Row & Recover

One maker publishes it

Best Rowing Machines for Heart-Rate Training

Of the machines we track, one maker publishes heart-rate support and names the standards. One budget console lists a pulse readout. Everybody else is silent - so here is what to do about it.

By Stephen V.An enthusiast who reads the manuals and does the math. Not a coach, not a lab.Last verified July 24, 2026.

We earn a commission if you buy through the links on this page, at no cost to you. It has no effect on what we recommend or the order we recommend it in — we say “skip this one” on machines that pay us the same as the ones we like. How we’re funded.

If you want your heart rate on the machine’s own screen, there is one answer and it is the Concept2 RowErg. Concept2’s own PM5 documentation states that “the PM5 supports ANT+ and Bluetooth Smart for wireless heart rate monitoring” and that “to use this feature, you will need a chest belt that supports one of these transmission technologies.” Two named standards and a stated requirement. That is the most any manufacturer in this category tells you, and everyone else tells you less.

How much less is the finding of this page. Across the machines we track, exactly one maker publishes heart-rate support and names the protocols. Exactly one budget console — the XTERRA ERG180 — lists a pulse readout among its published fields. Every other listing in this category says “Bluetooth” and leaves you to guess whether that radio can receive a chest strap, broadcast your stroke data out, or both. So our tables say “Not published” a lot on this page, which is the point of them.

The practical consequence is that there are two ways to train by heart rate on a rowing machine, and only the first one depends on which machine you buy. Either the console reads your strap and shows the number next to your split, or your phone or watch reads the strap and the machine simply supplies the rowing. The second route works on literally every machine on this site, costs the price of a strap, and is what most people should do. The first route is nicer, and it narrows the shortlist to one.

What a machine cannot do, at any price, is tell you your heart rate without a strap. No rowing machine we track has a wrist or hand sensor worth the name, and the pulse grips you see on some gym equipment are not fitted to any of these. If a listing implies otherwise, it is implying it rather than publishing it.

The short answer

Quick picks

Ranked on published specification, buyer fit and what each machine costs to keep over five years. Select a row to jump to the full write-up. We have not rowed on these machines — here is exactly what we do instead.

#MachineBest forPrice
1
Concept2 RowErg

Concept2 RowErg

The machine every other rowing machine is measured against, and the only one here with no subscription, a 500 lb user limit and a five-year frame warranty at under a thousand dollars.

Published ANT+ and Bluetooth heart rate
$990.00 · Check price on Amazon

Price as of October 22, 2026. #ad How we’re funded

2
XTERRA Fitness ERG180

XTERRA Fitness ERG180

The cheap XTERRA: a 50.7 lb magnetic rower that publishes FTMS Bluetooth, aluminum seat rails and an upright stand - and declines to publish either a resistance level count or a weight capacity.

Only budget console listing a pulse readout
$249.99 · Check price on Amazon

Price as of October 22, 2026. #ad How we’re funded

3
MERACH NovaRow R50 Pro

MERACH NovaRow R50 Pro

The closest thing to a Concept2 layout at roughly half the money — 95 inches, a 32-blade fan, ten resistance settings and a frame that splits for vertical storage.

Best for phone-based zone training
$499.99 · Check price on Amazon

$559.9911% off

Price as of October 22, 2026. #ad How we’re funded

4
WaterRower Club

WaterRower Club

The commercial-spec WaterRower — a taller seat, a heavier frame and the Bluetooth S4, for people who found the Natural a touch low.

Best Bluetooth water rower for zone work
5
Fitness Reality 3000WR

Fitness Reality 3000WR

An angled water tank and six fillable resistance levels — the rare budget water rower where you tune the resistance rather than accept it.

Best for interval heart-rate work
$620.00 · Check price on Amazon

Price as of October 22, 2026. #ad How we’re funded

In detail

Every pick, and what is wrong with it

Each machine below gets the same four things: what it does well, what it does not, the five-year cost of owning it, and the case for buying something else instead.

