Pear Sports Heart Rate Monitor-Review

     Today I want to eventually share a review with you guys. First, I want to start off by telling you about my workout plan. I posted my April work out at the beginning of the month. So far it’s going pretty well. I've stuck with Insanity & I did my half marathon training for one week. I’m hoping to get back on the band wagon of half training this week; Insanity hasn't been a problem, it's the second workout of the day that kills me. The one thing that keeps me super motivated is my Pear Heart Rate Monitor. That little guy is awesome!

     I've had it since the end of February so I feel like I can finally sit & give an honest review after using it daily. Yes, I really mean daily for over a month now. It's addictive! When you buy it, it comes with a nice little storage bag, a chest strap, sensor, ear buds, and different size ear guards to go on the ear buds. When you bring the box of goodies home you download the Pear App from the iTunes store, affix the chest strap & get started!!

These are all the "goodies" that it comes with. There are a small, medium, and large size earbud guards so a) sweat isn't getting in your earbuds & causing them to go all wacky; b) they fit your ears & aren't falling out every time you smile.

To get started each time prior to putting your chest strap on you should wet the sensors on the left & right side with a little water. On the FAQ on the Pear Sports website it says this helps it to get a stronger reading. If you put it on and it can’t read your heart rate it does tell you to moisten the sensors. Then, put the strap on & open your app. The very first thing I did was the calibration workout to determine my fitness level & heart rate zones. The coach tells you when to speed up & slow down. It is a quick 20 minute workout; I did it along with a longer run (I have to admit I was pretty gung-ho & excited to have it so I wanted to play that day lol). I haven’t done too much running with it but the few runs I have done I loved the coaching that came along with it. So, I will now list out the pro’s & con’s of the device.

Pro’s:

• ·         Ability to have heart rate, pace, zones, calories, time, and distance read out to you.
• ·         Ability to say how often or not you would like these things read out to you (so every minute you aren’t being updated on how many miles you’ve gone…or in some cases, not gone! LOL)
• ·         Ability to download “plans” from the plan store. There are awesome half marathon & marathon training plans available for purchase as well as other works outs that are free such as walking, abs, stretching, etc.
• ·         You can “save” each workout so you can see your history.
• ·         Detailed chart at the end of your workout so you can see your heart rate during a workout.
• ·         Summary of workouts on the home screen-you can see yearly, 3 months, 1 month, and weekly stats.
• ·         Ability to play music in the app from your playlists.
• ·         Great price point.

Con’s:

• ·         If you don’t “save” a workout when you are done you will lose the information if you close the app in the bottom bar where you close any background apps. This happened to me only once & I was so sad. I wish it had an automatic save feature instead of giving you the choice at the end to share/save/delete.
• ·         I have gone through all the free workouts; I wish they would add some more often.

      Here are some images of the chart you get when you complete your workout: 

As you can see I don’t have many complaints about this device. I really like it & would recommend it to anyone looking for a good quality, affordable heart rate monitor for their workouts.

What is your favorite workout product? How often do you use it?