(*** Update: there has since been an in-depth review for both the Vantage M and the Vantage V GPS watches. Click the links for more information.)
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.
These new models completely revamp the underlying operating system of the watch, not to mention the hardware too. The company has changed GPS chipset vendors, alongside creating the mother of all optical heart rate sensors with 9 LED’s in it. Not to mention being the first company to introduce running power at the wrist on the Vantage V (no other sensors required).
At the same time, due to the complete revamp of the watch, there’s a number of past features that didn’t make the cut. Some permanently, and some temporarily. For example, there’s no more navigation/routing capabilities, nor smartphone notifications. I dive into all the cuts down a bit lower.
Which, is a good time to note that I’ve got loaner Vantage V and Vantage M watches, which I’ve been using on workouts for a short time now. As usual, once I’m done with these units I’ll publish an in-depth review and send them back. As such, this is not a review, in-depth or otherwise. Simply put – the product is too far away from completion to do a review at this time, with too many features in beta or missing. But that’s cool, that’s why I have hands-on posts like this. Give you a feel for it as a bit of a preview.
Oh, and if you don’t want to read a bunch of text, watch this semi-condensed version of it here in video format:
With that, let’s get cookin’.
What’s new:
I always like condensing everything down into a single bulleted section of newness. It helps you filter the cool stuff from the marketing fluff. So let’s dive straight away into it. Fear not, down below in the ‘overview’ section I go through things in more detail too. Note I’m looking at the ‘what’s new’ from the perspective primarily of the V800 (it’s predecessor). Also, this list is specifically for the Vantage V:
– Addition of optical heart rate sensor (both for workouts and 24×7 HR)
– Added electronic skin-contact sensor to validate a human is attached to watch
– Added color touchscreen, still retains buttons for all athletic functions
– Changed GPS chipset maker to that of Sony (same as what Suunto 9 did recently)
– Changed max GPS-battery life to 40-hours 1-second recording with optical HR too
– Added running power from the wrist (no sensors required)
– Added new training load metrics (cardio/muscle/perceived stats)
– Added new ‘Recovery Pro’ metrics (daily recovery, training, and balance stats) – requires H10 chest strap.
– Added both segmented real-time and post-processing of optical HR data to fix quirks (I’ll explain later)
– Made watch round, from rectangular shape previously
– Reduced weight of watch from 79g to 66g
The price is $499USD/EUR for the base models in orange, white, or black. It’s $549USD/EUR for the bundle with the Polar H10 HR chest strap.
When it comes to the Vantage M, here’s the core differences to the Vantage V:
– No barometric altimeter
– No native running power, as it lacks a barometric altimeter (still works with 3rd party running power like Stryd though)
– GPS 1-second battery down to 30 hours instead of 40 hours (but seriously, that’s still incredible)
– Added swappable straps using industry standard quick release bands (the Vantage V doesn’t have this)
– Not a touch-screen, just buttons only
– No Recovery Pro metrics (but does have other training load metrics)
– Weight is a mere 45g instead of 66g
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.
But it’s not all bubbles and rainbows. The following features were removed from the Vantage V/M series, but are slated to be re-added by the end of Q1 2019 (so by March 31st), but they noted some features will likely be by end of year:
– Smartphone notifications (i.e. call/text notifications)
– Fitness test functionality
– Standalone device timers
– Strava Segments
– Back to start navigation
– Additional trailing summary details on workouts
The following features were removed, without specific/current plans to re-implement in the Vantage series:
– GoPro Action Cam Control
– Following a downloaded route (navigation of tracks)
– Reduced GPS recording rate activities (i.e. beyond 40hrs of GPS time, the V800 also supported a reduced recording rate to 50hrs)
– No longer option to use HR strap while swimming, only optical HR sensor [Older 5hz straps no longer supported]
Note that for functions/features that aren’t in the beta yet but are slated to be included by the time the product ships late next month, I haven’t listed those. In my mind, that’s simply just beta finalization. Whereas the lists above are specific features that have been decided upon already as the ‘end-state’ of the product.
Phew, got all that? Good, let’s move onto a more photographic based section into the overview.
Overview:
So let’s get right into things, starting with the touchscreen of the Vantage V. From a practical standpoint there’s no screen menu differences between the Vantage V and Vantage M. The only difference is you can’t control the Vantage M by the screen as it doesn’t have a touchscreen. Plus of course the smaller battery and lack of some metrics I’ll call out when I get to them. But otherwise, it all feels the same.
In the case of the Vantage V, it’s actually not a case of being able to use either buttons or touchscreen. In fact, you have to use a blend of the two for certain things. For example, in order to get to the different dashboard pages (like activity stats), you have to use the touchscreen, and then confirm with a button press. Inversely, in workout mode, the touchscreen is entirely disabled.
From a responsiveness standpoint, you can see it in the video up above. It’s beta, so I won’t hold it against them at this point. In my experience testing a lot of devices, touchscreen optimization tends to be one of the last things to come together for companies. I would say that they’re under-utilizing the buttons though. For example, when I’m at the main watch-face some buttons have zero purpose (pressing them does nothing). As my two-year-old would say – every button pressed should do something. Otherwise, you just assume it’s broke.
Since we chatted buttons we should at least talk hardware for a moment. The buttons have a pretty nice etching in them, as does the rest of the band of the Vantage V. The Vantage M buttons (below on the white unit) are a bit more simplistic.
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.
Back on the watch, you can swipe to access the different watch face dashboards. One for activity, another for training load, past workouts, and heart rate. Some features aren’t implemented yet, so my understanding is Recovery Pro will also show here once enabled on the unit itself. In the case of the Vantage M, you use the up/down buttons to access these.
You can dive into each of these by pressing the button. For example, here’s the new training load status. This includes your cardio training load, but will also include your muscle load and perceived effort as well.
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:
And then the two overlaid:
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.