Concept2 RowErg rowing machine

1. Published ANT+ and Bluetooth heart rate

Concept2 RowErg

The machine every other rowing machine is measured against, and the only one here with no subscription, a 500 lb user limit and a five-year frame warranty at under a thousand dollars.

Five years of ownership: $990 — all of it the machine, none of it a subscription. See the full table

Floor space: about 9.0 ft by 4.0 ft once you allow for handle travel and elbow room — roughly 36 sq ft.

What is good

  • 500 lb published user capacity — the highest figure any manufacturer on this page prints
  • No subscription, ever. The PM5 records everything on its own and ErgData is free
  • Separates into two pieces in seconds for storage; front and rear sections stand upright
  • Five-year frame warranty, and a parts supply chain that still serves machines from the 1990s

What is not

  • 96 inches long in use, and Concept2 recommends a 9 ft x 4 ft footprint — it is not an apartment-corner machine
  • Air resistance is the loudest kind. Concept2 publishes no decibel figure and neither do we
  • The 14-inch seat is low; getting up off it is a real consideration if your knees are the reason you are rowing

Skip this one if: Skip it if your floor space is under 9 feet in one direction, or if you share a wall with someone who sleeps early — this is the loud one.

$990.00 · Check price on Amazon

Price as of October 22, 2026. #ad How we’re funded

XTERRA Fitness ERG180 rowing machine

2. Only budget console listing a pulse readout

XTERRA Fitness ERG180

The cheap XTERRA: a 50.7 lb magnetic rower that publishes FTMS Bluetooth, aluminum seat rails and an upright stand - and declines to publish either a resistance level count or a weight capacity.

Five years of ownership: $250 — all of it the machine, none of it a subscription. See the full table

Floor space: about 6.7 ft by 3.8 ft once you allow for handle travel and elbow room — roughly 25 sq ft.

What is good

  • FTMS Bluetooth is published on the listing, so it pairs with third-party apps like Kinomap rather than a locked brand app
  • 50.7 lb with an upright stand design and built-in transport wheels - one person can put it away
  • Aluminum seat rails at this price, where plastic rollers on steel are the norm

What is not

  • XTERRA publishes no maximum user weight and no resistance level count for this model - two gaps on the same listing
  • 1-year limited frame warranty, a fifth of what XTERRA publishes on its own ERG750W
  • 68.3 inches of machine is short for a tall rower, and no user height fit is published to check it against

Skip this one if: Skip it if you are a heavier or taller rower who needs a stated ceiling, or if you want the resistance count published before you buy.

$249.99 · Check price on Amazon

Price as of October 22, 2026. #ad How we’re funded

MERACH NovaRow R50 Pro rowing machine

3. Best for phone-based zone training

MERACH NovaRow R50 Pro

The closest thing to a Concept2 layout at roughly half the money — 95 inches, a 32-blade fan, ten resistance settings and a frame that splits for vertical storage.

Five years of ownership: $500 — all of it the machine, none of it a subscription. See the full table

Floor space: about 8.9 ft by 4.0 ft once you allow for handle travel and elbow room — roughly 36 sq ft.

What is good

  • Full 95-inch competition-style geometry rather than a shortened budget rail
  • Frame separates into two sections and stores vertically
  • Ships 90% pre-assembled with a competition-style monitor and 20+ training modes

What is not

  • MERACH publishes no user weight limit for this model, which matters more on an air rower than most
  • Nothing like Concept2's parts availability if something breaks in year six
  • At 95 inches it needs the same floor as the machine it is undercutting

Skip this one if: Skip it if you were buying an air rower specifically for Concept2's decades-long parts support — that is the thing the discount is buying you out of.

$499.99 · Check price on Amazon

$559.9911% off

Price as of October 22, 2026. #ad How we’re funded

WaterRower Club rowing machine

4. Best Bluetooth water rower for zone work

WaterRower Club

The commercial-spec WaterRower — a taller seat, a heavier frame and the Bluetooth S4, for people who found the Natural a touch low.

Five years of ownership: $1,424 — all of it the machine, none of it a subscription. See the full table

Floor space: about 7.9 ft by 4.0 ft once you allow for handle travel and elbow room — roughly 32 sq ft.

