Pros & Cons
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- Accurate heart rate measurements
- Rechargeable battery
- Comfortable
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- No onboard memory
- Doesn’t record heart rate during swims
- Lacks advanced running metrics
Wahoo Trackr Heart Rate Specs
| ANT+ | |
| Bluetooth | |
| Form Factor | Chest Strap |
| Rechargeable Battery |
The $89.99 Wahoo Trackr Heart Rate is one of the few chest strap heart rate monitors with a rechargeable battery, and it can connect to gym equipment via ANT+ or three Bluetooth devices simultaneously to record data. Its heart rate readings were accurate in testing, but you will need a connected device nearby while you work out, as it doesn’t have any onboard memory to store data on its own. It also strangely lacks the advanced running form metrics on the company’s previous-gen model, the $79.99 Wahoo Tickr X, making the price bump a little hard to swallow. The Polar H9 ($69.90) offers a similar chest strap design and capabilities for $20 less, so it remains our Editors' Choice.
Design: Lightweight and Comfy
Wahoo packs the Trackr’s heart rate sensor and rechargeable battery into a removable pod with buttons that snap onto the strap itself. The box includes the pod, strap, a charging cable, and a setup guide. The charging cable magnetically connects to the underside of the pod and will only snap into place in one direction, so you can’t accidentally reverse it. The other end is a USB-C plug, and you’ll need to provide your own brick for wall charging.
When you plug in the pod, you’ll notice LEDs on the front that blink red, then orange, then green as it gains charge. They’ll turn solid green once it reaches 100%. Those lights also blink orange and then red to warn of low battery, or blue when the pod is searching for a phone connection. They turn solid blue once connected.
Once charged, you can snap the pod onto the front of the strap. Doing so takes a little more force than I expected, but keeps the pod firmly in place. The strap itself is elastic black cloth, with two metal buttons and a long plastic strip in front where it rests against your body. A metal hook fits into a loop on the band to secure it to your chest.
Once assembled, the strap weighs just 1.4 ounces, undercutting the 1.7-ounce Ticker X. It's adjustable from 26.25 inches to 34.5 inches in length, and can fit chests as wide as 50 inches. I’m a fairly large dude, and the strap fits me well, without any chafing or discomfort. It’s light enough that I’d forget it was there during a run, but not so unobtrusive that I wanted to wear it when not working out.
Wahoo specifies that the strap should be hand-washed, so you should avoid tossing it into a machine.
Battery Life: Up to 100 Hours on a Charge
The Wahoo Trackr's rechargeable lithium-ion battery has the capacity for 100 active hours, according to Wahoo. I’ve worn the strap for a couple of sedentary workdays, and for three different workouts, and it's still at 82%. That loosely extrapolates to less than 100 hours, but I’ve also left the device alone for long stretches of time, which could understandably lead to some battery drop.
For comparison, the Tickr X and the Polar H9, both of which use a coin cell that can’t be recharged, promise to run for up to 500 hours and 400 hours, respectively, between battery swaps. You’ll have to deal with the Trackr’s battery more often, but doing so will be easier, and 100 hours of use is impressive for a rechargeable battery.
To conserve battery, the Trackr goes to sleep roughly 30 seconds after waking up if not recording anything, but it wakes itself automatically when you put it on or start recording.
Connectivity and Metrics: Just the Basics
Neither the Trackr nor the Polar H9 has onboard storage, so you’ll need a nearby device to record data. Like the Tickr X, the Trackr can sync to three different Bluetooth devices simultaneously, or to gym equipment via ANT+. The H9 can only hold one Bluetooth connection at a time, while the Polar H10 ($89.95) bumps that to two, and adds onboard storage. The Tickr X has onboard storage as well.
Because Bluetooth doesn’t transmit underwater and the Trackr doesn’t have onboard storage, you can’t use it to record data during swimming exercises. It’s rated as IPX7 waterproof, so it can be submerged in roughly three feet of water for up to 30 minutes. You can likely leave it on for the swimming leg of a triathlon without worry; it just won’t be tracking anything.