The way this feature works is that after putting on the H10 strap you’ll do an Orthostatic test. That’s roughly two minutes of lying down followed by two minutes of standing. It measures your HR during that time. After which it’ll give you a score:
Once you have three days of scores you’ll start to get recovery information. This information will show up in a variety of places, but at present it’s not fully implemented in the app/site (due to beta state).
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.
Sensor pairing is in there, but at present the beta can’t yet pair 3rd party sensors – so I can’t quite test that yet (probably within the next week or so). Once enabled, it’ll be Bluetooth Smart sensors of the usual variety. Cycling power, heart rate sensors, speed sensors, cadence sensors, and also 3rd party running power sensors. No ANT+ sensors supported here.
Next, let’s hit up some of the sports modes. There’s two ways to get there. The first is to long-hold the right red button, or the second is to navigate via the lower left button to sports.
Once there you’ll see all the modes synced from the watch. You’ll see the little HR icon illuminate once it has optical HR lock, as well as the GPS icon once it has GPS lock. All of this happens pretty quick.
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.
On the inside, you’ll see those four silver dots. Sure, they enable charging of the device on the charging clip, and also sync of data when attached via USB. But more importantly, they’re also electrical sensors that can measure the quality of the skin contact. They can use that to determine whether or not you’re wearing the watch, so they don’t bother to turn on the sensors if not.
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.
Most of the pages shown here are pretty much the norm – not much new. Common metrics like pace, heart rate, distance, time, etc… Except now it’s all in pretty color graphs and with nice clarity – and the screen is super clear.
The biggie though is running power. That’s coming directly from the wrist, with no extra sensors needed. This is only on the Vantage V though because that’s the only one that has a barometric altimeter. The Vantage M lacks that and thus lacks the quality of data needed. This is the same requirement as Garmin has for their running power (but their power also requires an extra sensor).
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.
You can see it below shown on one of my runs this past weekend, lower down in the graphs, as well as up above in the summary section.
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.
Early GPS & HR Test Data:
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.
First, let’s start with the good – the new optical HR sensor. Everything I’m seeing is showing some very nice results there across a variety of workouts. I’ve done indoor and outdoor rides, a pile of runs at varying intensities, and also gym circuit/core workouts. So far, so good.
For example, here is a run I did last night. I started off with a simple warm-up, and then went into a series of intervals. I had the Vantage V on my left wrist and the Vantage M on my right wrist. I also recorded a Wahoo TICKR-X chest strap to a Garmin Fenix 5 Plus (not on my wrists), and a Scosche 24 to a Suunto 9 (also not on my wrist). Here’s the data set.
Now, I’m going to remove the TICKR-X, because it was drunk (sigh…again). Here’s what’s left:
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.
I then threw in a couple sprints at about a 5:30/mile-ish pace for the fun of it, these were 40 seconds long each. You can see the Scosche 24 is tracking the intervals just a slight bit faster (both increase in intensity and recovery). But not bad.
Here’s another run. For example this hour of alternating mile intervals, easy and hard(And again, TICKR-X, you’re drunk, go home):
I’m going at a high level on this because this isn’t a review. But you can easily click any of those links to dig into the data live online to your heart’s content. Get it, heart’s content? You know, heart rate? Oh never mind.
Next, off to the bike we go, and here’s a couple-hour ride I did outdoors. Without question, this is the most solid optical HR data I’ve seen while riding. Oh, and that wonkiness around 1hr23min? Was flying a drone while riding, so I won’t hold it against it there. Anyway, the data set.
As you can see it’s perfectly on-target the vast majority of the time with the TICKR-X and Scosche 24 straps, even when the Fenix 5 Plus on the other wrist takes a turn for…somewhere.
So, with the optical HR sensor looking good – let’s talk about GPS.
Gulp.
Well, it’s beta, right?
In short, it shorts a lot. The watch can’t seem to find a corner it doesn’t like cutting. Which ultimately ends up with me having all my runs being consistently shorter than the Suunto 9 and Garmin Fenix 5 Plus (as well as Suunto Trainer Wrist HR). This doesn’t seem to be an issue while cycling though. For example, this run might look good at a high level:
But once you dig into the details you can see that almost every time I come around a corner it flies through it. And this is largely off in the countryside:
In Vondelpark, which is wide open spaces both units are all over the place:
If I head into the trickery of the ‘city’ (which is kinda laughable in Amsterdam as the city buildings are really only 3-5 stories in most cases, hardly a GPS issue), you’ll see it gets even worse (shown are both Vantage M and Vantage V tracks, plus the Suunto 9 and Fenix 5 Plus):
(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):
And here’s another run of mine comparing Polar Running Power (teal) vs Stryd Running Power (purple):
Maybe in my next run I’ll actually manage to have both the Stryd and Garmin pods not have dead batteries when I start my run. Sigh. Sometimes you just can’t win. Oh, and if y’all behave I’ll toss in the newest of new RunScribe pods that I got at my hotel last night. Note that you can see the running power data on both of those sets under the section on the DCR Analyzer links called ‘Developer Fields’.
In any case – it’s all a bit too soon to declare whether or not the Vantage series is accurate in optical HR, GPS, and I suppose running power. But if beta improves over time then I’d say that optical HR is in a really solid spot, and we just need GPS to join it.
(Note: All of the charts in these accuracy portions were created using the DCR Analyzer tool. It allows you to compare power meters/trainers, heart rate, cadence, speed/pace, GPS tracks and plenty more. You can use it as well for your own gadget comparisons, more details here.)
Product Comparison:
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.
Again, don’t forget you can mix and match all the products in the database to make your own comparison charts here.
Wrap-up:
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.
With that – thanks for reading and feel free to drop any questions down below.
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Hopefully you found this review/post useful. At the end of the day, I’m an athlete just like you looking for the most detail possible on a new purchase – so my review is written from the standpoint of how I used the device. The reviews generally take a lot of hours to put together, so it’s a fair bit of work (and labor of love). As you probably noticed by looking below, I also take time to answer all the questions posted in the comments – and there’s quite a bit of detail in there as well.
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And finally, here’s a handy list of accessories that work well with this unit (and some that I showed in the review). Given the unit pairs with just about any Bluetooth Smart sport sensors, you can use just about anything though.