What is good

  • Higher seat than the Natural, which makes getting on and off noticeably easier
  • S4 BLE monitor pairs with phone apps out of the box
  • Built for club use, so the frame is specified for far more hours than a home machine needs

What is not

  • 117 lb before you add water
  • No published user weight limit on this listing
  • Costs more than the Natural for a specification most home rowers will never exhaust

Skip this one if: Skip it if the Natural fits you — the Club's extra durability is aimed at a gym's usage, not a spare bedroom's.

Fitness Reality 3000WR rowing machine

5. Best for interval heart-rate work

Fitness Reality 3000WR

An angled water tank and six fillable resistance levels — the rare budget water rower where you tune the resistance rather than accept it.

Five years of ownership: $620 — all of it the machine, none of it a subscription. See the full table

Floor space: about 7.4 ft by 3.7 ft once you allow for handle travel and elbow room — roughly 27 sq ft.

What is good

  • Six water levels set with the included pump, so resistance is a decision rather than a fixed property
  • 300 lb published weight capacity
  • 19-inch wide handlebar, wider than most machines at this price

What is not

  • 300 lb ceiling
  • The Bluetooth app story is thin compared with the connected brands
  • 72 lb and 77 inches long

Skip this one if: Skip it if you never intend to change the water level — you are paying for adjustability you will set once.

$620.00 · Check price on Amazon

Price as of October 22, 2026. #ad How we’re funded

How to choose

What actually decides this

Three published facts decide this page. Here is what the makers print about the five picks.

Published monitor, resistance type, mains-power requirement and subscription cost for the five picks on this page
MachineMonitor as publishedResistanceNeeds mains powerSubscription
Concept2 RowErgPM5, Bluetooth + ANT+airNoNone
XTERRA Fitness ERG180LED console - time, count, distance, calories, strokes/min, pulse; FTMS BluetoothmagneticNot publishedNone
MERACH NovaRow R50 ProMERACH competition monitor, BluetoothairNoNone
WaterRower ClubS4 BLEwaterNoNone
Fitness Reality 3000WRHIIT-capable LCD, BluetoothwaterNoNone

1. Whether the console can receive a strap, in the maker’s own words. This is the whole first route, and the PM5 is the only monitor here with a published answer: ANT+ and Bluetooth Smart, chest belt required. Dual-protocol matters more than it sounds, because it means one strap serves the machine and a watch at the same time. The XTERRA ERG180 publishes “pulse” as one of its console fields alongside time, distance, calories and strokes per minute, which is a published claim that the console has somewhere to put the number — it does not name a protocol, so match the strap to the manual rather than to this page.

2. Whether the machine broadcasts out, which is the cheap route. A monitor that broadcasts your stroke data over Bluetooth lets a phone app hold both streams at once — your strap on one side, the machine’s split and stroke rate on the other — which gets you the same training without the machine ever knowing your pulse. The MERACH R50 Pro, the WaterRower Club’s S4 BLE and the Fitness Reality 3000WR all publish Bluetooth monitors, which is why they are here. What none of them publishes is whether the radio also receives a strap. The difference between broadcasting and receiving, and why listings blur it, is the subject of best Bluetooth rowing machines.

3. Whether there is a number to pair the heart rate with. Heart rate on its own is half a session. What makes zone training useful is seeing heart rate next to an output you control — a 500 m split or a watts figure — because that pairing is how you learn what your own easy pace actually is. The PM5 publishes both. The MERACH competition monitor and the Fitness Reality LCD publish interval-capable displays. A console that shows only time, count and a calorie estimate gives you nothing to hold the heart rate against, and the calorie figure in particular is the least reliable number on any rowing machine — see rowing machine calories for why. The split is explained in 500 m split explained and watts in watts explained.

The strap matters more than the machine

If you are going to train by heart rate on a rower, the equipment decision that changes your data most is a chest strap rather than a wrist reading. Rowing produces fast changes in effort and a lot of forearm tension on the handle, and a wrist optical sensor is working against both of those. A dual Bluetooth and ANT+ strap talks to a PM5 and to a phone and to a watch, which means one purchase covers every route on this page. Our own list of the add-ons worth buying — and the ones we tell you to skip — is in rowing machine accessories.

