Garmin HRM-200 In-Depth Review: Worth it?

Garmin has just announced their HRM-200 chest strap, a product designed to be their affordable chest strap option, for scenarios that might not work as well with an optical HR sensor. But perhaps more interesting, is that it’s the first of likely many Garmin product refreshes that is aimed to comply with upcoming EU regulations on authentication and encryption requirements (the same ones that just started the death of ANT+ on Friday).

So while it does ANT+ & Bluetooth Smart transmission like every other product on the market, it also carries with it the ability to encrypt your heart rate data stream, as well as provide authentication. I’m not aware of any other standalone heart rate sensor on the market that does both of those today, and certainly none from Garmin.

Fear not though, all of that is optional today. So if you just want an accurate and dependable chest strap at a reasonable price, this delivers, no extra complexity required. And of course, in this review I’m going to walk through how it works, after using it for all of my workouts for a while now. That’ll cover the basics, as well as all the advanced bits, and of course, a look at heart rate accuracy.