polar a370 display screens made in china

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Polar"s A370 is a marked improvement on last year"s tracker. The shift to more day-to-day wellness with the 24x7 HR will appeal to many, as will the sleep monitoring. The optical HR sensor is better, but still not perfect, but connected GPS definitely makes this more appealing as a fitness device. In sum, Polar"s on more on a level with its tracker rivals, but there"s still more to do.

The fitness tracker has come a long way since the humble days of the Fitbit Flex, and the Polar A370 is the perfect example. Many of the features once only found in running watches are becoming more of a norm in more basic wearables.

Heart rate, rep counting, distance tracking; some even now include GPS. The Polar A370 doesn"t have it all, but it"s an impressively fleshed out tracker that builds on last year"s A360, with new features and a few performance tweaks.

Like Fitbit and Garmin, Polar is starting to think beyond fitness and towards health and wellness, and as such the A370 now does 24/7 heart rate tracking as well as sleep tracking, the latter using Polar"s new "Sleep Plus" technology. It"s designed to be a tracker you keep on all day, all night - even in the shower - but is it justified by the performance? We"ve been testing it to find out.

Removing the Polar A370 from the box and wrapping it around my wrist, I admit that I was a little put off by the look. It"s hardly a rousing call to the fashion world to up their game, but it"s not exactly hideous - maybe just don"t opt for the orange band. In fact, to the naked eye it"s identical to the A360, with a module that clicks into place. The thin loops keep the strap nicely in place, and I"ve found it perfectly comfortable to wear.

That screen is a different matter though; it"s a vibrant, rich display that"s easily readable unless the sun is really glaring down on it. Like the A360, you can change the watch faces by tapping and holding down on the display. I quite like the face with the bold numbers, which fill up with blue as you work towards your day"s activity goal. Hit the top and you"ll get some congratulatory fireworks. The display is always asleep until you either raise your wrist or tap the button on the bottom left side.

It does lose a few points for its micro USB port, which has a removable cap that I guarantee a lot of people will lose. I"ve already done that a few times. It seems like something that could have easily been avoided, and while the A370 is waterproof, I wouldn"t recommend submerging it with the port exposed.

At 30m waterpoof, the Polar has another upper hand on its Fitbit rival, which is only "splashproof". Polar does say that if you"re going to take it for a swim, the water will interfere with the heart rate tracking as is the case with most optical heart rate sensors. So you"d be better testing other metrics. More on that in a bit.

Polar is following Garmin"s footsteps, in that it started with more fitness-focused devices and is now venturing into the health and wellbeing domain, with the hardcore fitness bases still covered. It"s about how fitness and sleep fit into the rest of your day, rather than separating your life into isolated chunks.

To do this, Polar brings all-day heart rate sampling to the A370, which the A360 didn"t have. If you"re not exercising, the tracker will take a sample every five minutes of the day - but will move up to once per second when you"re in a workout. This is something you can choose to switch on or off, but having it on means you"ll get some juicy graphs telling you when you had your highest and lowest heart rate through the day, and pinpoint your lowest heart rate reading during sleep.

I"ll get into the meat of the heart rate tracking shortly, but for day-to-day measuring I tested it against different chest straps (Polar H10 and Wahoo Tickr X) and other wearables like the Charge 2 and Apple Watch, and found the numbers to be spot-on. So the data you"re getting on these is reliable in that respect at least.

The A370 does quite a few things, but the interface is surprisingly bare; I quite like it. You can see an overview of your day on the display, which shows you your step progress for the day, details on any workouts you"ve done, and, again, your peak and lowest HR recordings.

As is custom with most trackers now, there"s an option to check your current heart rate. Then there"s an option to launch a workout, and Settings. And that"s it. Polar"s keeping things simple here, and I"ve found the experience better for it.

Boot up the workouts and you"ve got a menagerie of activities to pick from, from running to aerobics to strength training to hiking. Note that in all these cases it"s just letting you customize heart rate zones and GPS differently; it won"t start measuring things like reps or cycling cadence unless you pair a separate device. You can use custom-built Polar workouts though, which you"ll need to do on Polar Flow and then sync to the tracker.

Here"s something the A370 doesn"t have: built-in GPS. But, like Fitbit, it has a connected GPS which uses your phone"s signal. In practice, I found this less stable than I expected. I thought that if anything it would make for a stronger connection, even if it meant I had to take my phone with me. But I found that I kept getting a buzz on the wrist and a "GPS signal not found" message on the display. Often this was when I was running in more built-up areas, but we"re talking streets of houses, and even then I"ve had plenty of other wearables keep their GPS lock OK in the same areas.

