COROS Heart Rate Monitor

The new optical heart rate monitor from Coros is suitable for wearing on the upper or lower arm. It’s well made, lightweight and seems accurate enough for me so far but can it take over the mantle from the Polar Verity Sense as the best optical HR strap? Let’s see

How did we get here?

This is the first HR monitor from Coros.

However similar armbands and wristbands have been around for 10 or so years with the most recent models from Scosche Rhythm, Wahoo Tickr Fit and Polar being best known. These products, along with the Coros are straightforward heart rate monitors designed for use within sports and they should be distinguished from the likes of WHOOP and Biostrap which also include sleep, recovery and general wellness feedback as part of a more widely scoped app.

The Polar Verity Sense HR strap has been the best one and you will find that most reviewers, including myself, use that as one of their go-to devices. Indeed I recently and ‘coincidentally’ wrote about what it would take from Garmin to knock Polar from its lofty perch. Coros has definitely gone some of the way towards the Polar and in some ways exceeded its abilities but I’m not sure that Coros can yet claim to have a market-leading product.

Will Garmin release a competitor to Polar OH1 (Verity Sense) – How can OH1 be beaten?

Accuracy

HR monitors worn on the biceps tend to prove significantly more accurate than those worn on the wrist because motion artefacts are fewer.

Another factor determining accuracy is the configuration of the sensor array. The circular arrangement favoured by Apple (4 LED), Polar (6 LED), Garmin (6 LED) and now Coros (5 LED) is optimal and thus Coros has everything going for it here to make an accurate product. Albeit only accurate enough to measure HR and not HRV at this stage but that’s fine.

I’ll report back in some detail on the accuracy in a few months’ time but, for now, it seems more than sufficiently accurate for serious athletes across a range of intensities. I’m getting some small periods of occasional under/over-reporting which don’t overly concern me.

Pairing

It simply pairs as a Bluetooth heart rate monitor and will work with just about any modern sports watch, bike computer or app. Here you can see it paired with an Apple Watch. Zwift, Peloton or even a Garmin/Coros watch are equally viable alternaitves enabling you to improve their accuracy and extend battery life.

Automatic On/Off

The strap starts reading heart rate when it senses it is being worn and turns itself off within about 5 seconds of removal from the arm.

How Can the Coros Strap Be Improved?

Coros should consider improving the strap and/or offering a wider strap or sleeve for swimming and other sports. WHOOP has cleverly expanded into a range of apparel in which their band can be placed.

Coros will not add ANT+ but will soon be enabling existing capabilities to cache workouts on the strap and send them back to the Coros app on your smartphone without the need for a watch or bike computer.

Other HR products, like Polar’s, can produce swim and running stats but I’m not convinced there is much value in adding those to a strap as a simple sports watch would always make a superior alternative.

Who Should Buy This?

• You want accuracy but don’t want to wear a chest strap. This applies to any modern sports watch owner including Garmin, Coros, Apple and Samsung.
• You want comfort and convenience. An arm strap is significantly comfier and easier to attach.
• You want to save battery life on your watch. This won’t be as dramatic as you think as modern watches use low power to run the onboard HRM and, instead, your watch will use power to run the Bluetooth link to the Coros strap. So you save some power and lose a bit as well!
• Indepedence; you don’t want to wear or carry any other device but still record your HR, perhaps in a gym workout.

Final Thoughts

I like the Coros HR Band.

I also like the Polar Verity Sense and its ability to sync back to FLOW via a PC.

However, I don’t like the on/off button on the Polar and am tempted to switch to the Coros just because of its automatic workout recording. Had the Coros strap been wider I definitely would have been even more inclined to switch.

For almost everyone the 3 Bluetooth connections will be enough however I will undoubtedly pair to very many watches and bike computers even if I never plan to use more than 3 of them simultaneously…I have this nagging doubt that I might not be able to pair the Coros to a new device if it just so happens to find 3 other devices to pair to somewhere in my office. Then how do I find those 3 devices and do I have to walk out of range to the end of the garden just to pair a heart rate monitor…I just don’t want that hassle and ANT+ usually avoids any of that.

Pricing and Availability

It’s $79 and initially only available in North America/China and globally from September 2023.

Buy: USA

Buy: UK, EU RoW