This dual ANT+/Bluetooth Smart sensor will transmit cadence not only to your bike computer/watch, but also 3rd party apps like Zwift, TrainerRoad, and more.
Speed sensors are primarily useful for offroad usage. I don't find much of a need for one while road-cycling, but for mountain bike trails they can help alleviate speed/distance issues with poor GPS reception in dense trees.
This is a strap I often use in testing/comparisons. It's dual ANT+/Bluetooth Smart, but it also supports the 5kHz analog heart rate transmission for older gym equipment. Also, it has workout storage/recording in it and supports two Bluetooth connections.
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.
And of course – you can always sign-up to be a DCR Supporter! That gets you an ad-free DCR, access to the DCR Quarantine Corner video series packed with behind the scenes tidbits...and it also makes you awesome. And being awesome is what it’s all about!
Thanks for reading! And as always, feel free to post comments or questions in the comments section below, I’ll be happy to try and answer them as quickly as possible. And lastly, if you felt this review was useful – I always appreciate feedback in the comments below. Thanks!
Can you migrate any of your old training data from other devices into Flow? I can’t seem to find any answer, and since they don’t even support exporting, I’m not that hopeful…
I loved Flow for the well thought out design, but the ugly/bulky hardware made me switch to Garmin for day to day activity tracking. I’m really tempted to switch back to a Vantage, but losing all of my running data for the past couple of years would be a no-go.
Sure you can. I used syncmytracks for a bulk import but other popular services exist. Rungap appears to be possibly the best choice.
In general, it’s a good idea to export all your data from Garmin and Polar to a neutral service like training peaks and obviously something you can set up in Flow to happen automatically.
That way, next time you change vendor, you can continue to keep all your data in the same place.
I love Polar and flow but I would never lock myself into a vendor specific service.
My solution for avoiding any vendor lock-in is to use SyncMyTracks to keep in synch my current account with all the others. This way it does not matter what watch I am going to use, my history will be available everywhere and I can use the best feature of each service.
Ray,
what is your assessment on the consistency of running power?
If it relies only on GPS and GPS is all over the place, is running power useful at all or would it be better to go with a stryd?
Yeah, in all honesty the whole GPS pace this is really the least of power meter for running issues. I know a lot of folks like to throw it out there in favor of Stryd, but if I look at all the challenges of running power across the board, I actually don’t see responsiveness of power shifts as a huge issue.
Some might say it impacts pace stability, but again, that’s also something relatively easily solved through accelerometer smoothing from the wrist and cross-referencing that (which most units do).
Now, where things can be impacted is if there’s just bad GPS accuracy to begin with – since that introduces extra distance. Too early to say there.
Likewise. UK also. Ended up going for the M as couldn’t really decide whether the ‘power’ bit was worth the extra outlay (I know there’s more differences than that but that’s probably the main one imo and I know I’d end up not putting the HR start on everyday for the Recovery Pro metrics) Hoping I made the right choice in the end. Can always get a Stryd or similar I guess.
Have just checked Polar account and just says ‘in progress’. Don’t recall if it said anything different previously though.
Hi. An important reason to make the purchase decision of the Polar Vantage V is to know if it will allow structured workouts by power zones in running and with alarms when I leave the power zone marked in the interval or concrete moment of the work. And if it was also compatible with the use of Stryd and not only with Polar’s power measurement. Do you know anything about this topic in both Vantage and Flow? (sorry my bad english)
This is my biggest question and it will determine if 1. The Polar M or V will be my watch of choice and 2. If it makes sense wearing either all day vs my Garmin 645. The reason is because of Garmin’s new Body Battery feature and if it will come to the Garmin FR 645. I would keep both just for comparison sake but it seems like the Polar Vantage V would take in account not only training metrics but also the 24/7 metrics like Steps, HR, and Sleep data. Is this true? If not then this would mean the Vantage M would be good enough for training only (it may not be needed at all depending) and I can rely on Garmin for the 24/7 data. What do you think?
If correct HR is a deal breaker I’d say do not choose Suunto. It shows cadence for me 95% of the time. Other than that I like it except the lag for starting and stopping activities. Great for running, roller skiing and pool swimming for instance. The others look good. Polar has great OHR in OH1, Vantage should be good! Garmin is sometimes great. VA3 is probably good value. Not sure about touch screen. Have no Garmins with touch screen.
Suunto Trainer is not so easy to read on the run, small screen!
I should just clarify that Garmin models to avoid are the Fenix 5 and 5+ if you want accurate GPS and good battery life.@
Suunto’s optical HRMs just don’t work @(which is odd as they are by Valencell and used in the Scosche which does).
I did an acutely embarrassing Youtube video which, however bad, nicely demonstrates the cadence lock problem on the Suunto 9 (which I also had with the Trainer)
My F3 without optical HR is a good all rounder and only cost me 160 quid. GPS is better than on later models (despite the Glonass / Galileo marketing hype) but not as good as the FR910 and 920.
The problem with any comparison is it really depends what you are going to use it for. The old Ambit 3 is great for GPS accuracy, battery life, navigation and OWS. Polar (M400, M430, V800) is great for serious athletes looking to improve through structured training. The old F3 is a good all-rounder though master of none. It gives you access to apps through the best SDK for a non-Android watch.
We seem to have passed the zenith for these devices by 2-3 yrs and newer is most definitely not better so save you can yourself a chunk of money by getting a new(ish) older model.
An old FR920xt is still a great device despite being ugly. It is lightweight with a good battery life, good GPS, runs Connect IQ apps and gives running dynamics with the HRM Run or Tri straps.
In the end you “pays your money and takes your choice”. (-;
I’d narrow down what features you want. For example, to consider:
Vivoactive 3: Good all-arounder, even has onboard music option. But no openwater swim. Does have a baro altimeter, which is handy for some. Also has Connect IQ app support.
Polar Vantage M: No baro altimeter, but can do openwater swim. Also supports both cycling and running power meters. One of my favorites of the three from a looks standpoint.
