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Scosche Rhythm+ 2.0

Scosche’s first foray into optical HR tech was with their Scosche Rhythm/Rhythm+ armband followed by the Rhythm 24 in 2018. I have an original Rhythm and it is a sound product that delivers decent HR and it had a very good reputation for accuracy which wore off on Valencell who provide the sensor. That probably helped Valencell becomes Suunto’s first supplier.

It took everyone a little while to realise that it wasn’t the Valencell sensor that was great per see but rather it was that wearing any old optical HR strap on your upper arm is generally a good approach both for comfort and accuracy.

Now we have Rhythm+ 2.0 which I discuss below and I expect to have good accuracy.

Polar OH1+ and Garmin

The elephant in the room is Garmin. Why haven’t they repackaged their ELEVATE Gen 3 sensor and made an armband product like Scosche and Polar? Answer?… I don’t know.

The baby elephant in the room is the Polar OH1+. It’s a great optical armband product and I can see few reasons for using something else except price, strap width; better battery life, better low battery indication and more advanced features like ANT+ caching.

Which brings us on to the Scosche.

Scosche Rhythm+ 2.0  | What’s new?

Not a lot is new, at least not much that seems important.

The battery life is unchanged at 24 hours and both BLE and ANT+ broadcasting are still supported. Does this mean that Scosche dropped all intention for caching to support swimming and the high-end Garmin sports watches? Maybe, but if they were planning to do that you would have thought that better waterproofing than IP68 would have been introduced.

Then we come to the strap. Technophiles love the specs but the success of this product will likely come down to the strap. And this strap looks good. A wider strap is more comfortable and more importantly, it’s less likely to flip. I still regularly use my Polar OH1+ however, if I’m not careful, it will flip when I put clothes over it. It was fine when new but as the strap has weakened slightly over many months of use, flipping is more notable both in swimming and other usages.

I’ve not really mentioned the Wahoo TICKR Fit which I also have. Everyone loves a good Wahoo product but this one is not as accurate as the Polar OH1+, so I don’t use it. Let’s also not forget the mioPOD which is accurate. I would also class the Polar as ‘ACCURATE’.

I’m not sure I’ll review the Rhythm+ 2.0 unless it can cache to a Garmin, I’m happy enough with the OH1+.

At $79.99 it’s sensibly priced but there are unbranded alternatives on Amazon for half the price.

Sources: dcrainmaker, Scosche