Review: Beets Blu Heart Rate Monitor

As a fitness junkie, ok I guess the proper term is “professional” I’ve got a lot of gadgets, equipment, apparel, shoes, bags and more. I admit it I have a problem with fitness stuff, and it’s catching. Bob is pretty much a fully fledged member of the running junkie club. Between us we could probably outfit a small sports team, and open our own gym but hey that’s better than wild and crazy weekends getting drunk and coming home after curfew right (disclaimer we definitely do the drunk thing, but we totally don’t have curfew). Anyway a new fitness techie toy I’ve been playing with recently is the Beets Blu heart rate monitor.

Disclosure: It’s always my policy to make you aware… I received this product for free in exchange for a fair and honest review, all opinions are my own. Also links in this post may be affiliate links, meaning I earn a small commision from sales through that link. Which means I get to buy more fitness stuff. It’s like the cycle of life!

Beets Blu Heart Rate Monitor

So what to tell you first? Well how about the Beets Blu heart rate monitor is bluetooth and works with smartphones. Say like my iPhone 6 which I’ve had almost a freakin year now. How is that possible? Where is time going. Ok Di, get back on track. Basically the Beets Blu heart rate monitor is the chest strap that is totally universal because it works with your smart phone, and a large number of fitness apps. Like say RunKeeper which I use every.freakin.day. #nojoke. Side note if you’re on RunKeeper friend me, my username is workoutwithdi duh!

So I know you might be thinking “ok, so why do I need this?”… I’m glad you asked, let me tell you. Heart rate monitors give you the most accurate data of how many calories you burn during activity.  Again I know what you’re thinking: “But doesn’t the [insert gym cardio machine here] tell me that?” yes, and no. It tells you a computer generated figure based on your weight and the activity you perform but it doesn’t take into account intensity which will vary for us all. That’s where accurate heart rate data comes in. The Beets Blu heart rate monitor was super easy to sync with Runkeeper. I figured it out on my own so it must be easy! With an accurate calorie expenditure you can more effectively track calories in/out making weight loss easier.

So I had the chest strap on, RunKeeper was sync’d, only one thing left to do… get my sweat on! As Bob has lost his mind and signed up for the Los Angeles Marathon I decided to join him on a couple of miles of his training run. While I am back running after a few months off with injury I am taking things slowly and building my pace and distance gradually [and no I’m not doing the marathon with him. I know I’m crazy but I’m not marathon crazy!] It was early in the morning but it was already hot and humid…

I ran 2.8 miles before calling it done due to the heat and humidity. So how did the Beets Blu heart rate monitor do? Worked like a freakin charm!

Things I loved:

• Easy to set up
• Washable strap – trust me these get rather pongy
• comfortable strap
• no watch needed
• nobody else can tell I’m wearing it
• works with a ton of fitness apps
• syncs to smartphone
• works with IOS and Android Phones

More details of compatible apps and phones are available on the Beets Blu website.

For me as I track my activity through RunKeeper primarily it meant I didn’t have to drag out my Garmin, get the data off my watch then sync Garmin to RunKeeper. Beets Blu heart rate monitor  is a one stop shop, just sync with your app and Boom done!

All in all I loved it. My thin wrists appreciated not having a huge honking Garmin watch on it. Seriously those things are huge. Later that day I also decided to do some weight training and again wore the beets blu heart rate monitor, and it worked like a charm. I really love that it’s so freaking comfortable. The Garmin strap I have is super uncomfortable so this made a really nice change. I totally forgot I was wearing it!

Anyways, yes I’d definitely recommend it, if you’re interested you can buy yours here:    

Question

Do you use a heart rate monitor when you workout?

 

but wait….

it doesn’t stop here. The folks at Beets Blu also let me try one of their other products….

Beets Blu Pager Tag

While I love my iPhone I seem to spend a lot of time asking Bob where the heck my phone is. I’m not gonna lie. Once we spent a good 30 minutes looking for my phone. Literally right before bed I went to charge my phone and oops… gone! I spend a 5 minutes looking for the phone, can’t find it. Bob calls it and… nothing.  You see I have this annoying awesome habit of putting it on vibrate, putting it down somewhere, then forgetting what the hell I did with it. If you’re interested after looking ALL THROUGH THE HOUSE including in trash, and laundry (retracing my steps) Bob continued to call my phone and just listened intently for the vibration noise. Eventually he found it down the back of the sofa. Drama over. Anyway, now I don’t have that problem because BEHOLD the Beets Blu Pager Tag

I know, you’re thinking “pagers? That’s so last century” [how weird is that?”] but wait nope this isn’t a pager pager in the 1990’s sense. You can set this little device to find your phone, or put it on your keys and then use your phone to find your keys. As my issue is my phone I bluetoothed the pager with my phone with the Pager Tag app. Now initially when I had Bob set it up it was set to be in the same area as my phone, once it goes out of range it beeps… loudly. So now I have it set to beep when I want to find my phone. The handy hole in the pager means I can keep it on my keys and then if I lose my keys [which I never do] then I can find my keys with my phone through the app!

I haven’t had a “vibrate episode” since but you can be sure when I do I’ll be pressing the Beets Blue Pager Tag button! Of course Bob has pressed it while I was in the bathroom and scared the living bejeebers out of me but that’s a whole other story.

Thanks Beets Blu for letting me try your great products! I’m loving them both!