How to Set Up Live Heart Rate on Your Gym TVs

If you have ever priced up a live heart rate display for your gym, you already know the problem. The traditional route means buying belts by the dozen, fitting a receiver, selling members a bit of kit they have to remember to charge and wear, and hoping the whole thing pays for itself before it breaks. It is a lot of money and a lot of admin for something that should be simple: names and effort up on a big screen so the room lifts a little harder.

This is a practical guide to a different way of doing it. One that uses the screens you already own and the wearables your members already wear. No belts to buy and no receiver bolted to the wall. Just your TVs, an app, and heart rate live in the room. Getting it running is straightforward, and this is the whole process.

What you actually need

The whole point of this gym heart rate display setup is that it is software-only and hardware-agnostic, so the shopping list is short.

A TV that can open Fittest. There are two easy routes, and any screen you already have on the wall will do one of them. Either a TV with a web browser built in (most smart TVs have one), or any TV with an Amazon Fire Stick plugged into it. Both get Fittest onto the big screen without special hardware.
Your members' own wearables. Apple Watch, Android watches, Garmin, WHOOP, Myzone, Polar, most chest straps. Fittest is wearable-agnostic, so whatever your members already own connects and reads live heart rate. Nobody has to buy anything new. If you want the full picture on why that matters, we made the case in wearable-agnostic fitness tech.
The Fittest dashboard and app. The dashboard is where you run the gym; the app is what members open on their phones and watches.

That is genuinely it. No belts, no receiver, no annual hardware refresh.

Getting the screen live

Once you are set up on Fittest, the on-screen part is quick.

Get Fittest on the screen

Open Fittest on the TV, either through the screen's built-in web browser or through a Fire Stick, and sign in with your gym's account. The screen links to your location and starts listening for connected members. If you have more than one screen, repeat it per TV. There is no per-screen hardware and no limit dressed up as a hardware constraint. Multi-screen with no hardware is the whole idea.

Get members connected

Members connect their wearable through the Fittest app once. From then on, when they walk in and start a session, their heart rate, effort points and name appear on the screen automatically. New members join with a gym access code, so onboarding a room does not mean pairing devices one by one at the desk.

Point it at the room

Position the screen where the class can see it without craning. In a functional or HIIT space that is usually front and centre; in a bigger room, a couple of screens down the sides keeps everyone in view. That is the multi-screen setup doing its job.

Making the screen worth watching

A wall of numbers on its own does not hold attention for long. What keeps members looking up is the competition and the meaning behind the numbers.

The live leaderboard is the obvious draw: names climbing, effort points ticking over, the room quietly racing each other. We wrote a whole piece on why that changes the energy of a class in live heart-rate leaderboards and class energy, and it holds up on the floor. People push harder when their name is on the wall.

But Fittest scores more than cardio. Strength Scoring rates lifting to the same standard as HIIT and cardio, so the members grinding through a strength block are not stuck at the bottom of a heart-rate-only board while the runners rack up points. That fairness is a big deal for mixed gyms, and it is worth understanding properly. We broke it down in Strength Scoring: rewarding lifting like cardio.

Run the clock from the same system

Classes need a timer as much as a leaderboard. The custom timer builder in the dashboard lets you build your own intervals, rounds and rest, then run them on the same screens. So the wall can show the workout structure and the effort at once, from one system, instead of a separate timer app fighting for the TV.

Why software beats a belt cupboard

If you have run a belt-based system before, you know the hidden costs. Belts go missing. Members forget them, so their effort does not count and they quietly stop caring. Straps wear out and you replace them. New joiners need one before they can take part, which is a barrier at exactly the moment you want them hooked.

A software-only setup sidesteps all of that. Because members use the wearable they already own and wear every day, there is nothing to forget, nothing to charge that they were not charging anyway, and nothing for you to restock. If you are weighing this up specifically against a belt system, we compared the two directly in the best Myzone alternative for gyms, and the maths on hardware is a big part of it.

There is also the retention angle. Effort on a screen is only step one. Underneath, Fittest is quietly building each member a reason to come back: the effort points they rack up each session, personal bests, and weekly summaries. The screen is the shop window; the progress is what keeps them coming through the door.

How Fittest helps

Everything above runs on features that ship with every Fittest plan, so putting live heart rate on your wall is not a bolt-on you pay extra for.

Live heart rate, effort points and leaderboards on any TV, from members' existing wearables. No gym hardware to buy.
Wearable-agnostic by design: Apple Watch, Garmin, WHOOP, Myzone, Polar and most HR belts all connect through the official Garmin partnership and more.
Strength Scoring so lifters and cardio members share one fair board.
Multi-screen, no hardware, driven from the dashboard, with the custom timer builder running class intervals on the same screens.
Runs on any TV with a built-in web browser, or on a Fire Stick, so you use the screens you already have.
Personal bests and weekly summaries underneath the screen, turning a moment of effort into a reason to return.

The setup itself is a short job: open Fittest on each screen through its browser or a Fire Stick, members connecting their own watches once, and a gym access code for new joiners. From there the room runs itself.

Ready to put heart rate on your wall?

If you want to see exactly how the screen looks with your own space and your own members' wearables in mind, the quickest way is a proper walkthrough. Book a demo and we will set up a live gym heart rate display for your gym, show you the leaderboard, Strength Scoring and the timer together, and map out the simplest path to getting it on your TVs.

Book your Fittest demo and we will show you the whole thing running, no belts required.