Suunto Spartan Trainer: A better optical HR sensor than the Garmin, has OW swim support, running and cycling power support, but is a bit chunky in some ways. Less ideal screen than the others.
The’re kinda similiar, but also quite different.
Note that most of Suunto’s optical HR woes seem to be tied to the size of the device being used. No real surprise there. Heavier devices, specifically top-heavy devices as Suunto designs them, generally perform more poorly with optical HR due to tendency to lock onto cadence. Whereas thinner watches or those ‘lower’ to the wrist tend not to bounce, and thus less cadence lock issues. None of which affect the three watches you’ve asked about.
I have to disagree with the SSTrainer. I don’t know if it was a “cadence lock” issue or just a bug, but I had 2 different watches and both had the same problem: extremely high HR values the first 5-10 minutes of the runs.
And that is something I’ve also seen in the HR comparisons you’ve done with Suuntos (S9 and SST)… And it is a pity, as I liked the watch, the interfaces and the Movescount app (not so many people would say that hehe)
My experience with the SST was as bad as the S9 in terms of cadence lock and crazy high HRs. I wonder if age is a factor (I am 60 so the skin on my wrist is less elastic). Tightening the strap does not seem to help with any of the WOHRs I have used.
I pre-ordered a Vantage V from Clever Training. Just checked with Polar when they will ship to the US. October has now become the last week in November
I wanted to check with Polar themselves, as they have now kicked back Vantage V US ship dates at least twice. The new date of “the last week of November” (which is still later than what Amazon is advertising) is over a month after the initial date. This is right around US Thanksgiving/Black Friday, which has to be the worst supply chain launch period decision, but one they are clearly forced to make because the product isn’t ready. So I don’t really trust any of these dates anymore. If Polar can’t get the hardware out when they say they will, how can we trust the software update timelines?
Anyway, this is too close to an early Dec. trail ultra I’m running for me to have time to give it a proper shake down. I may cancel and look at a Suunto 9. Or stick with my Spartan Sport sine HR.
Not sure about differing ship dates in EU and US but the hardware should be definitely ready. The first V Models shall be sold from tomorrow noon onwards at the marathon expo in Frankfurt. This is said to be the sales start event in Germany.
“Maybe they will sell VANTAGE pre-order vouchers? ?”
Ah, like the toy company KENNER did when they did not have STAR WARS figures ready for us 8-year olds ;) The parents bought a pre-order voucher for that little YODA with orange plastic snake.
Does, Garmin have anything that competes with Polar’s Recovery Pro or the Orthostatic Test? That would be the only reason for me to switch sides. I’ve tried the HRV test from Garmin but if I can’t do it multiple times a day and get some sort of feedback, what good is it?
Recovery Pro is covered by Garmin’s partnership via FirstBeat, with all the Training Load and Recovery data. More or less the same concept, just displayed a bit different. Sorta like agrueing Android vs iOS.
I’m not aware of anything the same as the Orthostatic test on Garmin devices natively, but I think I have seen some Connect IQ apps that do it. As of a year ago they were able to access HRV/RR info via CIQ.
Does the Recovery Pro feature include 24/7 information in it’s metric (Sleep, Steps)? It seems that this information is just “pretty data” instead of being useful. The one thing I like about polar is that your daily goal is based off caloric burn instead of steps. I feel if I just did a crazy workout, why does Garmin still focus on how many steps I achieved? Do you think Body Battery helps solve this? I just can’t find a reason to let go of my F645.
I searched Garmin’s Connect IQ App store for “orthostatic” and did not find anything: link to apps.garmin.com
But I searched just “stress”, got 23 results, then filtered for fenix 5X plus, and there are 5: link to apps.garmin.com
First app, Heart Rate/HRSS – brings up some interesting questions about the best way to measure: link to apps.garmin.com
HRSS is like HrTSS from TrainingPeaks.. read more here.. link to trainingpeaks.com
This article concludes TSS (Training Stress Score) is better than HrTSS (heart rate training stress score), but doesn’t mention anything about HRSS. (Heart Rate Stress Score).
hrTSS only shows the same number in multiple times..
Zone Runner is really the star of the show here… So much so that I’m pasting the whole description for you to read here:
“Zone Runner is an all in one data field that displays relevant information on a single screen and uses colour to allow a quick view of your current HR and Pace information.
Forum thread here: link to forums.garmin.com
Optionally Uses Joe Freil for Running formula from TrainingPeaks to calculate HR and Pace Zones.
Features 8 configurable data fields that use color to indicate training zones at a glance.
• Current pace – uses Garmin Connect colors to indicate pace zone
• 4-Second Smoothed Pace
• 30-Second Smoothed Pace
• Average pace
• Current HR Zone
• Current HR
• Distance Travelled
• Cadence
• Estimated hrTSS (Heart Rate Training Stress Score) – link to help.trainingpeaks.com
• Estimated rTSS (Running Training Stress Score – This is a much more accurate formula than hrTSS) – link to help.trainingpeaks.com
• RRE (Relative Running Economy) – link to fellrnr.com
• Power – Requires Stryd (Does not work with Garmin Power)
• 4 Sec Smoothed Power
• 30 Sec Smoothed Power
• TRIMP (Training Impulse) – link to trainingimpulse.com
• Intensity Factor (1 Hour Rolling Average) – link to help.trainingpeaks.com”
(End of Zone Runner description)
Note that Zone Runner includes rTSS, and says it’s also more accurate than hrTSS.
If the orthostatic test was the only thing the polar had over garmin devices, I’d simply manually calculate my orthostatic heart rate, the jump and fitness tests are pretty cool. I suppose one could do the same type of physical movement for the polar tests, and watch how they trend… Worth noting is that Polar’s orthostatic test is more advanced than a simple standing heart rate average – resting heart rate average. It’d be interesting to see if that’s true though.
