it will be moisten or it will be soak to your own sweat. my problem is that the HR strap is not working if i am over sweating
This sensor or belt does not operate in open swims. Seems the salt of the sea blocks it. Test it many times, replaced sensors at suunto , but no resutl. Not good for what it supposed to be!
Use uLtra sound gel or adult lubrication gel. It will stay moist for hours. Water or sweat on skin will also evaporate if your doing a easy workout. Lubricant will work amazing.
Good hint about the gel Manny! Some even use silver gel used with medical ECG electrodes. Certainly worth trying if the belt stops working after a while into the workout. But usually the problems are in the beginning. If the belt does not move much it will stay as a cap over the moist skin and prevent evaporation, even if there is not much sweating. Unless you have a belt with fabric-like electrodes, which will allow evaporation.
Hi. I have this belt and I notice that when the CR2025 battery gets to 2.9v the belt won't connect with my Suunto peak watch and I have to install a new battery. This occurs consistently. I use Duracell batteries The manual says the battery should last 500 hours. Is the smart sensor broken or consuming too much battery? The sensor is 2 years old, in good shape. Thank You UPDATE: I installed the "old" battery which has 2.9v back into the sensor and used the movescount to connect to the sensor so i could get a battery level reading. The battery is showing 50%. I wonder if the sensor is acting weird.
Hi Mark. Sorry for slow reply as I saw your question just now. Yes the battery should last very long in the Suunto belts. Not sure about the voltage that is required but I suspect the smart belt should work even with lower voltages, maybe as low as 2.7V. If you measured the battery voltage using a voltmeter without having any load, the 2.9V surely indicates an empty battery. The voltage will drop further when the heart rate belt is drawing current from the battery. Make sure when you are not using the belt that you leave it to dry so that the contacts are not touching each other or anything wet or conductive. If they do, the belt will be active all the time and drain battery. You can even try to snap off the module from the belt and dry them separately. If this is not the problem there may be a fault with the module and you should contact support for replair/replacement.
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I have been licking my heart-rarte strap contacts for 10 years. Works every time.
same, but I'm going to try his method see how it goes
Been doing the licking for decades with good early results, but lately results have become sporadic.
Wetting body did not help.
However, improving belt contact by cleaning belt's rubberized contact areas with soft scrub (kitchen product for polished stainless steel) helped some. But it was only after tightening up the belt itself that continuous contact was assured. Apparently, over time my belt had stretched or loosened and wind would dry the skin making contact erradic. Snugging the belt up did the trick.
happy rides
Yes many do that. I'm not sure but there might be a risk however that the acid in the saliva might deteriorate the strap a little faster. But probably there is not a big difference.
so wetting the entire strap on the inside and the on the outside is totally unneccessary??? just wet the two eletrodes is good enough???
@@jamesoitzinger6640 how tight is too much ? does over tightening it might reduce the inaccuracy of the HR result it generates? mines is feeling like more than just snug.
This is the first Fitbit I have used. It has some new features th-cam.com/users/postUgkxbkrje8Y7BaqRkAjimw-55ajvVo7RbcIp and I like the information that it gives me.I think the phone app could be designed to be a bit more accommodating, as it can be confusing to use. The rubber band is comfortable, and normally I do not like rubber bands for my watches, but this is comfortable.I am looking forward to seeing if this helps me stay accountable in my fitness endeavors!My only gripe is the box was very damaged when it arrived, however, the tracker is performing perfectly!
The correct resistance information is really helpful. Thanks!
Thanks! I was able to measure the resistance of the belt and confirm it's the problem. Prior to watching your video I just placed my thumbs over the contacts on the module and got a good HR on the watch. Your resistance test confirmed the belt is bad 2M Ohms
6 years later, just saved my HRM from the bin. Water on the chest worked! Chest strap lasted 3 years so not bad. Now I discovered the water trick I’ll get another 3 years before ordering the strap lol.
Agreed regarding battery. Good quality lasts a while. Also worth remembering, whilst 6-12 months is easily achievable on a good battery, if you train multiple times a day (3-6 hours daily total) then the battery may need replacing quit a bit sooner.
