Timex T5G971 Unisex Sports Personal Heart Rate Monitor Watch

This thing is pretty unrelieable. I use it daily when riding my bike. At least once during the ride the signal will drop out and I lose all data. I can also count on it registering false readings (too high or too low) on a regular basis.

I purchased this watch after reviewing several watches online. I spoke with several people who own the Polar brand. I found out you have to send the watch to the company if you need a new battery so I had no desire to purchase it. So far, this watch has performed well. I haven't had any problems setting it up. The heart rate monitor is on track with the cardio machines at the gymn. At the end of my workout, I hit Recall and it scrolls through the workout time, avg heartrate, max heartrate and calories burned. My primary interest is in calories burned but it's nice tracking my heartrate as well. I would highly recommend this watch to anyone who is interested in tracking their cardio health/calories.

I'm not a runner, so I don't need all the fancy features included in the more expensive monitors. This unit is basic, but works very well.
The pros:
a) it works - belt sensors need only a small amt of moisture to pick up signal - which matches manual pulse rate exactly
b) very easy to program - can learn to do this in about 10 minutes - and you get to decide what your alarm zone will be, not the watch or some values from a generic list
c) replaceable batteries
d) low cost
The Cons:
None really. The only minor "complaints" I have are the recovery HR, and time in zone features. I actually pay close attention to recovery HRs. THe monitor alone, saves only the change in heart rate at one minute, not the end-exercise HR and the change. Both are really needed for proper interpretation. Also, it will only save one recovery heart rate (at a minute). You can manually trigger successive recovery heart rates at minute intervals by hitting the button each minute, but it will only save the last one (unless you have the data recorder). For zones, you can only program one zone. You have full control over the zone, but you only get one. So at the end of you workout, you can see how much time your HR was in this zone, but no additional infor about where your HR was at other times (other zones). These really aren't complaints since these are the stated (advertised) features of the monitor. But, these would be "wish lists" if I were designing the next version of this device.
BE AWARE THAT THIS MODEL USES ANALOG TRANSMISSION, NOT DIGITAL. AS A RESULT IT IS NOT COMPATIBLE WITH THE TIMEX DATA RECORDER. I FOUND THIS OUT THE HARD WAY.

Summary: For general fitness / aerobics / wt training, this unit does all you need, does it very well, and for a very reasonable price. When you read some of the "horror" stories of the more expensive or "more popular" brands not working properly, you appreciated the "bang for the buck" of this Timex all the more.

This watch works great and is fairly easy to learn how to use it. As a sport watch, it looks good (too big for my wife though). You can set your weight and your maximum HR (it comes with a little book showing you how to measure this). This watch has helped me a lot to stay "in the zone" (aerobic), because it has a "in zone" alarm.

I hope to update on the status of this watch at [....]

This product was as good as it was advertised. I am sure it works as advertised however it would not function properly for me. The reason is I have an implanted pacemaker and the two are not compatible because of the transmitters operating frequency. The HR Monitor's transmitter seemed to be interfered with by the pacemaker. The HR Monitor DID NOT interfere with the pacemaker. I tried three different ones and two other makes with the same results. I recommend this product to anyone without a pacemaker.