Picture this: You’re pushing through a tough workout, sweat dripping down your face, heart pounding. Wouldn’t it be great if you could get real-time, accurate insights into your body’s core temperature, without any invasive probes?

Enter the CORE body temperature monitor, featuring a core body temperature sensor. This innovative device claims to offer all that and more, with its Swiss-made sensor technology, user-friendly app, and non-intrusive design.

But does it live up to the hype? Let’s find out.

Key Takeaways

• The CORE body temperature sensor provides real-time, accurate core body temperature readings, which could help athletes improve their performance, particularly in hot conditions.
• It’s user-friendly and integrates well with other devices, like Garmin watches, but the initial setup might require some troubleshooting and software updates for smooth operation.
• Priced at $284.95, the value it offers to serious athletes in terms of performance optimization and safety during heat training can justify the investment.

What is the CORE Body Temperature Sensor?

The CORE body temperature sensor offers fitness enthusiasts and athletes an innovative tool to view and track their core body temperature. This is important when exercising and racing in warm environments, or preparing your body to race in a warm environment.

The unit costs $284.95 (although discounts are common from Black Friday through December).

Advanced sensor technology and a user-friendly design make up this lightweight core body heat reader, which is capable of capturing thermal energy from the body to measure core temperature without any invasive probes. It provides real-time accurate core body temperature and skin temperature readings, helping you optimize performance in hot conditions with immediate feedback displayed on your watch, bike computer, or smartphone.

The easy-to-use smartphone app is where you set up the unit and adjust the settings according to your personal tastes. The app also displays historical data related to your core temperatures plus additional learning materials specific to managing these figures accordingly.

The CORE sensor came out in 2020 and is being used by multiple Ironman World Champions, Tour de France Winners, Olympic gold medal winners, and many other top endurance professionals.

The sensor is waterproof to 1.5 meters and is protected from sweat, of course.

Getting Started with the CORE Body Temperature Monitor

The CORE body temperature monitor features innovative sensor technology and is only 12 grams in weight. Measuring 40 mm wide and 50 mm tall with 8.35mm deep, a rechargeable lithium polymer battery supplies the power for your activities.

Unboxing the CORE Body Temperature Sensor

The unit comes in a rather small, nicely packaged box. It includes:

• CORE sensor
• 6x Single-use adhesive pads (if you want to adhere the sensor directly to your skin)
• Heart rate clips (if you want to use the sensor on a chest heart rate monitor strap)
• USB charging cable
• Sticker
• Instructions

At this point, the next step is to charge the sensor and download the CORE smartphone app. It will provide straightforward instructions to get started monitoring your core body temperature.

Using the CORE Temperature Sensor

Step 1: Charge the thing. It needs juice to work.

The CORE sensor unit connects via Bluetooth BLE and Ant+ connectivity. You shake the sensor to turn it on (a green light appears verifying that it’s awake). You can then connect to it via the CORE app, which allows you to control all settings and update the firmware.

The CORE Body Temperature Phone App

The app is really a large part of the CORE sensor. The sensor doesn’t do much besides transmit the data somewhere else to be interpreted. That place is the app. Also, the app is how you set up your heat zones and other key settings.

With the app, you can see how much heat stress you endured, and your total heat load. These are important when acclimating to the heat and preparing for a big race.

Once you install the app on your phone, shake the CORE sensor a bit to “wake it” and the app should recognize it. You can then go through and register it so you won’t need to do this step again.

You’ll next want to check to make sure all the firmware on the sensor is up to date. Outdated software might lead to problems regarding the connection accuracy of the data collected.

Updating the CORE Sensor’s Firmware

Chances are that the firmware has been updated since the unit was packaged up. So you’ll need to update it. This is done through the app. Go into “settings” and you should see a line with “Firmware version”. Click on the circular icon to the right of it.

Updating the firmware is agonizingly slow. I always seem to somehow start this when I’m ready to start my workout so it’s even more frustrating. It takes me on average about 20 minutes for the firmware to update.

When I start to update the firmware, I seem to always get a starting “downloading history” display as well. My guess is that it stores workouts on the sensor and at times needs to clear itself? I’m not sure. This takes 20 minutes on its own.

It doesn’t do this automatically, you have to initiate the update via the app. I just seem to always do this at an inconvenient time and feel the need to whine a little.

Wearable Comfort and Durability

One important thing – the CORE sensor must rest against your skin. There cannot be any cloth between it and your skin for it to work correctly. For me, I can’t even feel that it’s there. It sits on my heart rate monitor strap and just works.

The CORE sensor does its job discretely while recording accurate core temperatures (at a high speed). I can make intensity efforts based on real-time core temperature stats.

Even during challenging workouts where every element needs to be taken into account for optimum performance levels, I didn’t have any troubles.

While I chose to put the sensor on my heart rate strap, you can also use one of the adhesive patches to affix it to your skin directly. It comes with six of these patches and more can be purchased through the CORE website.

CORE also sells an arm strap if that method is preferred. It’s about $14.95 and works the same as the heart rate strap method. CORE does mention that with the arm strap, the accuracy is lower than placing the sensor on your chest area.

Viewing Your CORE Temperature Data

We’ve gone over how to record and track your data, but how do you view it? The data will appear in the app, but most athletes don’t want to be looking at their phones during a workout.

Getting the CORE Data to Show On My Garmin

I really want to see my core temperature on my watch during the workout. CORE has a ton of integrations with different brands, and they’ve got detailed instructions here for each of them. The CORE data will be saved within the FIT file that saves all of your workout data.

Some of the brands include nearly all Garmin devices, COROS watches, Suunto watches, Wahoo bike computers, Apple watches, wearOS watches, Hammerhead bike computers, among others. This is nearly all of the best triathlon watches on our list.

For my Garmin watch, I simply added a new data field and now my core temp displays whenever I’m running. The instructions on the CORE website made it simple.

Displaying the CORE Data on TrainingPeaks, Strava, Zwift, and Garmin Connect

Your workout file will include the CORE data, but getting it to show in your favorite training program is not guaranteed. They have instructions on how to show it on TrainingPeaks, but it requires a premium TrainingPeaks account, and then you must create a custom report. It won’t magically show up on the reports we’re all used to.

I still haven’t found a way to include the data on Strava or in Zwift. It would be cool though so I’m trying to find out a way. According to Strava, the idea of including additional metrics uploaded within a FIT file(such as the data from the CORE sensor) to Strava’s reporting most likely won’t be added to the Strava roadmap soon. Booooo.

The cool thing is that the CORE data showed up seamlessly on Garmin Connect. There was a fancy new graph at the bottom of my workout detail showing my core temperature data. Woot!

CORE Cloud Web App

It’s worth noting that your history is also saved on CORE’s cloud-based web app. Your data is synchronized automatically from the CORE app on your smartphone to the CORE cloud. You can access it via your CORE login at https://cloud.corebodytemp.com.

The data is displayed similarly to the CORE mobile app reporting, it’s just accessible via your computer’s browser.

Putting the CORE to the Test