I first read about Yuri Gitman and Joel Murphy‘s PulseSensor a few months ago in MAKE Magazine and was intrigued by its simplicity.  Last month, I decided I was going to get one to track my heart rate during my conditioning class at circus and I planned to have it ready for my first class.  Turns out they were all out of stock, and the date for new stock got pushed a couple of times.  MakerShed said they could ship within 1-2 days but I wanted to order direct so they’d get a bigger slice of the order (and I wasn’t sure if the 1-2 days was accurate as I figured they didn’t actually stock it).

I received notification this morning that they had new stock, and it’s a new and improved ‘Amped‘ version (with amplification and noise cancellation circuitry to the hardware) (note: the new version is 25% higher in price).  I’m very pleased that I placed the order 53 minutes after the initial email, and less than 2 hours later it has been shipped.  It’s coming standard USPS (with a shipping cost of 60% of the product price) so hopefully I won’t get dinged with Customs handling and GST (for another 50% of the product price).

I’ll update you when it has arrived and once I’ve hacked together something of use to quantify myself during extreme exercise.  In the mean time, check out Becky Stern‘s ‘Beating Heart Headband‘