So, the heart rate tracker is good for 24x7 tracking, but how does it perform in a workout? I took it for a few runs, and, well, it definitely stacked up against both the Wahoo and Polar chest straps - at least until I pushed past the anaerobic zone.

Even then, the Polar did a decent job of keeping up. In the below example, in the last section on a 5K run I started pushing up past 170bpm and the A370 (on the left) kept reasonably in pace. That said the chest strap registered me in the highest zone for 13 minutes, while the A370 only tracked nine minutes, so it wasn"t perfect - which may have something do with what happened on my next run.

I made a point about water interfering with the HR sensor earlier. Well, it appears that includes sweat. On another run where I was putting the tracker up against the Wahoo Tickr X chest strap and started pushing up past 170bpm and up towards 180, the A370 was noticeably lagging in the 60s. I knew this couldn"t have been right anyway - the thumping chest was the giveaway - and sure enough I did a real-time check and saw the difference. I took the A370 off and gave it and my arm a wipe, and then it seemed to find it easier to make its way up again. In sum, the HR is better than a lot of others I"ve tried, but it"s still not perfect.

I really like the idea of A370"s Bluetooth broadcasting feature, which lets you use it as a heart rate sensor with other apps and devices, but in practice only the Wahoo app picked it up. Strava and MapMyFitness both failed to detect it, and I"m not sure why that is. I"ve asked Polar to find out why.

A big new thing about the A370 is the sleep tracking, which uses what Polar calls its "Sleep Plus" technology. You"ll get insights too, based on how Polar reads your night and how you rate your feeling the next morning, though this tends to be quite repetitive and seems too guided by whichever smiley face I choose to present how I feel. Fitbit"s sleep insights are still top dog for now.

Polar"s sleep tracking will break down your night into "Actual sleep" and "Interruptions" which is quite a crude binary when compared to Fitbit"s sleep cycles, for example, which combine heart rate and movement to detect your different levels of sleep - awake, REM, light and deep. Polar will tell you your lowest HR during sleep, but that"s it. Really, it appears to all be done via accelerometer data which, if there"s one thing I can tell you after trying dozens of sleep trackers, just isn"t good enough. This was something Fitbit was able to activate retrospectively on older devices, so I see no reason why Polar can"t make its sleep tracking more detailed over time.

For now, it comes down to how accurate it is at detecting movement. And it"s not bad. Generally I"ve found it pretty good at telling when I"m drifting off. It"s certainly one of the more finely tuned trackers I"ve used for sleep, but it"s not as good as Fitbit"s offering. What"s more, the post-sleep insights are still lacking. Fitbit"s aren"t great either, but Polar"s rely too much on my own feedback, and even then it doesn"t serve me much.

You may already be using the Polar app, in which case you"ll already know how the A370 will play with it. I"ve mentioned the all-day graphs and sleep tracking already, but I"ll point out that you also get a feed that breaks down your days" activity.

To sync the A370 you need to hold down the button and wait for it to establish a connection (oh, make sure the Polar Flow app is open too). Once that"s found it will work its magic, but be warned, I found that it sometimes struggled to make contact, which required me to hit the Bluetooth reset button in Settings.

You can get notifications on the A370 - another thing that have become norm on fitness trackers now - but I stopped using this quite quickly. While you can scroll between messages, you can"t scroll within them, so I was getting a lot of texts where I could only see the first couple of lines.

Polar promises four days of battery, but like the A360 I"ve found that to be a bit conservative. Obviously the more workouts you do with it, the faster you"re going to drain it, but I"ve found myself hovering around the five-day mark. It"s still not as good as some others on the market, and that screen is no doubt partly to blame.

Polar Flow is a sports, fitness, and activity analyzer to be used with Polar GPS sports watches, fitness trackers, and activity trackers.* Follow your training and activity and instantly see your achievements. You can see all of your training and activity data on your phone on the go, and sync them wirelessly to Polar Flow.

"I found Polar Flow to be a terrific complement to the Polar devices I tested, and it is completely in keeping with Polar"s detail-oriented, elite-athlete focus on heart rate training and recovery.

» Learn about your sleeping habits with Polar Sleep Plus™: the intelligent sleep measurement automatically detects the timing, amount, and quality of your sleep. You"ll also receive feedback on your sleep so that you can make changes towards better sleep***.

Tracking your activity is more than just counting steps. Polar A370"s wrist-based heart rate monitor tracks your heart rate 24/7, giving you a more accurate look at your daily activity and calories burned. Easily see how your heart rate responds to the peaks and valleys of your day.

The key to reaching any fitness goal is to exercise at the right intensity. With 40 years of experience, Polar"s unique and scientifically validated Smart Coaching features guide you through your workout and give you motivating feedback to drive you towards your fitness goals.