I’m not too swayed by having music on the fenix 5 plus series, although the pulse oximeter is really cool. Some day I plan on getting a real smartwatch to go on my other wrist, which will have better music capabilities, and allow me to worry less about people potentially trying to contact me. As others have noted, the smartphone notifications on the fenix 5 are pretty useless, since you have to have your smartphone in range. I really wish the fenix 5 asked the user their rate their perceived exertion and take that into account like the polar… That might be the straw that breaks the camels back here.
Add in the fact that I’m planning on getting a real smartwatch to go on the other wrist, I really only need this fitness watch to do the fitness stuff and do it the best it can. The polar also seems more accurate thanks to having 9 sensors.
Now – something I have yet to consider – is which watch acts as a better sleep tracker, or integrates with a good sleep tracker. I’m guessing the Garmin is the device/ecosystem to invest in, but it’d be worth checking what a good android wear smartwatch has when it comes to fitness apps, and I should also note that samsung watches have their own unique OS and smaller app store, I’m guessing samsungs S-Health is probably the best app on that platform overall, but there’s probably at least one other fitness app providing more detailed fitness metrics.
I guess maybe my question here, is what’s the best fitness watch and smartwatch combination? I’m definitely interested in using a heart rate strap for more accurate heart rate data.
My fitness concerns can be boiled down to: Which fitness tracker is going to give the most conservative advice on which days I can play bball, how many games can I play, and when I should stop playing? Polar Vantage V or a Garmin watch? Price/time/convenience are not major factors. It would also be nice if the watch could recognize and track reps for any lift where the hands are moving. Being able to tell me when to stop lifting would also be very valuable information.
The Polar Vantage V is Sport Watch targeted at triathletes, suitable for running, cycling and swimming. Even though it has dozens of sport profiles for many other sports, I doubt it goes into the details you indicated.
Regarding the Garmin offering I let others respond, as I am not familiar with it.
You already have a device that does exactly what you asked for: your brain.
In all seriousness. The cardiovascular load from playing ball is negligible, play as much as you like.
I am totally confused with delivery times, yesterday at noon I received this email from Clever Training:
Thank you for your order for the Polar Vantage GPS Watch. Based on the most recent information available from the manufacturer we are still on track to process your order the end of October.
I suspect the custom pre-order message for Vantage folks just wasn’t caught as needing to be updated. I’ll let someone know.
(Typically for major products like this with longer-lead pre-order times CT will customize the pre-order/backorder type e-mail a bit, as well as usually provide weekly or biweekly updates. My guess is this just slipped through the crack to update the pre-order with the correct November dates.)
Actually, update on that update a few minutes ago.
Just got off a chat with Clever Training, who in turn also just got off a call with Polar. They will have units shipping to them today or tomorrow, so they’ll go out to customers early next week – ahead of schedule.
The dates shown online right now are mostly just placeholders based on previous updated Polar guidance, as well as CT’s own take on how reliable a given date is from a given company. They tend to be pretty conservative, so usually push dates out slightly beyond what manufs say.
In any case, you should be getting Vantage units from CT by the end of next week, short of something last minute changing.
Apparently individual order shipping has started. Reported on facebook that order 22826535 has been dispatched. My order is almost 2000 after that number….
Ray, thanks for getting to the bottom of this. I received the same CT email yesterday. Seems like you’re more tapped into what’s going on at Polar than the chat person on the Polar website!
The initial inventory delivery (at least for here in the United States) has arrived. Those who have pre-ordered (whether direct through Polar.com or 3rd party sites like Clever Training) will see shipments starting to arrive starting mid-next week. Demand/Supply will be high early on and once these initial orders are fulfilled, subsequent orders will be processed on a first come/first served basis. – Mike@PolarUSA
In that case perhaps there is a slight chance it will have a better price during Black Friday/weekend? Wonder how stores do with such a new product? I got the M430 solely for its OHR but am disappointed with it in general.Probably my best OHR watch but not only does it lack such a simple thing as a beep at autolap but also there are huge limitations when it comes to editing sport profiles WHEN YOU ALREADY HAD OLD ONES CONNECTED TO OTHER POLAR WATCHES. Super stupid bug.
Am tempted to get the Vantage V.
What is the best Try watch in the market now ? Polar Vantage V or any other ? I am using Polar V800 (I bought back in 2013 based upon your review) . I want your honest opinion ?
I think it’d be pretty tough to argue the Polar Vantage V as the best triathlon watch in the market, at least in terms of features. We’ll see on optical HR accuracy (so far, it’s pretty good). But there’s a lot more to a tri watch than just that.
If we talk about features (amount of) then I guess Garmin wins. But considering the price to quality ratio, what would you say? I mean, for a non professional triathlete that will not benefit from some of that extra features, the accuracy of the Polar could make it a contender?
I’d say anyone who wanna buy a watch and have it for a long time should go for Polar. V800 has been updated for 4 years.
Vantage might be the first watch with reliable OHRM and you can trust Polar to keep finetuning this watch for years to come, at least if they have the same approach as before.
“But considering the price to quality ratio, what would you say? I mean, for a non professional triathlete that will not benefit from some of that extra features, the accuracy of the Polar could make it a contender?”
I don’t know.
Personally, I don’t see any meaningful differences between what Firstbeat is doing and what Polar is doing in terms of training load/recovery type stuff. Slight nuances to each, but basically the same fundamentals (Polar noted as such during their presentation to me). Both companies have a solid reputation in this area, though, there’s no question that Firstbeat’s footprint in terms of technology licensed is far larger (as well as the various pro sports team pieces they do). But insofar as consumer stuff, it’s basically a wash.
There is the Orthostatic feature in Polars units – if you’re planning on buying one of their HR straps. I did find the HRV app that I had seen before on Garmin’s side of the house, here: link to apps.garmin.com
Optical HR sensor wise, there’s no question Polar’s going to win that game based on what I’ve seen. Of course, if you don’t have plans to use the optical HR sensor for whatever reason, then that’s a non-isue.
GPS-wise, the jury is out. I received a final production unit this morning, so we’ll see over the weekend how things shake out. Up till this point it’s no secret from all reviewers that GPS accuracy hasn’t been awesome by any means.