Thank you for the tips and hacks 🙌
I bought a new HRM strap and I was wondering why It wasn't showing my heart rate even though I was appying the instuctions, but with your trick It worked! Thank you.
I bought a new Polar H9. Could not get it to pair. Wet my chest (just as you said) and it worked immediately! Thank you.
I have had very similar problems with my Suunto heart-rate belt (used with an Ambit3 Peak). In my case the heart rate readings had become intermittent and incorrect, and then finally I could not get the watch to pick up anything.
To cut a long story short: the problem was the electrical contact between the central connectors (where the Suunto module plugs in) and the conducting polymer strips that run to the contact pads. On one side I had a reasonably low resistance (about a 1 kOhm) between the connector and the pad, and on the other side greater than 300 kOhm. For whatever reason (poor design, penetration of sweat etc) the contact between the connector and conductive polymer had failed.
My solution: I carefully slit open the rubber seal on each side of the connectors to expose the contact between the polymer strip and the connector. I then cleaned up the area (mechanically and with isopropanol) and used a silver conductive epoxy to remake the connection. Finally I sealed it back up again with an RTV silicone. Result: works perfectly now.
Or I guess you could buy a new belt...although I think it is likely the same deterioration will happen over time, unless Suunto have changed the design.
Final comment: I also cleaned the pads rubbing gently with water and isopropanol. I don't thing this was critical, but you can certainly improve the surface conductance doing this. If you wanted to make a conductive gel --- you could try potassium/sodium salt ( from the supermarket) dissolved in glycerol/water. This is a well known combination. Licking probably works fine, anything that is not pure water will improve conductivity.
Good video. Tap water isn't the greatest conductor, so I have thought of using saline or ECG electrode gel to put on my chest. Some say the electrode gel can cause the heart rate strap not want to stay up because it is so slick.
Note that the water is not used as a conductor but to moisten your skin. The skin contains all kinds of electrolytes, but a dry skin is bad conductor. Electrode gel is good, but be careful not to damage the strap with chemicals. It might deteriorate quicker with time if using chemicals like deodorants or gels. Also, if the gel contains silver it can give health problems if used frequently. Some people like to lick their belt, unaware that the acid will damage the belt over time.
@@TomTechVideos Thank you. My Garmin strap wasn't working well and I checked the impedance and it was over 400k. I would often use saliva to moisten the pads. This new (to me) information makes me think the saliva may have contributed to a slightly earlier demise for my strap. I have seen some suggesting saline solution (because it has similar sodium content as sweat) or Spectra 360 (sodium free electrode gel). But that makes sense that the water is not used as a conductor but instead just to moisten the skin. I have always been confused by the recommendations to use water since it is a bad conductor and you are the first person to clear that up.
Hello! I had long since given up on my Wahoo Tickr. But inspired by your video I tested the resistance of the strap. Although I had thoroughly cleaned it the resistance was over 7 kOhm. I then rubbed the pads with silicone remover and got down to about 0.3 kOhm. In today's Zwift session the HRM worked just fine. Thanks for the tipp, I wouldn't have thought of testing the resistance.
hello, could you elaborate a little more? what product did you actually use?
I don't know, some in-house brand of a DIY chain. But it matters not, silicone remover is basically just a degreaser. It's the same stuff used to clean parts before applying a paint-job.@@crysogonus
much obliged!
@@OliverScheffer-Photography
Thanks Tom,
The resistance of my Suunto Smart Sensor belt was truly the problem. I had the fortune of being able to test your theory on a working belt and the resistance was measurably the problem. Thanks for that research!
Extremely valuable info, never tought that the belt can cause wrong reading, thnx a lot
Thanks so much for this video! The multimeter tip was a great way to confirm that yes, my belt had come to the end of its life. I got a reading of 17 kilo-ohms from it. Got a new belt, and it gave a result of about 550 ohms. Problem solved. (the problem was that during an exercise the heart rate reading would go down to 00 for several minutes at a time)
By the way, some people claim that some people's sweat has a bigger impact on the contacts than others.
