Garmin Has Finally Put A Heart Rate Monitor In A GPS Running Watch

Garmin Has Finally Put A Heart Rate Monitor In A GPS Running Watch

Over the years, Garmin has managed to shrink and squeeze its GPS hardware into a running watch that doesn’t look monstrous on your wrist. But heart monitoring always required wearing an awkward chest strap. With the new Forerunner 225, Garmin delivers the whole fitness tracking package in one sleek wrist-worn package.

Instead of developing its own heart rate monitoring tech, Garmin teamed up with Mio to incorporate its optical sensors into the Forerunner 225. And since Mio has been perfecting heart rate monitoring fitness watches for years now, the the new Forerunner will likely benefit from Mio’s know-how with highly-accurate EKG readings.

Available sometime this year for about $US300, the Forerunner 225 will be waterproof to 50m so you don’t have to worry about wearing it while training in the rain, or while you’re really working up a sweat, or, err, taking a shower. It’s rechargeable battery is good for around four weeks when using it as a regular watch, but that drops to about seven hours when using the GPS and heart rate sensor.

And like other recent Garmin fitness watches, the Forerunner 225 can be paired to a smartphone making it easier to back up your training data and access or analyse it over time through its free accompanying app. In other words, the watch will be great at guilt-tripping you. [Garmin via SlashGear]


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