The Polar A370 features Polar"s advanced Sleep Plus system, which automatically tracks the timing, amount and quality of your sleep and detects any interruptions.

Polar A370 is BFFs with your phone. When you train outdoors, Polar A370 uses your phone"s GPS signal to track your pace, distance and route. Smart notifications keep you in the loop when you don"t have the time to check your phone - even in the middle of your workout, if you want.

Keep moving. Set your daily activity goal and the Polar A370 will motivate you towards your target. Polar Activity Guide shows you how active you"ve been and gives you practical tips on how to reach that 100%.

Smart nutrition choices and exercise go hand-in-hand. Polar A370"s continuous heart rate measurement combined with 24/7 activity tracking ensure your calories burned are measured accurately and reliably.

All you need is 5 minutes and a place to rest. Simply pair your Polar A370 with the Polar H10 heart rate sensor to easily take this test. Developed in conjunction with leading researchers, Polar"s Fitness Test determines your current fitness level and allows you to measure your progress over time.

Polar"s new, proprietary sleep intelligence system gives you a comprehensive overview of your sleep by monitoring your movement with extreme precision. Sleep Plus provides feedback to help you achieve your best night"s sleep.

Looking for motivating feedback after your workout? Polar"s Training Benefit immediately explains what type of physiological benefit you gained from your training.

Train for a running event with a personal and adaptive training plan in Polar Flow. Choose from four different targets, 5K, 10K, half marathon and marathon, and get a training plan that fits you and your goals.

Tracking your activity is more than just counting steps. Polar A370"s wrist-based heart rate monitor tracks your heart rate 24/7, giving you a more accurate look at your daily activity and calories burned. Easily see how your heart rate responds to the peaks and valleys of your day.

The key to reaching any fitness goal is to exercise at the right intensity. With 40 years of experience, Polar"s unique and scientifically validated Smart Coaching features guide you through your workout and give you motivating feedback to drive you towards your fitness goals.

The Polar A370 features Polar"s advanced Sleep Plus system, which automatically tracks the timing, amount and quality of your sleep and detects any interruptions.

Polar A370 is BFFs with your phone. When you train outdoors, Polar A370 uses your phone"s GPS signal to track your pace, distance and route. Smart notifications keep you in the loop when you don"t have the time to check your phone - even in the middle of your workout, if you want.

Keep moving. Set your daily activity goal and the Polar A370 will motivate you towards your target. Polar Activity Guide shows you how active you"ve been and gives you practical tips on how to reach that 100%.

Smart nutrition choices and exercise go hand-in-hand. Polar A370"s continuous heart rate measurement combined with 24/7 activity tracking ensure your calories burned are measured accurately and reliably.

All you need is 5 minutes and a place to rest. Simply pair your Polar A370 with the Polar H10 heart rate sensor to easily take this test. Developed in conjunction with leading researchers, Polar"s Fitness Test determines your current fitness level and allows you to measure your progress over time.

Polar"s new, proprietary sleep intelligence system gives you a comprehensive overview of your sleep by monitoring your movement with extreme precision. Sleep Plus provides feedback to help you achieve your best night"s sleep.

Looking for motivating feedback after your workout? Polar"s Training Benefit immediately explains what type of physiological benefit you gained from your training.

Train for a running event with a personal and adaptive training plan in Polar Flow. Choose from four different targets, 5K, 10K, half marathon and marathon, and get a training plan that fits you and your goals.

Polar"s new A370 fitness-tracking wristband is a course correction from its predecessor, the A360, which was lacking in a few key areas. The A370 improves upon the last-gen model, with continuous heart-rate monitoring, GPS (sort of), an easier-to-fasten band clasp and a new sleep-tracking tool called Polar Sleep Plus.

But the $179 A370 is also a direct shot at Fitbit, the category leader, with a handful of marquee features yanked straight from last year"s best-selling Fitbit Charge 2. Can Polar out-Fitbit Fitbit? Spoiler alert: no.

The A370 looks almost exactly the same as the A360. Both have beautiful, bright, full-color TFT capacitive touch screens that show the time when you move your wrist. Fitbit"s Charge 2 also has a touch display, but I prefer the A370"s because it"s much longer and can show more information at a glance.

When you swipe down from the main clock view, you"ll see settings, your heart rate and an overview of your daily activity. You can also start a training session from that menu. A bigger display makes it easier to see data at a glance while you"re running outside, which is a bonus.

