Garmin introduces women-specific heart rate monitor and revamps Garmin Connect fitness tracking app

Tech giant Garmin has announced a new look to its Garmin Connect app, offering a more simplified and personalised homepage that’s designed to help you track your fitness goals, and it has also unveiled an HRM-Fit heart rate monitor that’s designed especially for women, clipping directly onto sports bras from leading brands for increased comfort. Let's take a look at Garmin Connect first...

Garmin Connect gets a new look

Garmin has announced extensive updates to Garmin Connect, the app and website where you can store your training data and track your fitness. 

“These updates provide a more simplified and personalised homepage experience by focusing on health and fitness metrics that allow users to track their personal goals,” says Garmin. “Starting today, select customers using Garmin smartwatches, cycling computers and accessories can opt-in to try the beta version of Garmin Connect before it is available to everyone later this year.”

Essentially, Garmin Connect is the place where data from paired Garmin devices is banked. You can go along there to analyse your health and fitness stats in various user-friendly formats. The idea behind the updates is that you can now get more relevant insights to help you hit your goals.

“Whether keeping an eye on overall well-being, staying active, or training for that next big race, the new Garmin Connect homepage features customisable sections that let users dive into their data like never before,” says Garmin.

The update is more about layout and navigation than the addition of new features. For example, ‘Today’s Activity’ allows you to view the day’s logged activities, upcoming workouts, plus any events that are coming up within the next two days (so not quite just today’s activity, then).
 
‘In Focus’ gives you a look at certain health and fitness metrics, including sleep score, Body Battery energy monitoring, training status (which is designed to give you a steer on how your training is progressing), and more. The data available is dependent on the smartwatch, bike computer, or accessory you use, of course. You can also get a weekly view of your activity trends here, customised to show what most interests you. 

The ‘At a Glance’ section allows you to choose from a broad range of stats and have them all displayed in one place. You can select from heart rate, steps, calories burned, VO₂ max, endurance score, and loads more – whatever you want to keep an eye on.

There’s also a ‘Challenges’ section where you can view your progress in expedition, badge, group, and family challenges.

There’s more too, including ‘Training Plans’ and ‘Events’ areas, but you get the idea of what’s on offer here. Garmin Connect is more customisable than previously, so you can tailor exactly what you see.

As mentioned, the beta version of the refreshed Garmin Connect is rolling out now and is expected to be available to everyone later in 2024.

Garmin unveils HRM-Fit heart rate monitor for women

The other news from Garmin is the introduction of its HRM-Fit heart rate monitor that clips directly to the bottom band of a sports bra. 

Garmin says, “Featuring a clip-on design, [HRM-Fit] attaches to medium- and high-support sports bras to maximise comfort while accurately capturing real-time heart rate and training data. HRM-Fit is also versatile enough to be used during activities like running, indoor and outdoor cycling, strength training, HIIT and more.”

It’s a pretty simple idea, as you can see in this quick video…

The idea of a sports bra you can clip a heart rate monitor to isn’t entirely new. The Shock Absorber Ultimate Run Bra - Heart Rate Monitor Edition, for example, features poppers where a Garmin or Polar HRM can attach.

The Sensoria Sports Bra comes with an HRM too, and there are others. However, Garmin’s HRM-Fit design is a little different in that it can attach to bras from the likes of Adidas, Athleta, NoBull, Under Armour and more.

It sends data via ANT+ and Bluetooth, so you can view it on a huge number of different devices, including Garmin Edge bike computers. HRM-Fit also captures running dynamics which you can send to a compatible Garmin smartwatch, and can be used to record steps, calories, and Intensity Minutes. 

The Garmin HRM-Fit is priced at £139.99 and is available now. 

www.garmin.com