Wow, you solved my Suunto belt problem! I had tried everything! Nice work!
Great vid thanks. I tried all your tips eventually discovered that the resistance of the strap was 200K. I would never have thought of doing it that way. Also didn't know the strap could be bought separately
Mine has about 200kohms too. Weird
I submerge my belt in water completely before workout, and no problems whatsoever. It also helps the belt to stay in place, because it "sticks" to my skin and I don't have to overtighten it.
Synths and heart-rate straps...weird combination. I thought I was the only one. Nice setup mate!
Very useful thing about wetting the band and readings in the multitester. Thanks.
Thank you for these tips. My HRM either doesn't work, or works erratically. I'll try it one more time by cleaning the sensors more thoroughly and wetting my chest instead of the sensors. I think a gel/lubricant is also an idea worth trying.
Hi Tom. Thanks for this. I have been having issues with my polar h10 strap of recent with it just dropping out now and then. Eventually it wouldn't connect so replaced the battery which got it working but it still drops out. I have not had an issue with it for the last yr with just wetting the electrodes. But will try your method. I did just test the belt which came out good at 0.7 ohms.
Thanks for posting your video. Regards Lee
Thanks for the advice, question, you said 10k ohms where you found this info?
Thanks, You're welcome! The 10k is from my experience and it is quite an approximate value. A brand new strap could be about 2k. A one that definitely does not work is 20k or more. The 10k is somewhere in the range that the reliability starts to go down. In a way this is related to normal skin resistance across the distance between electrodes. I might make a more detailed video about this topic later if I get enough subscribers and can start making new videos again.
My Polar H7, was not working. I measured the belt resistance and it had more than 12k Ohms. To have the information about the correct value of the resistance was very useful for me.(
If you have a polar h7 that skips and spikes during movement I fixed mine by doubling up some tin foil in between the belt and the connection domes, this basically tightens the connection. Works well
Hi. Your comments about resistance pad to pad interested me. My garmin strap stopped working....battery was down to 2.4 volts. Replacing battery with new battery working at 3.4 volts did not work. I measured resistance across pads as you suggest and it was massive...1.2mohm. I assumed strap was dead on the basis of your advice. However, I then tried shorting battery contacts as per another video on youtube and then replaced battery. Worked fine immediately. My message would be that I'm not sure your comments on resistance between pads are a reliable indicator of whether the strap is broken. Btw my strap is an old ant only 1. Ta jim uk
The resistance may vary between different models and brands. But 1.2 Mohm? That sounds like it would not work. If you measure your skin you get that kind of numbers. Maybe you did not press the pads together well enough or you had them the wrong ways and measured the resistance of your fingers. The side of the belt that touches your chest should be pressed against each other.
Thanks for the video. I've had bogus readings 3 straight days with my Polar chest strap. The strap looks great, but tested terribly. I have several other straps that tested well & look forward to trying one of them tomorrow.
Polar used silver wires in their fabric straps some time ago. I have such a model and those gave a good contact. But I think they then changed to plastic. Maybe because it might not be healthy to have silver contacting your skin. Even the silver containing electrode gels might not be good to often use.
@@TomTechVideos My guess is Polar switched to the cheaper material simply because it's cheaper. Unfortunately I believe every device is now made in China for low cost. So far, a few days into using a newer Polar Strap (It came with a defective sensor last year, so I never really used the strap), I haven't had spikes or drop offs. This Polar strap has a much larger rubberized contact area on the chest side. Not sure if that helps with conductivity or not. Kiitos! I've never been to Finland, but have Finn blood on both sides of my family.
That's a valuable video, thanks. Iam having a Wahoo Tickr one and its sensor pads are coming out of the strap, can I fix it with a glue or replace it, please suggest.
Hi. I'm no familiar with Tickr but I guess you could try to glue it. A normal glue is electrically insulating so you can not try to re-connect a broken electrical connection, but if it is just mechanically loose from the strap, then gluing should not be a problem. I guess superglue or rubber glue could work. Some glues might damage the electrode chemically so be aware of the risk and be careful to not contaminate the contacting surface of the electrode with the glue.
