Scosche Rhythm+ 2.0
Scosche’s first foray into optical HR tech was with their Scosche Rhythm/Rhythm+ armband followed by the Rhythm 24 in 2018. I have an original Rhythm and it is a sound product that delivers decent HR and it had a very good reputation for accuracy which wore off on Valencell who provide the sensor. That probably helped Valencell becomes Suunto’s first supplier.
It took everyone a little while to realise that it wasn’t the Valencell sensor that was great per see but rather it was that wearing any old optical HR strap on your upper arm is generally a good approach both for comfort and accuracy.
Now we have Rhythm+ 2.0 which I discuss below and I expect to have good accuracy.
Polar OH1+ and Garmin
The elephant in the room is Garmin. Why haven’t they repackaged their ELEVATE Gen 3 sensor and made an armband product like Scosche and Polar? Answer?… I don’t know.
The baby elephant in the room is the Polar OH1+. It’s a great optical armband product and I can see few reasons for using something else except price, strap width; better battery life, better low battery indication and more advanced features like ANT+ caching.
Which brings us on to the Scosche.
Scosche Rhythm+ 2.0 | What’s new?
Not a lot is new, at least not much that seems important.
The battery life is unchanged at 24 hours and both BLE and ANT+ broadcasting are still supported. Does this mean that Scosche dropped all intention for caching to support swimming and the high-end Garmin sports watches? Maybe, but if they were planning to do that you would have thought that better waterproofing than IP68 would have been introduced.
Then we come to the strap. Technophiles love the specs but the success of this product will likely come down to the strap. And this strap looks good. A wider strap is more comfortable and more importantly, it’s less likely to flip. I still regularly use my Polar OH1+ however, if I’m not careful, it will flip when I put clothes over it. It was fine when new but as the strap has weakened slightly over many months of use, flipping is more notable both in swimming and other usages.
I’ve not really mentioned the Wahoo TICKR Fit which I also have. Everyone loves a good Wahoo product but this one is not as accurate as the Polar OH1+, so I don’t use it. Let’s also not forget the mioPOD which is accurate. I would also class the Polar as ‘ACCURATE’.
I’m not sure I’ll review the Rhythm+ 2.0 unless it can cache to a Garmin, I’m happy enough with the OH1+.
At $79.99 it’s sensibly priced but there are unbranded alternatives on Amazon for half the price.
Sources: dcrainmaker, Scosche
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When garmin will have some kind of annoucments on CES 2021? ( i mean which day )
they will not announce at CES
So much for the 955 then…any sense of an ETA ?
there will be a jan announcement imo
could be 945lte
could be 955 / 955lte
could be 655
If it’s January and since they are at CES, it seems like a missed opportunity if they don’t announce anything over there 🙁 I hope it’s a 955 since it doesn’t seem like Garmin have anything in place for LTE in Europe ?
i doubt the announcement will be at CES . CES announcements blur into those of competitors. always have, always will
agreed on the LTE comment.
955 with solar tho?? I guess it’s possible but just doesn’t feel right.
What about this?
Fresh off the FCC website (2021-01-08)
Doesn’t specifically say smartwatch but some of the documents available basically make it look like a Fenix-like model
https://fccid.io/IPH-03992/
its taken a while, nice find! the images in it effectively say SOLAR and it looks like the rear case layout of a fenix. It has NFC therefore probably Garmin PAY. so its not a low end model. guess it could be the fenix 7 maybe MARQ v2
i think this listing was already on the fcc site but has had info in it changed eg I think it was earlier set for a release last week and that it did not have NFC until now.
So Jan release more probably fenix 7?
that’s one reasonable interpretation
Maybe they ditched forerunner flagship line
https://fccid.io/IPH-03898
Whats that ?
Wondering too as I can’t find any pictures in the documents I’ve opened.
Which documents specifically ? It seems the actual pictures are embargoed until 2021-04-08?
hmm that’s 2 years since MARQ v1 was released
its the 2x Enduros
they are exhibiting :/
yes i saw that ;/
imho if it will be 945 lte it is shame :/ battery life would be really weak
945 has a battery issue. maybe 945 solar is the fix (I don’t think this is 945)
I know 2 reasons for Garmin’s absence:
Interesting opinion, even more interesting why there is no leaks at all at launch this month
this was from a mothns ago and is set for this month
it has no nfc chip therefore is not 955
maybe this is a stryd or armband?
https://fccid.io/IPH-03927
And its called smartwatch
there some kids band/vivo thing due. i’m not so interested in that but it could be the one in the link you refer to perhaps?
Interesting, think Ray reported that there is no HRV for this 2.0 version?
ty, i miss-read a chart
Hard pass unless they fix the core issue I had with both the Rhythm and the Wahoo – plastic mounting hardware. Both of them busted on me because the plastic that holds on the strap eventually broke. It took maybe a year.
Pretty sure any such design will inherently break. OH1 is good because you could just buy a new strap since it snaps-in to strap, but even their strap seems unlikely to break because it’s not a typical pin-in-plastic type design.
Between sunlight, heat, cold, and especially sunblock any small piece of plastic that is in the critical path of mounting will likely break.