To sync the tracker with the Polar Flow app, press and hold the side button on the A370. (It"s bizarre that this function has a dedicated hardware button.) The same button will pause or end a workout. The A370 supports phone notifications from any app, which is far better than what the Charge 2 offers: limited text, call and calendar alerts. Like the Charge 2, the A370 also enables alarms and sends you messages encouraging you to move. All of these alerts are accompanied by a strong vibration, which will definitely wake you from a dead sleep. Trust me.

But the A370 still looks very much like a run-of-the-mill fitness band. Its six interchangeable straps are available only in a sporty elastomer material, which you won"t want to wear with a dressy outfit or to a fancy event. Polar offers two band lengths, small and medium/large, but if you have a small wrist, the A370 will look massive. There"s no getting around it. I prefer the size of Fitbit"s Alta HR over both the Charge 2 and the A370, which both look ridiculous on me. But the A370"s larger display almost makes up for its all-around huge size.

I do like the in-app sleep-continuity rating, which tells me how many times I woke during the night, and the ability to give my own feedback on each night"s sleep. Polar"s nightly report also includes your lowest heart rate during sleep, which Fitbit"s doesn"t. While that data point is probably more useful to people with sleep disorders or heart problems, I still found it fascinating.

Optical heart rate sensors have improved by leaps and bounds over the last few years. I took the A370 on several 3-mile runs over the course of a week and a half, and it consistently and accurately tracked my heart rate. I strapped a Polar H10 heart rate monitor to my chest for comparison and got almost exactly the same results.

Frankly, the connected GPS was annoying. First you have to change your smartphone settings to allow Polar Flow to constantly track your location, which is a setting I hate to turn on for any app. Without doing that, you won"t get maps of your routes. Even after I changed my settings, the A370 kept losing the GPS signal on my morning runs and vibrating my wrist every single time to alert me. That may have been the fault of my iPhone 7 Plus and Brooklyn"s tree-lined streets and parks, but it was still irritating. The Polar Flow app still managed to accurately map my route and graph my pace per mile, but those constant vibrations killed me.

The Activity tab gives you an overview of your day with charts and graphs galore, and includes data on workouts and sleep. But then workouts and sleep get their own tabs with deeper insights, because why not? The whole app could use a streamlined redesign. This is where Fitbit shines. Its app is gorgeous; its social features are easy to find and use, and I don"t have to dig around to find the data I want to see.I took the A370 on several 3-mile runs over the course of a week and a half, and it consistently and accurately tracked my heart rate.

Polar has another app, Polar Beat, which syncs with the company"s H10 chest strap and offers voice coaching. That app looks like a million bucks with a very Apple-inspired design, but it offers far fewer features than Polar Flow. If Polar would marry the two, I would love the A370 a whole lot more.

The A370 wins bonus points for using a micro USB cable instead of a proprietary charger, though the port cover feels flimsy, like I might lose it at any moment.

The A370 is a vast improvement over the A360. It offers accurate, continuous heart-rate tracking; connected GPS; deeper sleep insights; and a better band clasp at a lower price than Polar"s previous band.

If you"re a serious athlete, a more fully-featured GPS watch, such as the Garmin Forerunner 35, would be a better investment. If you just want a fitness band that can track your exercise and sleep without too much fuss, the A370 is a good option. But Fitbit"s Charge 2 is less expensive and offers many of the same features, with the bonus of a great app and interchangeable bands that can transition from the gym to the office.Today"s best Polar A370 deals

Your ultimate training buddy and keen supporter of an active lifestyle outside the gym too, Polar A370 helps you train at the right intensity and reminds you to get up and move if you stay put for too long.

Tracking your activity is more than just counting steps. Polar A370’s wrist-based heart rate monitor tracks your heart rate 24/7, giving you a more accurate look at your daily activity and calories burned.

The key to reaching any fitness goal is to exercise at the right intensity. Polar’s advanced Sleep Plus sleep analysis makes you an expert on your own sleep and helps you towards a more balanced lifestyle.

The Polar A370 features Polar’s advanced Sleep Plus system, which automatically tracks the timing, amount and quality of your sleep and detects any interruptions.

When you run on the treadmill, Polar A370 tracks your speed and distance from your wrist movements. It does that outdoors as well so you don’t need to carry your phone with you on your runs.

Track your activity, analyse your progress and achieve more with Polar Flow – the complete fitness and training platform available on desktop and mobile.

The training diary in Polar Flow stores and visualizes all your workouts and stats. There are 100+ sports available, including LES MILLS workouts. Plan your workouts, follow your recovery and find the balance for training and rest.

Keep moving. Set your daily activity goal and the Polar A370 will motivate you towards your target. Polar Activity Guide shows you how active you’ve been and gives you practical tips on how to reach that 100%.