@@TomTechVideos Thank you so much Tom, yeah it is mechanically getting uprooted, will try a rubber based adhesive to fix it. Fevibond should work on it.
Hi, can I pair it directly with my phone?
Nice tips. One question. Will the sweat on the chest’s skin moisturize the contact? It’s almost always that I sweat in the area where the sensor sits. A good practice is to wipe the belt with warm water after each use to keep it clean and germ free. Just my 2 cents worth. Thanks.
Yes, if you sweat you don't need to add water. And the key point is that the belt contact doesn't need to be wet, your skin needs to be wet. Moisturizing skin before starting an exercise helps in the beginning before you start sweating. Also, moisturizing skin is better than moisturizing the belt because skin absorbs much more water and in a larger area, keeping a good contact even if the belt shifts in place and this larger area also neutralizes static electricity from your shirt much better.
I've used a H10 sensor for about 2 or 3 years, but the belt has broken down. I was doing the chest-moistening trick but also putting some water on the belt, even though I noticed the same issue (the plastic pads are hydrophobic). However, even though I don't use the belt super often, cracks started to appear in the contact pads. Yesterday the HR updates got slower and slower, then stopped. My suspicion is that the way I stored the belt caused this -- I was basically folding it over itself, which obviously caused elastic deformation stress over time. My next belt will be gently rolled up instead, I think.
Very useful information. Nice to know how to measure the resistance, and very good to say what it _should_ be. I was able to eliminate increased resistance from the belt as a reason for my apparently non-functioning HRM. I had tried shorting the contacts, in addition to changing and leaving the battery out for several minutes. The last thing I tried was deleting the HRM from my watch, and rediscovering the HRM. It turned out that it changed it's "name" from whatever it was previously (a six digit number) to "496158". By re-discovering/pairing, I was able to use it again.
Thank you very much Sir, so much that I learnt in this video, but I couldn't see how to measure the resistance of the belt strap , maybe you should make it more easy for us to understand in another video, and do you sell, heart rate belt so I can buy from you sir?
I don't sell belts. You can find them on many online shops. I did try to show how to measure the resistance. Just press the electrodes together and measure the resistance between the metal contacts. Meter should be in the ohm-position. Check that if you directly connect the meter probes together the resistance should show zero, or a very small value.
Damn the thumbnail looked like Dr evil...from Aston powers...I definitely clicked the wrong video 😆 🤣
Hello , when the watch and belt is paired you can see the hartrate on your watch?
Thanks! Tip about resistants is very helpfull!
Can you pair a Suunto heart rate belt to a Garmin Edge 830 ?
Thank you! Your technique worked. I was about to replace it.
Hello. Thank you for the very informative video. I owm a Brytom 610 cycling computer. When I'm using the heart rate strap, I see a light verifying that there's a signal. But, within riding the signal is very intermittently working. I just tried the Ohm resistance tip. My meter continues to display 'old. No numbers are displayed. The batteries are fairly new. Any other suggestions?
Thank you
The sensor displayed 0.595 DCV
@@richardcoppedgejr6871 That DCV is the voltage from the sensor - that could be OK. But the 'old (overload) when measuring resistance means there is no contact at all. You can try to connect the ohm meter probes together - it should show a very small value. Then you can measure one half of the strap at a time - from one sensor contact to the electrode. Maybe one half shows overload and the other some proper value? Then the overload half is broken. If it works intermittently there can be a broken contact that sometimes makes contact when it moves. It might be difficult to fix if you don't see any damage. Conducting glue could be used to fix some cases but it might break soon again.
@@TomTechVideos i have a new chest strap arriving this week, just in case. Plus, Duracell batteries.
Thanks again for your help.
