Discounts on the Garmin HRM Pro Plus and its budget alternative provide a solution for everyone this Cyber Monday
(Image credit: Garmin)
When trawling through the sales, there's one product we always expect to find on offer; Garmin. Luckily for you - as you'll hopefully agree by the end of this article - this year's Cyber Monday Garmin deals are no different. In fact, some of them are better than ever.
The Garmin brand is one that covers a multitude of industries. Cycling is the one we care about most - obviously - but there's also golf, marine, motoring, outdoor sports, good old fashioned everyday health and more. It even makes a GPS tracker for pets which I'm tempted by, but that's a story for another website on another day.
Within its vast arsenal of tech, one category of products I think Garmin does very well, but is pretty underrated for, is heart rate monitors.
They are a useful tool for millions of athletes worldwide, no matter their sport or their level within said sport. You can be a fair-weather 5km runner (puts hand up), a competitive wannabe racing road cyclist (puts hand up again) or even a Red Bull Rampage contestant front-flipping massive gaps in the desert (puts hand down firmly) and Garmin heart rate monitors can be useful for you.
As part of my role here at Cyclingnews, I've tested all of the best heart rate monitors on the market, and when putting together my buyers guide, Garmin featured twice. The HRM Pro was my 'money no object' pick, while the HRM Dual was the one with the best battery life.
If you're shopping for a new one this Black Friday weekend, they're both on offer, and although the competition from Polar and Wahoo is fierce, I wouldn't bother looking further than these two deals.
Garmin HRM Pro Plus USA: $129.99$99.99 at Amazon (23% off)
UK: £119.99 £97.95 at Amazon (18% off)
The HRM Pro Plus superseded the HRM Pro - itself an excellent device - and alongside a couple of small software adjustments, the main change was that Garmin made it easier to swap the battery out.
For most people, the HRM Pro Plus is overkill. The HRM Dual below will track your heart rate and transmit it to your bike computer, smartwatch, Zwift, etc, and if that's all you want, then you don't need to pay this much.
However, if you do stump up the extra cash, here's a run through of the key extras you'll get: Connection to Garmin Connect app, Running dynamics and swim interval stats when paired with a smartwatch, running pace and distance, everyday activity monitoring such as step count and calories.
The most important ones of those, in my opinion, are the running and swimming stats, and that opens up the HRM Pro Plus as a good option for triathletes.
In terms of the competition, there's nothing that really compares like-for-like. You might prefer to get your running metrics from something like a Stryd pod (much more expensive) or just rely on your smartwatch (less accurate). You can also get Bluetooth shoes from Under Armour, but that ties you into recording all your runs via the Map My Run app on your phone, which is clunkier than doing it via a watch.
Notably, both of these deals are the best price we've seen yet on this product, and it's currently cheaper than the older HRM Pro.
Garmin HRM Dual USA: $69.99 $57.80 at Amazon (17% off)
UK: £59.99 £34.99 at Amazon (42% off)
The better deal here is in the UK, with a price that we've never seen before, and at this price it wipes the floor with the similarly-specced namebrand competition.
The USA Deal isn't quite as strong, and we've seen better than this before, but the competition at this pricepoint at the moment is pretty weak. The Polar H9 is a touch cheaper, but with just a single Bluetooth channel, we find it can be limiting if ever you need to pair it with two devices. The Wahoo Tickr is a good price and might be a better buy for occasional users, but it's not without its issues (namely the odd connection dropout and corrosive poppers), so for heavy users, I'd suggest paying more for the HRM Dual.
Of course, all of these prices could - and probably will - fluctuate between now, the end of Cyber Monday, and then on to Christmas. You could well try and game the system by waiting for a better deal, but just like that training plan you've been putting off creating, the sooner you start, the longer you have to train (with heart rate data, in this case) for your goals.
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Josh is Associate Editor of Cyclingnews – leading our content on the best bikes, kit and the latest breaking tech stories from the pro peloton.
Josh has been with us since the summer of 2019 and throughout that time he's covered everything from buyer's guides and deals to the latest tech news and reviews. On the bike, Josh has been riding and racing for over 15 years.
He started out racing cross country in his teens back when 26-inch wheels and triple chainsets were still mainstream, but he found favour in road racing in his early 20s, racing at a local and national level for Somerset-based Team Tor 2000.
These days he rides indoors for convenience and fitness, and outdoors for fun on road, gravel, 'cross and cross-country bikes, the latter usually with his two dogs in tow.
