Nike C8 Heart Rate Monitor

Nike C8 heart rate monitor is an intermediate heart rate monitor in the Nike Triax series designed for running training.

Important Note: The Nike C8 is obsolete. Please take a look at the Polar RS100, it has similar features.

Here are the main features of Nike C8 heart rate monitor:

Continuous Heart Rate Monitoring
You can now train inside a heart rate zone by setting your upper and lower heart rate limits.
You can turn on an audible alarm which beeps when your heart rate goes outside of your zone limits. There are also visual out of zone indicators.
Stop watch to start and stop exercise session
You can store lap and split time. Lap time is elapsed time for one lap. Split time is total elapsed time from the start. You can store up to 50 laps in total. Your average heart rate in a given lap is also recorded.
YOu can customise the display so you see only the information you want during your exercise.
Post session summary: You can recall the total time, average heart rate for the session, the time you spent in/above/below your target zone and detailed lap information (See next bullet point)
If you have taken laps, you can review your average lap time and best lap. Furthemore, for each lap, you can see your split time, lap time and average heart rate.
You can store training data from multiple sessions.
A Two segment countdown timer. Use it for running intervals.
Basic Time Keeping - Time, date, two alarms
Power Save feature: You can set the time after which the watch will go to sleep i.e. the display goes off to save battery life. Wake up the watch up by pressing any button.
Backlight
Wireless heart rate monitor with an analogue chest strap transmitter and a wrist watch receiver

Note that the features in bold above show the features found in Nike C8 but not in Nike C6. However, it does not necessarily mean that the Nike C6 is a lower spec heart rate monitor as the C8 has also dropped a number of features supported by the Nike C6.

Let's first look at the important additional features of the Nike C8 heart rate monitor.

While out running, you can now record your time for each individual segment of your run. You can now measure your lap time every 400 metres or every mile or whatever distance you choose. Later on when you have finished the run, you can check how you did for each lap. You can correlate your average heart rate (which measures your intensity) and your lap time (which measures your speed / pace). It is useful info to see whether you have over- or under-exerted during your run. It will also help plan your future runs so you know what pace to run at.

You can also store multiple runs/sessions in the watch. So you can compare your runs, say, between Monday and Tuesday. The Nike C8 heart rate monitor can store training data for up to 10 sessions.

The two segment countdown timer can be used for interval training. For example, you can set the first segment for a run of 4 minutes and the second segment for a 2-minute recovery jog. You start the timer when you start running. When 4 minutes is up, the timer beeps as the first segment is completed. You start to jog. Two minutes later, the timer beeps as the second segment is completed. So you start running again. And so on.

These features are very useful for runners. But you don't have to be a runner to use these features, however. For example the ability to store multiple session data is useful regardless of the types of activities you engage in.

Now let's look at what features Nike C8 heart rate monitor drops from the Nike C6. They are:

Personal Zone Finder test and the associated four heart rate training zones
Calorie counter
Bar graph showing heart rate over time on 2 minute intervals

Summary

As you can see, the Nike C8 heart rate monitor is not a straightforward upgrade of the Nike C6 because it drops some useful features. It has included some additional features for runners like lap and split times and countdown timers. It can also record multiple session training data.