Smart Bibs Promised to Replace My Chest Strap. Did They Deliver?

The promise was irresistible: ditch the chest strap forever while getting more data than ever before. Smart bibs with integrated sensors would measure heart rate, cadence, power estimation, and muscle oxygen. All from shorts you’re already wearing. After three months and 2,000 miles, here’s the unvarnished truth.

The Contenders

I tested the Bioconnected smart bibs with their optical heart rate sensors, along with competing offerings from Coros and lesser-known brands promising similar functionality. Each claimed gym-quality accuracy without chest strap discomfort.

Heart Rate Accuracy: The Main Event

Let’s address the elephant in the room. Heart rate accuracy ranged from surprisingly good during steady efforts to frustratingly inconsistent during intervals. Compared against my Garmin HRM-Pro Plus chest strap, the smart bibs averaged within 3-5 BPM during Zone 2 riding. Acceptable for most training purposes.

But push into VO2max intervals or out-of-saddle climbing, and discrepancies ballooned to 15-20 BPM. That’s not a minor variance. That’s the difference between training zones. For structured training, this matters enormously.

The Comfort Trade-Off

Here’s where smart bibs genuinely win. No chest strap sliding. No uncomfortable tightness. No forgetting to charge yet another device. The sensors integrate so seamlessly you forget they’re there. For casual riders who despise chest straps, this alone might justify the purchase.

The bibs themselves performed well as, well, bibs. Padding was adequate, fabric breathed reasonably, and construction held up through repeated washes. They’re expensive cycling shorts that happen to measure your heart rate.

Additional Metrics: Gimmick or Game-Changer?

Muscle oxygen sensing showed promise but lacked the context to be actionable for most riders. Knowing your SmO2 levels without understanding what to do with that data creates noise, not insight. For serious athletes with coaching support, this opens interesting doors. For weekend warriors, it’s expensive trivia.

Cadence estimation proved surprisingly accurate, matching my Wahoo cadence sensor within 2 RPM consistently. One fewer sensor to charge and mount.

The App Experience

Every smart bib requires its companion app, and here’s where fragmentation hurts. Data lived in separate silos, requiring manual exports to Training Peaks or Strava. Integration with popular head units ranged from seamless to nonexistent. If your ecosystem doesn’t play nice, you’re managing yet another data stream.

Who Should Actually Buy These?

If chest straps cause genuine discomfort or skin irritation, smart bibs offer a compelling alternative for steady-state training. If you primarily ride Zone 2 and want basic heart rate tracking without the strap hassle, they deliver.

But if you’re doing structured intervals, racing, or need reliable data for training decisions, the chest strap isn’t obsolete yet. The technology is improving rapidly, but we’re not quite at chest-strap-killing accuracy.

The Verdict

Smart bibs are genuinely useful for the right rider. They didn’t replace my chest strap for hard training, but they’ve become my go-to for casual rides and long endurance days where comfort trumps precision. The future is coming, but it’s not quite here yet.