Since I know a lot of people do not like the chest strap I wanted to give a review of another option. There are several companies that make optical sensors (Mio, Scochse, TomTom, etc.) but I picked Mio due to price ($75 on sale at the time) and it being rated to 30m water resistant. I use the LINK with my Garmin 310XT.
I started off wearing it as they said, like a watch with the sensor on the outside of my wrist. It read just fine when cycling but when running the readings would jump all over the place. I flipped it around to the inside of my wrist and it fixed everything. On the Chewbacca scale I am probably a 7 which may have something to do with this. It still does read erratic when you first are starting a workout (my chest straps did the same) but after a few minutes it is good to go.
Overall I am happy with it and do not think I will be going back to a chest strap again. I would expect most companies will start integrating the HR sensor into their fitness watches like TomTom did.
I started off wearing it as they said, like a watch with the sensor on the outside of my wrist. It read just fine when cycling but when running the readings would jump all over the place. I flipped it around to the inside of my wrist and it fixed everything. On the Chewbacca scale I am probably a 7 which may have something to do with this. It still does read erratic when you first are starting a workout (my chest straps did the same) but after a few minutes it is good to go.
Overall I am happy with it and do not think I will be going back to a chest strap again. I would expect most companies will start integrating the HR sensor into their fitness watches like TomTom did.