Polar’s advanced sleep tracking technology gives you insights to your sleep. Sleep Plus provides feedback to help you achieve your best night’s sleep.

Keep track of the calories you’ve burned. Polar A370’s continuous heart rate measurement combined with 24/7 activity tracking ensure your calories burned are measured accurately and reliably.

Looking for motivating feedback after your workout? Polar’s Training Benefit immediately explains what type of physiological benefit you gained from your training.

Join forces with your phone to get all the data you need. Using your phone’s GPS signal, the Polar A370 tracks your speed, distance and route during your favorite outdoor sports.

Heart rate tracking with Polar A370 is simpler than ever. Your heart rate is measured easily, conveniently and accurately with Polar’s proprietary 2-LED optical heart rate solution.*

With over one hundred different options to choose from, Polar makes it easy to pick the right sport profile for every exercise session. Further personalize your workout experience by customizing different heart rate zones for each sport.

Connect via Bluetooth Smart to see notifications from your mobile phone directly on the screen of your Polar A370. Get alerts for incoming calls, messages, emails, calendar events and more.

Not a fan of running with your phone? Jump on the treadmill or go for a run outdoors and the Polar A370 will track your pace and distance from the movements of your wrist.

Plan your workouts in Polar Flow and sync them directly to your Polar A370 to get guidance throughout your session. You can save your favorite workouts on your Polar A370 and do them again whenever you want.

Train for a running event with a personal and adaptive training plan in Polar Flow. Choose from four different targets, 5K, 10K, half marathon and marathon, and get a training plan that fits you and your goals.

After just shy of five years since Polar’s last multisport product was announced – the replacement for it is finally here: The Vantage series. This series actually breaks the product line into two models, the Vantage V being the higher end touchscreen edition, and the Vantage M being the mid-range non-touchscreen product. Feature wise, they are nearly very similar, both supporting full triathlon modes.

That’s priced at $279USD/EUR. That’s an awesome deal, though it’s also on-par price-wise with the Suunto Spartan Trainer Wrist HR.  In talking with Polar – they were eyeing that watch as their main competitor in this space for the Vantage M.

Meanwhile, as the Vantage M doesn’t have the swanky etching pattern, it does make up for it by having swappable straps. They use standard watch quick release straps. That’s a feature the Vantage V lacks.  Speaking of which, Polar is selling a few straps of their own, and I think the grey one actually looks pretty nice.  The orange will be appropriate for Strava employees.

The muscle load will come primarily from running workouts on the Vantage V with running power, as well as cycling workouts with a cycling power meter. Whereas the perceived effort is asked of you every time you open up the Polar Flow smartphone app and look at one of your workouts:

In many ways, the training load is very similar to what we see with FirstBeat, and even uses some of the same terminology (which in turn is also based on TRIMP).  You can see some of how this flows from one of the pages of a presentation I got from Polar.  Note that the user interface elements on these screens (and really anywhere you see photos in my post) aren’t necessarily final.

In discussing the features with them it takes upwards of a month to get really solid data out of it, and I’m just over a week now – so things are still a bit jello-like in terms of the status it gives me. But I can see it starting to turn a bit of a corner and giving me more useful feedback.  Here’s a shot from Polar on what this should look like longer term:

The next piece of that puzzle is the new Recovery Pro metrics (only on Vantage V). This is driven by data from the Polar H10 HR strap. So if you don’t have that chest strap, you won’t get these metrics. They don’t believe that the optical HR sensor gives them enough accuracy of HRV data to get these details correct. I don’t necessarily disagree with them, but I also don’t think it’s black and white either. I think there’s some middle-ground like what Suunto and Garmin have implemented.

Of course, Polar has done all their own legwork here for both training load and recovery, as opposed to licensing that from FirstBeat like Garmin, Suunto, and probably a dozen others have done.  In some ways, I wonder if that was the right decision. Which isn’t a slight on Polar’s crew – not at all, nor is a direct praise of FirstBeat. Rather, it’s purely a business thought. Polar’s spent a lot of time on something that best I can tell is no better than what FirstBeat offered. And as I’ve noted in the past, many of the people working in this particular space tend to move around between these companies (helped by the fact that they’re all located in Finland).  But I just look at the totality of new features on the Vantage series and wonder if the ROI was there for this, compared to just licensing it.

Next, there’s the settings menu, which they’ve re-aligned a bit of how things look in there. It’s a nice change, a bit cleaner. And for those familiar with the Polar interface you’ll recognize most of the groupings.