Worth knowing before you spend anything: none of this requires a subscription. Four of the five picks here publish no membership cost at all, and the training itself is free. If a machine’s heart-rate features sit behind a monthly plan, that is a software choice rather than a hardware one — the arithmetic of what those plans cost over five years is on subscription comparison.

What we are not going to tell you

We are not going to print target heart-rate zones, a maximum heart rate formula or a recommended time in each zone. Those are training and health questions, they vary by person, and this site reads published specifications rather than holding a coaching or medical credential. The equipment version of the question — which console shows what, and what you need to buy for it — is the part we can answer from documents, and it is what this page does. For how the training is structured, including the reason most people should spend most sessions easier than they do, zone 2 training and heart-rate training are the two guides to read, and a doctor is the right person to ask whether the intensity suits you at all.

How to choose in one paragraph

If you want heart rate on the machine’s own screen, buy the Concept2 RowErg: ANT+ and Bluetooth Smart, both published, plus the split and watts to hold the number against. If the budget is a fraction of that and you still want a pulse field on the console, the XTERRA ERG180 is the only machine here that publishes one. If you are happy to let your phone do the work, buy whichever machine suits the rest of your life — the MERACH R50 Pro for air resistance, the WaterRower Club for a water stroke, the Fitness Reality 3000WR for interval work — and spend the difference on a dual-protocol chest strap, because that is the component that decides whether the data is any good.

Straight answers

Questions people actually ask

Which rowing machines support a heart rate monitor?

Concept2 is the only maker we track that publishes an answer: its PM5 documentation states the monitor supports ANT+ and Bluetooth Smart for wireless heart rate monitoring, and that a chest belt supporting one of those standards is required. The XTERRA ERG180 lists 'pulse' among its published console fields without naming a protocol. Every other listing we read says 'Bluetooth' without stating whether the radio can receive a strap.

Can I use a chest strap with any rowing machine?

You can always use one with your phone or watch, on any machine, because that pairing has nothing to do with the rower. Whether the machine's own console will display the reading is a separate question that most makers do not answer in writing. If the console reading matters to you, buy the machine that publishes support rather than the one whose listing says 'Bluetooth'.

Do rowing machines have built-in heart rate sensors?

None of the machines we track has a wrist or hand sensor worth relying on, and no maker publishes one. Heart rate on a rowing machine means a chest strap, either read by the console or read by your phone. A listing that implies otherwise is implying it rather than publishing it.

Does the Concept2 PM5 work with an Apple Watch or Garmin?

Concept2 publishes that the PM5 supports ANT+ and Bluetooth Smart for heart rate, which is the same pair of standards most sports watches and straps use - so a dual-protocol chest strap can serve the PM5 and a watch at once. Pairing behaviour differs by watch and firmware, so check the current support page for your specific device rather than taking a general answer from us.

Is a chest strap better than a wrist monitor for rowing?

For rowing specifically, yes, and the reason is mechanical. Rowing produces fast swings in effort and a lot of forearm tension on the handle, and a wrist optical sensor is fighting both. A dual Bluetooth and ANT+ strap also talks to a PM5, a phone and a watch, so one purchase covers every option.

Do I need a subscription for heart rate training on a rowing machine?

No. Four of the five machines on this page publish no membership cost at all, and heart-rate training itself costs nothing beyond a strap. Where heart-rate features sit behind a monthly plan, that is a software decision by the brand rather than a hardware requirement.

The honest part

What we did not do

We have not rowed on these machines. We do not own them, there is no test lab here, and nobody writing this holds a coaching certification. Every ranking on this page is an argument from published specification and buyer fit, not from a stopwatch.

What we did do is read each manufacturer’s own published figures, record the ones they decline to publish, compute the floor space and the five-year cost, and date all of it. The full method is here so you can check our working or disagree with it.

Show your working

Sources

Keep going

Read next