Hehey thank you Tom. I checked my old ant belt step by step you showed and found that the problem probably, if not definitely, in resistance of rubber contacts. Why probably, because I haven't that measure device but with method of deduction, checking other variants and connectivity with the watch was the same - no outputs - I stopped on this. Even visible it could be seen a little dust and micro damages around the corners. I tried to clean from dust, it almost the same, some outputs were 2-5 seconds but then again no outputs.
I think it's time to replace with new belt and test it with my old ant sensor, I suppose it still works because 2-5 seconds of outputs say it still alive :)
Or may be take completely new one with new standards.
Again thanks for advices, keep it doing. Nice channel, useful advices :)
Yes the contacts might be the problem. I hope you checked the battery first as it might also cause the belt to only work for a short time.
Tom Tech Yea thanks. Sure. Firstly I checked the trick with moisture as you showed, then replace with new batteries. No outputs. Then I washed the contacts gentle cleaning it around - after that there was some stirring up for a short time when I tried to check it again, there was some outputs on the watch for some seconds and that's all. Surely the contacts are already too old, I bought it in 2013 :) Used not so often but belt seems like worned out
Great video, thank you. What is your take on the chest strap heart monitors that pair with your watch? I've been hearing good things about it. But logically thinking, with all that radiation, and bluetooth rays going and working to and fro around your body, with one of them right on top of your heart, is it really "not" dangerous from a help perspective? Anyone?
Thanks! Yes these straps are good. The optical wrist heart rate does have problems. For some exercises and some people they work OK, but for some other they are unreliable or don't work at all. Chest straps works almost always, especially with my tips, except swimming. Also, women have sometimes problems with their bra pushing the strap or going under it. Bluetooth is quite low power and 2.4 GHz radiation does not penetrate deep below skin. Cell phone in pocket, or hand is a much bigger source of radiation. Bluetooth headphones or earbuds next to your brain could be more concerning than heart rate straps. They are emitting more energy than the heart rate strap.
@@TomTechVideos I couldn't agree more. Thanks Tom.
Большое спасибо! Благодаря Вашему видео удалось реанимировать TIMEX HRM.
Самое главное в электроннике - это контакт! :)
Use your own spit, it's the best, and you always got it with you, if you don't have spit, you should not run anyway :-))
Hi! I have a garmin 310xt and it is shown at rest 190bpm witch of course is wrong. Do you thing is the belt or the sensor that should be checked? Thank you!
I'm not experienced with the Garmin, but it sounds it could equally be either one. If you do the checks and tricks I mentioned in my video and they don't work, it must be the sensor that has failed.
@@TomTechVideos Thanks!!
Ha ha good point with the water, yet I only put on inside strap. Your right the water does fall off.
Hello Tom, I used my strap over a year. Battery ran out. I replaced and ran out after 2 runs. This happened 3times ever since. I used batteries from other stores, even good brand.
Sound like it might be broken. Also make sure that when you store your belt that the pads are not touching each other - otherwise the belt will transmit all the time. It shuts down after a while when the pads are not touching anything.
Thanks Tom adding moisture to my skin first did the trick it is now working again I love your studio
Hi Tom.
Thank you very much for this material, very helpful. Will use
that moisten skin instead belt method for sure.
Greetings from Poland
Try conductive gel, $2 on amazon, works in the winter ( low moisture dry air) and lasts the entire workout.
Sure you can use gel but water is easier because you probably have it already available and it works equally well. Air humidity does not matter much. This is about your skin humidity, which depends more on your hydration level and perspiration level. Perspiration will keep a good conductivity during latter part of your exercise. In the beginning extra moistening will help before perspiration kicks in. Water on your skin will mix with your body's natural salts and make a perfect electrode solution. No need for the stickiness of the gel either because when you cover your skin with the belt the moisture will stay there and not evaporate or transfer to your shirt. Chemical gels might not be as healthy, depending on their compositions. Silver in particular might have unhealthy effects especially under repetitive use.
I found where the problem is with pairing belt- after some time without using, I can't pair my belt with Suunto watch. Try to reset belt, but without success even battery in watch is new. Then I change battery in watch - even watch works well, and now paired successfully.
Sweat, with its salts will make good contact right?