And now’s a good time to talk about that beast of an optical HR sensor. I’d love to have sat in on the conversations on the design of this one. It’s got 9, yes 9 LED’s on it. It’s got four sets of dual red/green LED’s, followed by an extra green. And technically, I just lied to you. There’s also an orange LED in there too (absolute center pairing) – making that 10 LED’s. But the orange one isn’t used at this point and Polar isn’t seeing the benefit to enabling it based on their testing to date.

One interesting tidbit that Polar will be doing behind the scenes is retroactively correcting the optical HR readings, within 60-second blocks. So while you’re working out you might see a given incorrect reading (such as 205bpm), but then 60 seconds later the watch will actually correct that in the file in the watch after it does some post-processing.

Polar is looking at patterns more broadly than just typical instant HR validation to correct for errors, and is instead retroactively looking at bits where it got things wrong and fixing them before you ever even upload the file. Of course, it’s a bit hard for me to demonstrate this at this point, but it was pretty interesting to hear that Polar is doing it.

Polar was pretty clear that they wanted to have the most accurate optical HR sensor. And while I don’t have enough data yet to confirm that, early results seem positive. And if nothing else, they could use all those LED lights to land planes in the fog at the local airport.

Ok, onto running we go. Simply because by choosing running I can show you running power. Once we’ve started our run the touchscreen gets disabled and changing pages occurs via button presses – just like most watches.  You can customize these pages on Polar Flow like past Polar watches.

The running power is displayed on what appears to be about a 10-second smoothed average. I based that on how long it took when I stopped running for the power to come down. At this point I think there’s actually a bit too much smoothing in it, but that’s minor stuff they can tweak.  In any event, the running power is based on GPS pace, and not footpod or wrist-detection pace. This is notable because it does NOT work indoors (treadmill), nor should it work in a tunnel Polar tells me (I haven’t found a tunnel long enough to meaningfully test it yet).  Assuming you’re outside though, this data will be written to your files just like a cycling power meter. And 3rd party apps can easily handle it as well.

The next question is whether or not running power is ‘accurate’. Well, first off, if anyone says that it’s accurate or inaccurate, just close that browser tab. Seriously, there’s no definition of that agreed upon by anyone out there with any meaningful scientific credentials. Instead, I’d argue that running power is more in the ‘is it plausible’ range, with a side of ‘is it at least consistent’.  Even Polar noted in my discussions with them that there are many interpretations of how to measure running power and at which point it should be measured.

But certainly you’ll want to know how it compares on the same run to Stryd or Garmin Running Power? No problem, I’ve got you covered down below in the accuracy section on that bit. Short version: It’s half-way in between them. Again, no idea whos right or wrong. But I did encourage Polar to be as open as Stryd, Garmin, and RunScribe have been in terms of publishing papers and studies that support their algorithm and thinking.

Like others, Polar has done a bunch of work on validation here. They too went to a force-plate treadmill to validate their power metrics, and the results they shared in a presentation seem promising. They also went out and did some pretty technical measuring of hills and did all the science math backwards to validate the numbers after test runners ran them. But again, so did Stryd – yet these two companies don’t match on the same run.

Now, don’t mistake me for thinking I’m down on Polar. Cause really, I’m definitely not. Instead, I’m just ‘less optimistic’ about running power in general. Mostly because we can’t seem to get any two companies to agree.  As such, I think it’s tough for consumers (or myself) to know what to make of it. Or whether to trust it when training. Similarly, as much as we as humans want our cycling and running power numbers to equate, there’s no science that says they should. Just like our heart rate numbers for cycling and running certainly don’t match for the same perceived effort.

Moving along to other newness, we’ve got Polar leveraging a new GPS sensor/chipset in their Vantage series. They’ve switched from SiRF to Sony, just like Suunto did in joining forces with Sony. At present Polar is leveraging GLONASS, but not yet Galileo. That’s a limitation by Sony, which doesn’t yet support it. Polar says there’s a chance they’ll be able to update it down the road via firmware update, but that’ll really just depend on Sony doing so.

With this new GPS chipset, Polar is going to be able to get a whopping 40 hours of GPS and optical HR on recording time, all at 1-second intervals. That easily surpasses the 1-second rates of Garmin and Suunto.  But it also falls short of Suunto and Garmin’s less-frequent recording rates aimed at really long ultrarunners. Polar doesn’t have any secondary less-frequent update modes on the Vantage series like it had on the V800.

Finally, as I noted up in the earlier section – there is no routing or navigation on the Vantage series at this point. They do plan to add in a basic “back to start navigation” by the end of March 2019, but there’s no plans for downloadable route navigation like seen on past Polar products. That might make this a tough sell at $499 for some folks, given many cheaper products have that as a baseline.  And once in the Vantage V’s price point, it’s honestly unheard of to not have breadcrumb style navigation and routing. Still, Polar did note in my meeting with them that they’re focused on paying attention to feedback and will certainly take things into account going forward.

