HR monitor - chest or wrist?

[DeludedMumofPFB]

I have a chest belt which has died. I've seen you can now get armbands with a sensor attached. Are they any good? Is it dependent on what kind of sports you do? Or is a chest one still more reliable?

I upgraded my running watch at the local running specialist shop last year and they said that wrist based had improved in accuracy significantly in the 4-5 years since I'd bought my previous watch. I like one less layer of faffing before heading out for a run, and it's good not having the chest strap and bra strap competing against each other.

Chest straps are more reliable.

Chest ones are much more reliable. My wrist one doesn't read if my arm gets sweaty.

This reminds me that I want to calibrate my wrist one against DH's garmin one (!) Will try to report back. The numbers from my wrist are very believeable. The wrist ones are optical ... not sure how the chest one works. vibrations?

I have a wrist one. It reckons that my heart rate is 150+ the second I set food on a bike. Even if I'm basically doing no more exercise than sitting on the sofa. This is only the case on a moving bike btw, not the turbo trainer where I have to really work to get it to that. Walking otoh it never ever goes above 100, even when I walk up big hills. I'm not convinced and would stick to a chest one if you want accuracy.

Chest strap.

Newer watches are really good. I've worn both exactly for comparison purposes and got the same result.

One afternoon I tested my fitbit against the chest strap (garmin): they were really close to matching most of the time.

As per Katerina with the newer models (I have a Fenix5s) there is no difference between the wrist and chest heart monitor. OTOH for swimming a chest hrm is essential