Wahoo TICKR Heart Rate Monitor

Wahoo's TICKR heart rate monitor (HRM) is a well-designed chest strap that you can connect to up to three Bluetooth devices at once. The dual-band connectivity is stable and the LED status lights are useful to check everything is working as it should.

There's not a lot to an HRM strap really: click it round your chest and it should read your heart rate and transmit that data to whatever device you're using for recording it. You can have a basic one from Amazon for two-thirds the price of the TICKR, so is there any reason to spend the extra for this one? Well, yes actually. It's a nicely thought out bit of kit.

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First off, the design is good. Most HRM chest straps have two sensor pads on a strap and you press the electronic pod onto the front using two poppers. The TICKR is similar, but instead of clipping the pod on the front of the strap it acts as the bridge between the two ends.

This works well for two reasons. Firstly it means you have to unclip one side of the pod when you take it off, so you're more likely to remember to move it from the strap entirely. Sweat getting into the pod connections and rusting them out is a major cause of failure for HRM straps, so if you separate the bits they're more likely to dry out and you'll extend the strap's life.

Secondly, it means that the pod can be thinner. The thick bit of the pod that contains the battery sits between the straps rather than on top of it, so the strap doesn't protrude as far. It's not a big difference, but it is a bit neater.

The strap was long enough for my bigger-than-the-average-cyclist 108cm (42.5in) chest, but if you're bigger than about 117cm (46in) around the chest you'll probably find it a bit tight.

The TICKR has two status LEDs on the top. The red one flashes in time with your heart rate, so you can see if it's picking up your heart activity, or if you've unwittingly died. The blue one shows you the connection status: slow blink when it's searching for a connection, quick when it's connecting and even quicker when it's done. The lights are also useful for troubleshooting: if they don't come on when you click the strap in then it's probably time for a new battery; if they do but you're not seeing your heart rate on your app then it's a connection issue somewhere. The LEDs turn off after 30 seconds to preserve battery life.

Bluetooth and ANT+ protocols are both supported, and the TICKR can cope with up to three simultaneous Bluetooth connections if you want it to. I found it easy enough to connect to my phone (I tried a Google Pixel 2 and Huawei P30 Pro) using the Wahoo app, and doing so allows you to update the firmware too if there are newer versions. Connecting it to the computer for Zwifting and a Garmin Edge 520 and Sigma ROX12.0 for outdoor riding was simple enough, with stable connections throughout.

A strap like this, which is measuring the electrical activity of your heart, is still the most accurate way of getting heart rate data easily, and is much less prone to error than an optical sensor as used in most smart watches. I've found the TICKR's output to be stable and believable throughout.

> Buyer’s Guide: 10 of the best heart rate monitors for cycling

The 2032 coin cell in the strap is good for 500 hours according to Wahoo; I haven't had 500 hours of use out of it yet but it's still going strong. Replacing the battery is a simple job requiring no tools other than a coin.

For £40 this is a really good heart rate strap with some useful features you don't get elsewhere. It's not really fair to compare it to a bargain basement Amazon strap: instead, let's point out that it's £20 less than Garmin's equivalent strap at full retail, and half the price of Polar's H10 strap. It's good value for money given that nearly all of the branded straps out there are more expensive, and recommended if you're looking to replace an old strap or get more into data gathering when you're training.

Verdict

Excellent heart rate monitor strap with good connectivity and useful status LEDs