In terms of feature upgrades, I don’t really put a ton of stock into the argument that Polar keeps on updating features for years to come. Yes, that’s true – but one has to provide context. That’s because they were missing at launch. So it’s not really new features above/beyond what the competition is doing – it’s always been catch-up. So it’s kinda like trying to get extra credit for turning in your homework two years late.
I think the most relevant competitor for the Vantage V series is the FR935 – same price last I checked. Like always, you somewhat need to figure out what you value the most.
My opinion is that there isn’t a definitive answer to your question. Too many variables, too subjective. What’s your price point? How long of a Battery life do you need? Do you care if the watch is Heavy? Do you like music on your watch? Do you have any other sensors that you need to pair too? Do you care if it has a barometer? Do you want a quick release mount?
Anything we buy right now, can’t be guaranteed to be future proofed, when was the last update for V800? November 2017 firmware, so Polar updated it for 3 years. Sometimes manufacturers make one offs either to help with their manufacturing process, or the lack of sales kills the product. Like the Garmin Epix, Suunto Ambit Vertical Garmin Chronos, or Garmin 735 (which Garmin is still updating firmware.)
The V800 was available to purchase Late June 2014, and if you read Ray’s review at the time, he wasn’t a fan of it, because, IIRC, Polar was going to roll out features over time, which other competitors already had in their older watches, and at the time Ray didn’t have confidence that Polar would keep there promises. He wasn’t slamming Polar, but took a, I’ll believe it when I see it stance. I did buy the V800 at the time, and had to put up with the swollen batteries, and H7 eating CR2016’s once a week, but Polar has a great 2 year warranty, so things where fixed up. I did like the Flow interface over Garmin Connect, and I did preorder the Vantage V (after selling my 935), and I’m waiting for Ray’s review to see if the GPS has improved, but if you look at some of his other reviews where the Vantage is in the mix, it doesn’t look pretty.
If people rely on WOHR some of the calculated Firstbeat metrics on the Polar are less likely to mislead because the input data supplied to (identical?) algorithms will be more accurate. I remember getting flattering/silly VO2 max readings with my Garmin F3 HR (but not with my F3 using the HRM Run belt). Of course if you habitually use an hr strap it should, as you say, be a wash. The development of an acceptably accurate wrist OHR would be the development to make the hr belt an historic curio. With Polar it seems close. It probably isn’t quite there yet (R-R variability and swimming) but for many it will be close enough.
I’ve read that Vantage M seems to have more accurate results from a GPS standpoint. May it be a case of metallic case-bezel interfering with the GPS signal? I may be mistaken but I remember reading some review of a GPS watch that was affected by this problem (Suunto maybe? I can’t remember!).
Anyway, it is true that Vantage V has a price tag not so competitive (ok, it is not a Suunto 9 but as you said, the FR935, and even the F5 can be found at the same price or even slightly cheaper). But what are your thoughts on the M? May it be superior to the rest of entry level try watches such as SST (hated its HR initial spiking) or Instinct (loved the looks, not so much what I’ve read in your review).
As you may have guessed, I’m in doubt between both watches (more prone to the M, as barometric altimeter, cadence measures etc are not dealbreakers for me…).
It was cold, wet, and windy today. So while I did rides around town as normal in this city for errands and such, I didn’t do any workouts outside. Saturday/Sunday are supposed to be pretty though. :)
HR: So-so, on-par or better than a Garmin, but clearly worse than Apple Watch 4 or TICKR HR strap.
GPS: Some pretty unusual errors for road-riding (I rarely see road-riding errors with any GPS units I test), including place shifting and corner cutting.
Does Polar have any plans to develop a watch along the lines of the Polar Vantage M, but specifically for running, and possibly at a more inexpensive price in the near future?
Andrew
Mine seems to have enjoyed the weekend in holland somewhere. Have you gotten yours? Any quick updates? Seems like there’s some bad vibes coming in here atm…
Regarding heart rate recording through the wrist while swimming, there seems to be bad news. However, I like that Polar are honest. Actually, they also came up with a solution for open water in the manual: Use the H10 and start the recording through the Polar Beat app. (Then it doesn’t use Bluetooth) I have actually tried this during the summer, and it works fine in open water. However it is not optimal, that you can’t start it on the watch like in the good-old-days with 5 kHz Polar watches like the Rcx5. It’s not the most important data while swimming, but it’s nice to have after a swim session. (GPS-accuracy, distance, average speed and counting swim lanes would be more important when swimming than heart rate.)
The manual is really honest here on page 99 on the Polar Vantage M:
“Polar devices with wrist-based heart rate measurement are suitable for swimming and bathing. They will collect your activity data from your wrist movements also when swimming. In our tests, how- ever, we found that the wrist-based heart rate measurement doesn’t work optimally in water, so we can- not recommend wrist-based heart rate measurement for swimming.
In the watch industry, water resistance is generally indicated as meters, which means the static water pressure of that depth. Polar uses this same indication system. Water resistance of Polar products is tested according to International Standard ISO 22810 or IEC60529. Every Polar device that has water resistance indication is tested before the delivery to stand water pressure.
Polar products are divided into four different categories according to their water resistance. Check the back of your Polar product for the water resistance category, and compare it to the chart below. Please note that these definitions do not necessarily apply to products of other manufacturers.
When performing any underwater activity, the dynamic pressure generated by moving in water is greater than the static pressure. This means that moving the product under water subjects it to a greater pres- sure than if the product were stationary.”
Really looking forward to see more testings from Ray. You’re the man :-) And a busy kind of man :-)
Reading reviews from other Polar users who have gained experiences with these parts of the watch, would be very helpful.
At the moment, I actually stepped back a bit, and I think the Vantage M would fulfil my needs for data – and a feature that I really like: it’s really lightweight and almost half the prize than the Vantage V. I’m not training like a pro, so at the moment, I think the data from the Vantage M would be fine for me. Stepping back, was actually an advise from Ray. Thank you. I think I would be a bit more frugal and not just buy the newest and most expensive versions.