Yes. But many have the problem in the beginnning, before sweating.
Thank you ! Solved the problem for me !
thank you, really helpful, tried new batteries etc, did not think of the belt, tested it and it was really bad! will buy a new one :-)
And is there any special care with the strap, like washing?
The strap can be washed (at least the Suunto one). But I just let it soak in cold water for a short while after use. Depending on detergents, some detergents may reduce the life of the belt more than others.
what kind of battery is used in Polar H 10? The one where voltage slowly goes down to zero, or the one where voltage is constant 3V during the lifetime, and then it suddenly drops to zero? Or, in other words: how can Polar measure your heart voltage in micro-volts, but can't display if a battery is 3,12V or 1,97V ?
My brand new suunto Smart Sensor spikes to heart rates of over 200 bpm, while my max heart rate is 189 bpm. I wash and dry it after each training. My polar H7 works perfectly fine. Suunto has problems.
Static electricity from a shirt might cause these kind of wrong reading. Some people slightly wet the shirt too to reduce static. Or the belt may be broken.
thank you for your video. I found this very helpful. Question : How can I measure HR belt's resistance if the module is not removable such as Garmin HRM tri?
Proper measurement is probably not possible for such one-time use systems. You can try measuring the resistance from one end to the other of the visible part of the pad, for each pads. But if there is a problem in the non-visible parts it won't show.
Okay this worked for me. I tried everything and even at my gym class i was sweating bullets so i figured the belt was wet anyways from sweat. But wetting my skin after putting the belt on worked. I was so sad that I couldn’t get this damn think to work. Thanks
Hi. How strong should I press while measuring resistance? For if I press slightly with approximate power on my chest, then it is above 20 oms. But if I press hard, I can reach about 9 oms. So what power is OK? And one more question - why you say 10 oms are the line I can through my strap off? :)
In theory you should not need to press very hard - only as hard as the belt would press against your chest while in use. The unit is kilo-ohms. Yes I said 10 kilo-ohms and that is a very approximate value from my experience. There is no exact limit, the results will slowly get worse the higher the resistance will get. A brand new belt can be something like 2 to 3 kilo-ohms I believe. Your belt sounds like it is on the edge. You might try to clean it. A clean belt does not depend so much on the pressure. Maybe gently scrape the electrode surface with something to get any possible thin coat of dirt off it.. Detergents might help but they might also do more damage than good if they contain the wrong chemicals. Then after cleaning measure again. If you get the 9 kilo-ohms, or less, without pressing hard the belt should work for a while longer.
Just followed the instruction - instantly better - genius (and logical)
Hello, can you show me how to clean the central button (Suunto Ambit). Is that when I squeeze it, it gets stuck or it is difficult to return to its initial position to tighten it again.
Thank you
Hi! Thanks for your request! Yes maybe I can show that. I have done just that a couple of times for my Ambit. I'm a bit busy at the moment but will consider.
I am a one hand person, how can I put the polar h10 belt on my chest, any tips, thank you, have a great day,
Thanks for the video. 99% isopropylic alcohol restore the resistance to my 2 belts. My old one had no reading and after vigorous rubbing with IPA , it now read less than 500ohm. My newer one reading went from 800ohm to 220 ohm.
Wetting the skin instead of the strap is genius!
…...4 year old belt, well used, intermittent heart rate readings, soooo...I washed it, replaced the battery, reset it, washed the strap, washed the contacts etc and having established my belt was defunct. I sourced a replacement for £20....then decided to use fine sandpaper on the rubber contacts on the belt to rough it up a bit and in theory improve connection.....success, belt back fully functioning.
For how long it worked? Interesting idea to try on a dead belt.
What can you do to prevent contamination?
Just measured my Polar straps. 165k Ohms... No wonder the system was giving me issues! How do you know that 10k is too high? Just curious as how you found that 10k number? Thanks!
The 10k number is approximate and I have found by comparing belts that Suunto belts work well if the value is below this limit. Other models of belts might have slightly different limits but the human skin resistance sets a base level.