During land-based workouts, the Trackr records your calories burned, heart rate, and time elapsed. It also tracks your average and max heart rate, and organizes all of your pulse data into zones to help you gauge the amount of effort you exerted. If connected to a phone, it can use your handset's GPS to map your route and record distance and pace data.
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It strangely doesn’t record advanced running form metrics like cadence, ground contact time, and vertical oscillation, even though those features are available on the Tickr X. It also lacks a VO2 Max fitness test, a feature of the Polar H9.
The Wahoo Trackr is compatible with Android, iOS, Mac, and Windows, and a wide variety of third-party fitness apps such as Apple Health, Komoot, MyFitnessPal, Peloton, and Strava. The Wahoo mobile app (available on Android and iOS) doesn’t record heart rate variability (HRV, an indicator of stress), but the Trackr can calculate and send that data to compatible third-party apps.
App Controls: Well Organized
You can set up the Trackr using the Wahoo mobile app. Plugging it in to charge is what wakes it up initially. From there, adding the device to the app is easy. If you’re new to the brand, the app will ask you to create an account and provide some personal information so it can properly calibrate the data it collects. Specifically, it asks for your birthday, gender (with options for male, female, and prefer not to answer), height, weight, and favorite sports.
Once you’re up and running, the app’s main Today tab shows your stats for the day, recent workouts, and suggested activities. The Plan tab offers specific training routines and allows you to save your favorite routes.
The Record tab puts the Trackr to work. You can switch to this tab to check your real-time heart rate even when not working out. When you are ready to get active, use the drop-down menu to select a workout profile. Tap the gear icon to add to the default list if your favorite type of workout isn't there. Close the drop-down menu with the x in the upper left, then hit start to begin capturing data.
The live capture window is a utilitarian black and white. The main page shows your duration, heart rate, and steps, plus pace and distance if your phone's GPS is active. Scroll over for pages focused on laps, heart rate zones, averages, and then dynamics. The last page is odd, given that the Wahoo Trackr won’t collect that criteria, but the app is capable of gathering information from multiple devices at once.
After the workout, you can see your data in the History tab. At the top of the page, the app asks you to rate the difficulty of the workout, then you can scroll down to see information like time, distance, heart rate, a workout map, and heart rate zones. For a running workout with GPS enabled, heart rate is cleverly charted in red alongside your speed in blue, so you can see how the spikes and dips of both correlate.
Finally, the Device tab lets you see and manage your different connected gadgets, with instructions and LED info available should you need to reference them again.
Accuracy: Good at What It Does
Given their position over your heart, chest straps tend to be more accurate than wrist or arm-based trackers. Moreover, chest straps measure your heart rate using electrical pulse technology, which is generally more accurate than the optical technology used in most arm bands, fitness trackers, and smartwatches. Optical technology has caught up to an extent, with recent models from Apple and Google proving highly accurate and responsive to rapid heart rate spikes during workouts.
I tested the Wahoo Trackr Heart Rate during multiple workouts while also wearing the Apple Watch Ultra 2. As expected, the heart rate readings on the two devices routinely stayed within two to five beats per minute (bpm), often matching exactly.
During a 30-minute run that included sprinting intervals, the Trackr responded to the spikes slightly faster than the Ultra 2, though the Apple Watch was never far behind. After the workout, the Trackr reported more calories burned than the Ultra 2 (534 compared with 355), but the data otherwise matched up perfectly. All of the heart rate information matched, including the peaks and valleys on their respective charts.
When I wore the two during a cross-training session from Apple’s premium Fitness+ platform, the Ultra 2 responded more quickly to heart rate spikes than the Trackr. That could be a result of the Ultra 2 syncing directly with the software, but the Trackr still kept up reasonably well.