My impression is actually, that the Garmin 935 is one of the best and most allround triathlon watches out there, but it’s still more expensive than the Vantage M. The Garmin has more connectivity options e.g. power meters, but I don’t use that. At least not now. Maybe later. By now, I would just need some more miles in the saddle. And when the season is running, I often use my intuition when it comes to how much I could push the bike.
Power while running on the Vantage V…it’s a nice detail, but for me, it’s didn’t whet my appetite – and I think my wallet would be grateful.
Actually, I think most people have focus on the Vantage V. It seems like a lot of people are whiling to spend more and more money on triathlon. Just during the 7 years I have done triathlon – people spend a lot of money on different kind of equipment.
The Polar Vantage M would probably be a very good watch for a lot of people – and it’s close to half prize of the Vantage V. Not bad! But I respect, that there are different demands to the watches out there on the market. Depending on what you need, is a useful reflection to make.
I have the same feeling regarding HR in the water, Sad but the People of Polar is Trusted
My recommendation : If they said is not accurate why did they stop the band for swimming, for me should be a customer choice in the sport profile, for example in open water i choose by H10 and in a pool the wrist.
Other issues : I did not see the field Temperature in any display!!
Altitude graph the same.
Heart rate touch function where you place the watch infront of the monitor and it would show data or time is maybe also left out.
I prefer to have hour:minutes:seconds showed digital. I can’t see anywhere that you could have seconds showimg unless it is the analog display. Hope they could fix some of these things in an update.
Personally a feel like the vantage’s (M) has nothing’s advanced…. no Baro ,no altimeter , not better screen,no touchscreen ,no protection , no music …. ok it’s a sport watch but in 3 months every watch will have all of this and better screen ….EVEN THE COROS A THE SAME PRICE HAVE it all ….. so my question is why they took 5 years to sort a watches that will be killed in my opinion in 3 months with new hardware ?!!
Because not all athletes care about Music, Payments, Body Battery, Barometers and other consumer-level features that Garmin and other companies introduce to entice the general population. Either way, those people who need these kinds of features will be more attracted and better served by an Apple Watch which is almost impossible to compete with.
To me a running watch is a glorified stopwatch. It’s an accurate tool that helps someone train and none of the above mentioned features has anything to do with (my personal at least) training. So if the accuracy and reliability is there, I am going to be all over the Vantage M. I am done with chasing Garmin bugs on every firmware release, Garmin has lost my trust. Now whether or not I will trust Polar is another story but less (but dependable) features is a great thing in my book not a shortcoming.
Agreed not all care about these features. It’s worth saying, though, that even pros are humans that buy things (especially food/fuel), making payments useful; and listen to music while running even though many take the “meditative” approach to listen to the body. The alternatives are not very attractive: carry a much bigger additional item (phone/music player and a wallet/cash/credit cards). And no one likes to carry extra stuff, especially the pros.
Suffice to say that the perfect device would have these features. But it’s trade-off. I believe Polar is excluding them from Vantage because of battery life (wireless audio sucks battery), and payments just because of the sheer investment it takes to get it done. It’s a rational decision.
If you’re REALLY into music and canNOT carry your phone or a music player with you, and want a Polar that gets updates and w/Android, Polar’s m600 has all that and many other smart-watch features. Just not battery life. It can do 8 hrs w/GPS, although 36 w/out it. Upgrade to Android 2.0 has breathed a lot of new life into it. And it already has many of the core Polar features. This article from ZDNet tells quite a story about this product that doesn’t get much media play:
This.
I’ve been using Polar watches since the late 90s (Accurex Plus), and grew tired of their rectangular design. So I bought a 735XT, and shortly after that a FR935 in May. Except for the fact that those Garmins are round, they offered nothing to my training. Quite on the contrary, Garmin Connect Mobile is a mess compared to Flow, and their firmware updates seem to fix two bugs, and introduce like three new ones. Not to mention the bad GPS tracks, and unusable instant pace from my 935. For some time now I’e been using both my M430, and the FR935, and have a Vantage M on the way.
I couldn’t care less about the “missing features”. I’m actually glad about all the stuff that’s missing, less stuff that can clutter menues, go wrong during firmware updates, or unnecessarily eat battery. I just want a no frills running watch with a round face that puts the focus on training for serious athletes instead of ticking all marketing boxes for the consumer-level like Garmin. I chose the M because I want to be able to switch bands, and I don’t need a barometer/power nor Recovery Pro, because as a TP Premium user my training load/recovery is taken care of.
I for one am looking forward to go back to working with Flow+TP, and ditch that mess that is GCM.
What is your take on the practical usefulness of Recovery Pro? I realise that this feature need time to dial in, but in general?
I don’t compete, and probably wont for maybe more than charity races etc, but I started running only 3 years ago and in total i do 4 runs a week plus 2 strengths sessions, which at 54 years old definitely put me at the limit – or over.
Recovery Pro and Power are the two main features I see in Vantage V that makes me want it (plus the design), but if Recovery Pro lacks usefulness then a Vantage M together with a Stryde pod might be the better option since it will give me (hopefully) more developed power measurements, accurate distance and pace (using Polar Stride Sensor now anyway) as well as some other running metrics.
If you use common sense, I think you could easily live without recovery pro.
Vary your training and intensity and listen to the body signals. Many triathletes have done this. I even heard an interview with Chrissie Wellington who won the world championship on Hawaii – she didn’t use a powermeter on the bike. She knew her limits and raced on intuition. Oldschool and cool! (In my opinion)
I just ordered the Vantage M yesterday. You could still see your training load if you want to look at that. Actually not something I use in my everyday life from the old Polar watches. Anyway, it’s data you could take into consideration.
The M model is super light weight. It apeals to me. I use the running index data. I know it lacks altitude measurement and navigation, but it’s almost half the price as the Vantage V.
In the end. It’s up to you. Maybe the V is a bit more exclusive looking
At 60 if I were to listen to my body signals I wouldn’t do anything!
