Smart Bluetooth Turns Smartphone Into Heart Rate Monitor

Almost a year ago I described my experiences with my first iPhone heart rate monitor based on
the Wahoo solution which replaced my Suunto device. As the iPhone does not have a native ANT+ support the solution requires Wahoo ANT+ dongle that you need to attach to your iPhone to receive heart measurements from the Wahoo Heart Rate Chest Strap. At the beginning I had to experiment with different apps supporting the Wahoo device as my favorite app MapMyRun+ was very unstable. I tried RunKeeper  and iSmoothRun.

Unfortunately after jogging in  Krakow a few weeks ago I lost my Wahoo dongle and was forced to buy another one. I was just about to order a new Wahoo dongle on Amazon, for 79,95 USD, when I came across the newest Wahoo heart rate monitor, for almost the same price! I bought the  Wahoo Blue HR Heart Rate Strap for iPhone 4s that was introduced in January 2012 which is based on the  Smart Bluetooth  4.0  and is not only much cheaper, than the total Wahoo solution including the strap and dongle, but also much more convenient to use. It does not require a dongle anymore as it relies on the Smart Bluetooth support introduced in the iPhone 4s.

It is interesting that on the package Wahoo states that it is a "Wireless heart rate monitor for iPhone 4S and other Bluetooth Smart Ready Device" which reflects Apple leadership in adopting new wireless technology. Apple introduced the Smart Bluetooth 4.0 support in most of the new products including iPad 3 and Apple TV. About potential of this new Bluetooth technology you can read in 9to5mac 

My first experience was great, I didn't have to worry anymore about the dongle that is so easy to lose. The best app seamlessly supporting my new heart rate monitor is iSmoothRun

At the moment the following smartphones are 'Bluetooth Smart Ready' (have Smart Bluetooth 4.0 built in):

iPhone 4s,

Motorola Droid RAZ

Samsung Galaxy S3

To turn one of the above smartphones into heart rate monitor you need 'Bluetooth Smart Ready' Heart Rate Chest Strap. 

I found the following 'Bluetooth Smart Ready' Heart Rate Chest Straps on the market:

Wahoo Blue HR Bluetooth 4.0 Heart Rate Strap

Polar H7 Bluetooth Smart Heart Rate Sensor

I advice every runner owning the iPhone 4s to buy the  Wahoo Blue HR Bluetooth 4.0 Heart Rate Chest Strap or Polar H7 Bluetooth Smart Heart Rate Sensor

After just a few weeks of enjoying  the Wahoo Blue HR device it stopped working and I decided to replace it with the Polar H7 Sensor. You can read more about this here.

According to a recent report from IMS Research  "Bluetooth Smart is expected to be the most utilized wireless technology in sports and fitness devices shipped in 2016" and some 10.3 million Bluetooth Smart enabled consumer medical devices will ship between now and 2016.

You can expect a lot of new innovative smartphone applications enabled by smartphones with native support of Bluetooth 4.0 and ANT+ wireless technologies.

The total list of Bluetooth Smart products you can find here

Enjoying BMW apps

Since a few month I drive a BMW Efficient Dynamics 320D.


While I was selecting a new car I was looking for a "Green Car" with sufficient engine power and a car which enables easy integration with my iPhone.
As I wrote in my previous blog, car manufacturers should innovate to support seamless integration with smartphones and tablets. BMW, as a part of the ConnectedDrive vision,
introduced BMW Apps in March 2011. After a few weeks of driving experience with the use of BMW apps I am convinced that BMW will be able to combine the two best things in the world: the best car technology and great iPhone experience.

From the very few available BMW apps


I like the Web radio the most, which allows me to listen to my favorite Polish news station Talk FM and the best Business News Radio Dutch 'BNR Nieuwsradio'. You can also post tweets or update your Facebook status by using car data such as outside temperature or location. BMW promises many more apps soon.
Hopefully the BMW iDrive platform, co-designed with Apple, is going to be open to third parties developers which should result in many new applications.
BMW started cooperation with third parties to get new apps on the BMW platform. The first one certified is AUPEO which my daughters like very much. It is a pity that Spotify is not yet integrated with BMW iDrive.
I expect that BMW will also start to cooperate with other companies such as airlines resulting in great BMW apps improving further travel experience.
What about an app that will inform you about your delayed flight or one that will send you a notification regarding available seats on the next flight that you would have to consider due to bad traffic?
That sounds like a far away future but I have no problem waiting as even without the apps BMW's driving experience is far above my expectations and the fuel usage is really very low: over the last 20000 km my average fuel consumption was only 4,8l per 100km (58.85mpg UK, 49mpg US) despite enjoying often the sport driving mode.
The BMW uses at least 20% less fuel than Audi A4 Avant 2.0TDI I was driving for the last three years.
It is also much more economical than the most sexiest small car of 2011 Fiat 500 TwinAir turbo my wife bought recently with average fuel consumption a bit less than 8l p 100km (35.3mpg UK, 29.4mpg US). This small FIAT got plenty of design awards but at the same time on Internet you can find lots of complaints about its abnormal petrol consumption.
Imagine what kind of car could be produced if German technology would be combined with Italian design !

Another advantage of BMW Apps is that you will never have problems finding your car back, you carry your BMW parking location with your iPhone.

There is a risk, however, that some drivers would like to update their Facebook status or tweet while driving therefore my recommendation is to disable those applications when the car starts moving.