Hello fellow AFib sufferers. I'm in my fifth decade as a computer programmer and have been frustrated at the lack of mobile applications to help me with my AFib - so I wrote one and have shared it up on Google Play if anyone else in the group is Android user and is interested. It's called HeartChart and of course it's free. You can read about why I wrote this in a blog entry I posted at blog.brucejackson.info.
But the short of it is that I find that the chest straps that measure heart rate often do not reflect rapid changes in the heart rate: when I'm walking or otherwise working out some. However, most of these devices do measure the "RR Interval" which is the time between beats and is therefore a better measure of irregular heart patterns.
This little application will use one of the new Bluetooth Low Energy (change the battery every year or so) heart monitors that also measure RR (most do) and report heart rate, RR rate, and the average and standard deviation for the past minute.
This is not a medical device and should not be used to make health decisions. However, I find it very interesting to see how the RR and Heart Rates change preceding an AFib adventure and how the RR changes when I get that fluttery feeling in my neck or chest. Of course, as they say, "your mileage may vary".