Really good video
Can I use the size M-XXL ( 26-36) for HR10 for my chest of 36 inches? It is on the borderline. I hope I do not waste my money.
Dude! This is great! I just licked and it created a connection!
I use an electrolyte gel on the strap contacts.
Yes, gels work too. But water is more easy to find. Even outside if one finds that the HR does not work, one might find a lake or river or even wet grass to grab some humidity with the hand and apply. Regards, Tom
Kiitos Tomppa, hyvä kikka toi ihon kastelu!
Hmm, strange. I get extremely high resistance values between the two points where the sensor connects (100k-300k, sometimes way more, with the electrodes together of course), but the pads themselves seem fine. With both probes on one of the electrodes, I measure 580-700 ohms from end to end. Far less when the probes are close together. However, the resistance between each pad and its connection point is very high (80k-200k for one, 20k-30k for the other). It's like the connection between the two is poor.
Yes I have heard it can happen that the connection break between the pad and snap connector. Then I guess a new belt is the only option.
one other youtube video suggesting cutting the belt so that the contacts are on the sensor is connected to two separate sensors (no longer connected via the garter between them). This solved things for me. i had a new sensor, new belt, and new batteries and still had issues. But all was fixed after cutting the belt.
Do you think that cutting the belt actually fixes the resistance issue too?
You probably mean the sensor is connected to two separate pieces of belt. So cutting the belt between the two metal snap connectors. OK, if the problem is contamination between the snap connectors making a short circuit, it would help cutting away the short circuited material. I guess this would be a very rare condition. More likely there might be a lose contact between the snap connector and conductive plastic, or within the snap connector itself. Then by cutting away the belt between the contact would create a pull-force across the snap contact keeping them in constant tension and removing any slack, preventing a lose contact. That sounds logical. But I think by far the most common problem is dry skin, creating bad contact and static electricity from the shirt. This can happen even with a perfectly good sensor. To avoid breaking the snap contact of the sensor try not to bend the belt too much when removing the sensor from the belt.
And about the resistance - no, cutting the strap will not improve the resistance. If the material has deteriorated it can not be fixed, at least that way. Only if there is a lose contact, cutting the strap might help.
Kiitos
What is "stupid" is buying a heart rate monitor belt that is designed to not hold the water. For instance, there are belts where the contact point is made from conductive "cloth like" material that absorbs the water. There are belts that have grooves where the water is applied and these grooves hold the water via surface tension.
But, if you didn't know this when you bought your heart rate belt/monitor, se la vie.
Yes but it is equally, or maybe even more important that the skin around your belt is wet too because it will greatly reduce the static electricity that will also interfere with the HR measurement.
Do I need to take wrist sensor off from my bro 9 when I wear smart sensor?
I think it should automatically use the wireless sensor if it is paired, enabled in training mode and it is found when starting the training. Only if wireless HR is not found or disabled the wrist sensor is used. You can see from the small heart rate symbol which sensor is used for heart rate. The wireless HR has a different symbol. Try with and without the strap and see the difference..
@@TomTechVideos Thanks. I will play with it little. It's just so.. annoyingly unreliable.
For me, it seems the sensor gets too wet from sweat. If I dry the sensors off while cycling, it correctly records my HR. The drop off usually happens after it's >145 and I sweat more. Obviously Wiping my chest every three minutes is problematic. I have a wahoo tickr, a garmin, a kinetic. All of them behave the same. Thoughts?
I'm not familiar with those sensors. If their electrodes are not far enough apart, or the insulation in the middle is not good enough, sweat will kind of short-circuit the signals before they get into the electronics, making them too weak to be accurately detected. Swimming in salt water also causes this kind of short circuit, in addition to that swimming easily makes the belt come off your chest. A fix might be to wrap some thin plastic around the middle part of the belt to try to keep it dry.