And just to be a bit clear on why these features are missing: The Vantage series is a complete code re-write for Polar. Thus unlike new watches of the past where they were essentially just porting code chunks over to new hardware, Polar re-wrote everything here and simply had to make hard choices on what to keep or not. In some ways this reminds me of what Suunto did moving from the Ambit series to the Spartan series.

Now, before we dive into things I do want to stress this is early data. The product is very much still in beta, and isn’t expected to start shipping until later in October. So we’re talking 6-7 weeks away here. That means things will likely get better (though, in rare cases I’ve also seen some products get worse too).  Still, Polar came to the Netherlands to meet with me and hand over watches for me to do my thing with. Thus, good or bad I’m going to share those early results.  Since then I’ve done 1-3 workouts per day with the watch, plus I’ve been wearing it 24×7.

As you can see, things are very close to each other.  And if you had looked past the odd noise of the TICKR-X in the earlier screenshot, you’d have noticed that all four basically agreed.  These were 2-minutes of running at 6:30/mile pace, followed by 60 seconds of 7:30/mile pace. Repeated. Solid stuff.  The blocky bits is just cause we’re super zoomed in, so one 1BPM is causing a bit more of a blocky look at 1-second intervals.

(Note above that the vast majority of those are Polar errors, but the Fenix isn’t without an error or two of its own, which I highlighted with a non-arrow line.)

Now again, as noted, it’s beta. And Polar confirmed they’re working on it (they’ve seen these tracks of mine). So certainly we’ll give them time to sort things out. But I’d also keep this tweet of mine in mind too.  This is all somewhat ironic because during my meetings with them I asked how they were finding the Sony GPS chipset, given Suunto had some teething pains with it (and still does to some degree as you can see above).  They were pretty confident at the time that they were in a good spot, even noting that Suunto probably paved the way for them a bit on early Sony aspects that would ultimately benefit Polar as well.  Unfortunately, that doesn’t yet seem to be the case.

Oh, and finally, running power. As noted above – I’m not about to declare any winner in this battle. I’m just going to plop the data out there and let folks decide what they want to decide.  Here’s one run of mine comparing Polar Running Power (teal) vs Garmin Running Power (purple):

I’ve added the Polar Vantage V & M into the product comparison tool, which means you can compare it against just about anything you want.  For the purposes of this chart I’ve compared the Polar Vantage V with the Suunto 9 and the Garmin Fenix 5 Plus.  Of course, you could remove the Plus part and go with the base Fenix 5 and that’d reduce the price a fair bit (and remove music/contactless payments/maps).  But you can do all that within the product comparison tool here, comparing it against all other GPS watches I’ve ran with to your heart’s content.

From a purely aesthetic and hardware standpoint, the Vantage series is a huge improvement in my opinion. While the older V800 did its job, I’m not sure there were a ton of people that called that baby beautiful. However, I really like the design of the Vantage V especially. The nuance in the etching of the band and the underside of the bezel is really well executed. Same goes for the button etching.  And of course, dem optical HR sensors! It’s clear Polar has spent a good chunk of the time between iterations on the industrial design elements, and it shows.

The challenge though I see for Polar at this point is the software side. In most cases you want a new product to generally carry with it all the features of the previous unit and then add new cool stuff. Polar checked off the ‘cool new stuff’ box, but did so at the expense of some existing features not being in the current watch. While smartphone notifications will come in a future update, more outdoor focused features like track/route navigation aren’t expected to.

Polar was clear in my meeting that they aren’t going to try and compete with Garmin on feature-count. Suunto mirrored those exact words when we met prior to the Suunto 9 launch. Neither has the resources to challenge Garmin on features. Instead, both are aiming to narrow their focus on the performance side of the house. With Polar that focuses heavily on heart rate driven training load and recovery metrics, while also expanding to their own running power solution. Whereas with Suunto that expands more towards ultra runners and their crazy long battery life options.  Both companies have shifted to Sony GPS chipsets, which may work out long term – but short term seems to be challenging for both, based on my testing.

Still I’m looking forward to seeing how the Polar matures over the next 6 or so weeks as they near shipping release. The current plan calls for them to start shipping in late October.  I’ll drop my in-depth review on or slightly after they start shipping.

If you"re shopping for the Polar Vantage M or any other accessory items, please consider using the affiliate links below! As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. It doesn’t cost you anything extra, but your purchases help support this website a lot. Even more, if you use Backcountry.com or Competitive Cyclist with coupon code DCRAINMAKER, first time users save 15% on applicable products!

