Digifit iCardio Multi-Sport Heart Rate Monitor Training (for iPhone)

If you want real hard stats about your workouts, but accelerometers and GPS don't quite cut the mustard, buy yourself a heart rate monitor? and then get an app that can access the information and make some sense out of it. ?One option is the fitness iPhone app Digifit iCardio Multi-Sport Heart Rate Monitor Training (free to download, but additional fees required, details below), or just Digifit for short. At its most basic level, the app tracks your runs, bicycle rides, and other workouts and gives you good information about them, like distance, time, and pace. You can connect it to a heart rate monitoring strap, too, for much deeper health information, although the cost for all the components adds up.

Between the heart rate monitor (I used an ANT+ Garmin Heart Rate Monitor, about $25-$60), Digifit Connect device ($59.95), which plugs into the iPhone's base and enables the monitor to send information to the app, and $2.99 in-app purchase for heart rate monitoring support, the total cost is more than $75. Plus, if you want to add Fitness Assessments features, which let you create custom heart rate and pace zones, you'll have to shell out another $3.99.

The in-app purchase for heart-rate monitoring is the cost that stings, particularly if you've just spent $60 on the company's Digifit Connect, assuming (quite reasonably) that access to the data would be included.

Solid Core Metrics
The app itself works well?with or without the heart rate information, and, in my testing, the worst problem I encountered was that the heart rate strap and Digifit Connect lost contact with each other at least once every time I worked out. But when it does, the app continues to collect primary data. The timer still runs, the GPS map-plotting continues, and even calorie-burn estimations keep ticking. In other words, the app does a fine job holding up its end of the bargain, even when the other components fail. The Digifit app also chugs along just fine when the screen is locked, helping to minimize the battery drain (the GPS mapping feature will invariably, but unavoidably, tax the battery).

During a workout, the Digifit iPhone app can clue you into your own progress with voice announcements, vibrations, and push notifications. You can customize what kind of prompts you receive, if at all, and when. For example, you can set the Digifit to announce when you've hit your first mile, or to vibrate after 20 minutes, or to push a notification to the locked screen when your heart rate hits a certain number of beats per minute.

At the end of a workout, the app summarizes distance, pace, and other typical statistics you'd expect to find in a fitness tracking app.

The Digifit app has a wealth of customization options, settings, and features, crucial to a personal fitness app. You can set your height, weight, age, and sex in order for the app to better estimate calorie burn, as well as give accurate "zones" for your heart rate, like "warm-up zone." One thoughtful addition is a set of charts in which you can enter your resting heart rate, weight, blood pressure, and other personal metrics.

Digifit's Costs Add Up
The Digifit iCardio Multi-Sport Heart Rate Monitor Training app (for iPhone) provides a range of options for tracking your fitness, and it works pretty well, but the reasonably high cost for all the components makes this product more of a gadget pack than simple app. The price tag is close to, but slightly higher than with other gadget-app duos in this class, such as RunKeeper's Wearlink+ ($79.95) and Adidas' miCoach Connect Heart Rate Monitor ($70). The number of up-sells may cause you to steer clear of Digifit, but the app's performance is solid.?

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