@@aholatom Yes - I think that's the direction I was heading in - I may try wrapping it in saran wrap to protect it. I'll be riding today and will see if it works. Thanks
Great info Tom, well done
Water stays just fine on Garmin HRM strap.. the contact area does not roll of water like the one shown in this video.. maybe Garmin changed the material
Yes some materials might be less hydrophobic and more hydrophile than others. But the amount of moisture is never enough if you put water on the belt. The belt usually moves down somewhat after you have put it on and the moisture is left higher up on your chest leaving the skin under the belts new position quite dry. Moisturing a wide area of your chest allows belt movement.
I´m having problems with super high values all the time, already tried this solution, but it seams not working :(
that trick worked for me .. thanks a lot
Tom great help thanks ! What is all that sound arenal on the back ?
Thanks Marco, I'm glad to help. That setting is my man-cave including my music studio, HAM radio shack and electronics lab.
Thanks for the tips!
Thanks Tom. really helpful. I have a question. Is there any way to pair a Suunto Quest watch with the Movescount App?
Thanks George. I'm glad to help. I'm not familiar with the Quest. Does it even have Bluetooth? Probably the app does not support the very old watches.
Thank you Tom Tech! Very helpful!🤙
It worked thanks
Hello Tom, is it necessary that the central sensor (where the battery goes) is in contact with the chest? because I have pectus excavatum and this sensor is suspended in the air but the side contacts make contact with my skin but I do not get a real heart rate. Thanks you!
The sensor does not have to be in contact with the skin, only the electrodes. Depending on what materials you have over and under the sensor, however, when you run the sensor will jump around a little and rub against these materials. Not having it against your skin might make the situation worse. So if your shirt is easily generating static electricity, there might be some interference from this electricity to the heart rate measurement. In this case, making the shirt wet in the area of the heart rate belt might help.
you are going to sweat so it will be moisten or it will be soak to your own sweat. my problem is that the HR strap is not working if i am over sweating
Just great .thanks for the explanation
Thank you very much :)
This sensor or belt does not operate in open swims. Seems the salt of the sea blocks it. Test it many times, replaced sensors at suunto , but no resutl. Not good for what it supposed to be!
Mine stops working when i sweat. I'll go from a 160hr to a 85hr. That's if i can get it to pair to my wahoo bolt and phone.
Your video was helpful for me thank you
Thanks for the advice, it works for me ✌️
Thanks Tom that was really enjoyable to watch! Good stuff!
Fab. Top tips. Thanks for making this.
Use uLtra sound gel or adult lubrication gel. It will stay moist for hours. Water or sweat on skin will also evaporate if your doing a easy workout. Lubricant will work amazing.
Good hint about the gel Manny! Some even use silver gel used with medical ECG electrodes. Certainly worth trying if the belt stops working after a while into the workout. But usually the problems are in the beginning. If the belt does not move much it will stay as a cap over the moist skin and prevent evaporation, even if there is not much sweating. Unless you have a belt with fabric-like electrodes, which will allow evaporation.
real good job
Thanks mate!
Thank you 🙏🏽 really helped
Hi. I have this belt and I notice that when the CR2025 battery gets to 2.9v the belt won't connect with my Suunto peak watch and I have to install a new battery. This occurs consistently. I use Duracell batteries The manual says the battery should last 500 hours. Is the smart sensor broken or consuming too much battery? The sensor is 2 years old, in good shape. Thank You
UPDATE: I installed the "old" battery which has 2.9v back into the sensor and used the movescount to connect to the sensor so i could get a battery level reading. The battery is showing 50%. I wonder if the sensor is acting weird.
Hi Mark. Sorry for slow reply as I saw your question just now. Yes the battery should last very long in the Suunto belts. Not sure about the voltage that is required but I suspect the smart belt should work even with lower voltages, maybe as low as 2.7V. If you measured the battery voltage using a voltmeter without having any load, the 2.9V surely indicates an empty battery. The voltage will drop further when the heart rate belt is drawing current from the battery. Make sure when you are not using the belt that you leave it to dry so that the contacts are not touching each other or anything wet or conductive. If they do, the belt will be active all the time and drain battery. You can even try to snap off the module from the belt and dry them separately. If this is not the problem there may be a fault with the module and you should contact support for replair/replacement.
Thanks!!!