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Pretty much every fitness tracker and smartwatch has an optical heart rate sensor, but they’re not always perfectly accurate. Not only can you get better accuracy by wearing a chest strap heart rate monitor, you can even use a chest strap without a fitness watch—just connect it to your phone. Chest straps don’t break the bank, either; my favorite is a mere 25 bucks.
Why chest straps are more accurate than watches
Chest strap monitors—the traditional kind, anyway—measure the electrical activity of your heart. They use electrodes that contact your skin, and sometimes you may need to wait until you’ve worked up a bit of a sweat before they get a good connection (although I haven’t found that to be an issue in my workouts).
That makes them far more accurate than optical sensors, which are the type you’ll see on the back of a smartwatch. Optical sensors use a (usually) green light, and they pick up your heart rate by detecting the light that bounces off your blood vessels as the blood pulses through. Relying on light means that they don’t always work as well through tattoos and may struggle with accuracy on darker skin tones. They can also be confused by outside light, which is why they aren’t as accurate if your watch is worn loosely or is too large. Runners sometimes experience
Why a Chest Strap Is the Best Way to Track Your Heart Rate During Exercise