This is a great strap, especially if you"re going to the gym. It"s dual ANT+/Bluetooth Smart, but it also supports the 5kHz analog heart rate transmission for older gym equipment. Note that it only accepts a single Bluetooth connection, versus dual-connections for the Polar H10.

I"d argue the Polar OH1 Plus is the best optical HR sensor out there. So while it might seem odd to get this when your watch also has a optical HR sensor, this one is just better most of the time. Plus, it also has workout recording storage. Dual ANT+/Bluetooth.

The Polar Verity Sense is the newer variant of the Polar OH1 Plus. And while it might seem odd to get this when your watch also has a optical HR sensor, this one is just better most of the time. Plus, it also has workout recording storage. Dual ANT+/Bluetooth.

If you"re shopping for the Polar Vantage M or any other accessory items, please consider using the affiliate links below! As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. It doesn’t cost you anything extra, but your purchases help support this website a lot. Even more, if you use Backcountry.com or Competitive Cyclist with coupon code DCRAINMAKER, first time users save 15% on applicable products!

This is a great strap, especially if you"re going to the gym. It"s dual ANT+/Bluetooth Smart, but it also supports the 5kHz analog heart rate transmission for older gym equipment. Note that it only accepts a single Bluetooth connection, versus dual-connections for the Polar H10.

I"d argue the Polar OH1 Plus is the best optical HR sensor out there. So while it might seem odd to get this when your watch also has a optical HR sensor, this one is just better most of the time. Plus, it also has workout recording storage. Dual ANT+/Bluetooth.

The Polar Verity Sense is the newer variant of the Polar OH1 Plus. And while it might seem odd to get this when your watch also has a optical HR sensor, this one is just better most of the time. Plus, it also has workout recording storage. Dual ANT+/Bluetooth.

Polar Electro Oy (globally known as Polar) is a manufacturer of sports training computers, particularly known for developing the world"s first wireless heart rate monitor.

The company is based in Kempele, Finland and was founded in 1977. Polar has approximately 1,200 employees worldwide, it has 26 subsidiaries that supply over 35,000 retail outlets in more than 80 countries. Polar manufactures a range of heart rate monitoring devices and accessories for athletic training and fitness and also to measure heart rate variability.

In 1975, there was no accurate way to measure heart rate during training, and the idea of a wireless, portable heart rate monitor was conceived on a cross-country skiing track in Finland.EKG heart rate monitor.Tunturi Pulser. In 1982, Polar launched the world"s first wearable wire-free heart rate monitor, the Sport Tester PE 2000.

Today, Polar has products ranging from basic models for beginners to fitness enthusiasts and training systems designed for elite athletes. Polar has also developed heart rate monitoring and training systems for equestrian sports. Polar technology and devices are widely used in various scientific studies,

In July 2018, Dutch newspaper De Correspondent revealed that Polar"s fitness app shows users on the map, making it possible to find out their real names, profession and home addresses.

Matt Fitzgerald (18 June 2005). Runner"s World The Cutting-Edge Runner: How to Use the Latest Science and Technology to Run Longer, Stronger, and Faster. Rodale. pp. 63–. ISBN 978-1-59486-091-1. The Finnish company Polar Electro, founded in 1977, was the first to sell wireless heart rate monitors for athletes and still dominates this market.

Michael Czinkota; Ilkka Ronkainen (18 August 2006). International Marketing. Cengage Learning. pp. 310–. ISBN 0-324-31702-6. The origins of the Finnish sports instruments producer Polar Electro can be traced back to the need of cross-country skiing ... By the year 1982, the technology had advanced to the point that the first wireless heart rate monitor was ready.

Joe Friel (1 June 2009). Total Heart Rate Training: Customize and Maximize Your Workout Using a Heart Rate Monitor. Ulysses Press. pp. 13–. ISBN 978-1-56975-389-7. Polar introduced the first wireless heart rate monitor using electric field data transfer—the Sport Tester PE 2000. The next year, the company came out with a device containing a computer interface—the Sport Tester ...

Sally Edwards (1 January 1993). The Heart Rate Monitor Book. Polar CIC. pp. 127–. ISBN 978-0-9634633-0-2. In 1982 Polar Electro Oy introduced the world to the first wireless heart rate monitors. These first generation heart rate monitors (the "PE 2000s") were released onto the market and readily accepted by athletes, particularly at the elite and ...

Jeroen Scheerder (2009). Vlaanderen loopt! Sociaal-wetenschappelijk onderzoek naar de loopsportmarkt (in Dutch). Academia Press. pp. 75–. ISBN 978-90-382-1484-9. 1982 Polar lanceert de Sport Tester PE2000, de eerste draadloze hartslagmeter

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