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Garmin make a specific strap for swimming, which is wider than normal ones and is designed to stay in place whilst you are in the water- intimating that non-swimming-specific straps will end up as a loose waistband. It’s also designed so that it transmits your HR at the end of your session as Bluetooth, ANT+ and I suspect many other RF transmissions don’t make it through water. Wrist based HR within the watch that is gathering the data strikes me as a better approach, but I have to say I personally would go for the super nerdy option: HUD goggles that monitor your HR.
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I tried a super cheap one (sub £10) out of morbid curiosity*, and even though they “work” (as in they have a nice colour screen and can show your heart rate), the software is so poor that they’re not much more than Xmas cracker toys. IIRC you could log a workout but it wouldn’t activate the HR monitor during it...
I’d avoid anything you don’t have a personal recommendation that it actually works.
(* I already have an Apple Watch)
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Dammit
grams
@ 
Advice on an inexpensive HR option for swimming?
There are lots of super cheap wrist-watch style options out there, but some first hand experience could help. Just want something I can get HR data from, and then add to intervals.icu to track load (or just upload via strava if it's tracking HR data for swimming). If I could also use it while climbing, that would be a bonus, but not sure I'll want to climb with anything on my wrist in the long run.
I do have a waterproof strap, so I guess another option is getting an Android smart watch that has apps I can sync that with?