The serious point is that not everyone is blessed with reliable body signals. I have run the same route and felt great and felt terrible on different occasions but the performance metrics didn’t correlate often doing surprisingly well when feeling crap. Recovery pro uses how you feel as part of its algorithm. There is some good science behind heart rate variability and it is used to detect foetal distress in labour. I suspect professional athletes become very in-tune with their bodies (I also suspect their coaches handle a lot of the balance of training and recovery).
Maybe Recovery-Pro is a bad name for it but I suspect it will be useful for may.
I have not had an injury in two years using the basic recovery data in Polar Flow. I even won a race (only in my age cat). Prior to that I was always pulling a hamstring, hip flexor or something. I think many non-pro athletes overtrain and don’t polarise their training so get injuries and don’t improve. I have run the London Marathon 3 times, once in my own name. The other numbers came from injured over-trainers (yes, that is going back a bit and no, I didn’t eat the Mars bar at the end!).
How are you supposed to – blatantly put – feel when you cannot interpret your body’s signals, as you said? The problem with those algorithms is, that they rely on correct data. Polar’s Recovery thus far has worked with VO2Max. Put in a wrong value, e.g. much too high, and you can easily see how the balanced, strained, very strained sectors are shifted. Since it’s been shown in studies that Polar’s fitness test, and general running index, calculates one’s VO2Max much too high, I wouldn’t trust metrics derived from that value too much tbh. Heck, according to Polar my VO2Max is 71, resulting in race times I am far from clocking. Garmin puts me at a more realistic 57, which is kinda in line with my recent times (5k in the high 19mins). I guess my real value is somewhere in between. With that in mind, how is an algorithm based on wrong data better than an inaccurate/inexperienced interpretation of one’s body signals? I’d take the latter approach any day. You also have to keep in mind that recovery is always meant as recovery from quality sessions before your body is ready to benefit from another workout. There’s no need to recover from or before easy miles. If there is, then those miles weren’t easy to begin with.
@Andrew
I went from long distance triathlon to shorter distances. It works fine for me.
Once I guess I overtrained and pushed my self to heard. Sometimes I tried to make to much progres by adjusting two things at the same time: speed and distance. I think it’s better just to adjust on parameter at a time.
I also found out, that it’s a joy to take some slow runs. It could be a long run in the forrest. However, it is benefitial anyway in many ways. I guess, many people try to push themselves too hard. I’ve been there to, and also had problems with injuries. But I learned from my mistakes.
With Vantage there is also a Perceived Load which can be handy when having done a session that you feel was a lot harder on you than the “mesardued” value indicates. I come across those sessions a lot, especially when i do some stength/gym sessions which Polar seems to underestimate.
@robert, andrew
I cannot say (unfortunately), that I trust my own body signals. Well maybe I do, but I do not trust my own judgement of them. After quitting rugby when i was 23, I did not do any serious exercising apart from a bit of leisury mountainbking in mid 90s and the odd visits to a gym until i started running almost 30 years later and I am quite certain that some issues I had with my shins last winter that kept me from running almost 3 months could have been avoided if I had more self.knowledge. At that time I wanted to run, so I ran even if it was a (more than) bit uncomfortable. Of course, I do not believe that Recovery Pro can give me 100% correct answers, but i was hoping it could give me reliable enough information so that I would at least think a second time before going out for a run (or staying home).
@flokon Im afraid your reasoning is not a strong point for me since Polars Running Index can estimate my 5k and 10k times pretty well. Running Index/Fitness Index are quite different from Recovery Pro in that they measure single instances and that Recovery Pro is based on comparing a daily value with historical trends. as @andrew write, HRV/Orthostatic test is quite established as such for estimating your current fitness. Question is how well it work in practice outside laboratory or in Polars settung
I could also add that 2 years ago I went for emergency surgery for a ruptured appendix that went quite wrong and I ended up 10 days at ICU, followed by 3 weeks in a ward.
Since then my body have not been as before – i’m all recovered and healthy now, but my body sometimes feels like someone elses, the signals doesn’t match up all the time they way they did before surgery. On the positive side is that I got tolerance for alcohol and seldon may bad hangovers the times I do drink… ;)
Just got delivery of my Vantage V. I feel a bit like Ray when he first tested the SSU. I don’t really see the point.
I am going to send it back to Polar.
Here is a copy of my letter to them:
“…Hi
Just got my new Polar Vantage V
I am very disappointed both with the device and with Polar.
It is missing basic features which were present on the V800.
1. No display of power zones on watch. You would think this would simply re-use the HR display algorithm.
2. Absence of Pool Swimming Metrics. It doesn’t even record lengths and lap lengths.
3. No option to keep the backlight on during an activity
4. No adjustment of the brightness of the backlight (it is dim and the display is pretty hard to see).
The website is also missing something fundamental to a watch with native power:
1. No interval training using power! It just uses HR and pace.
I have not included a lack of route navigation as I know this is in the pipeline in software developments. A few more watch faces would have been nice but not a deal breaker.
This device is virtually in every respect not as good as its predecessor the V800.
I now wish to return the device and would be grateful for your instructions on how to do this.
…”
Re: your issues #3 and #4. I don’t remember V800 having backlight on during activity options — a heart gesture, yes. But not a toggle, but then maybe I haven’t looked into settings for a long time. Could you please confirm?
More importantly, am I reading it correctly that Vantage doesn’t support structured workouts with power as intensity target? Only heart rate and pace?
I’ve been reading lots of comments on this site where people return watches when they are not satisfied with their watch. Forgive my stupid question, but do all manufacturers have some kind of money back and return policy for the watches? I am really surprised people are able to return something they bought and used. I see people selling their used watches which is understandable but returning is for me “too good to be true”. I get the feeling I have missed some rules that all watch manufacturers have some kind of “try it and return if not happy” policy.
Is this a fact?
In any case it’s great to hear reviews from people actually having the device in question and testing it.
Thanks for a great site :)
In other news I’ve just ordered an M600 because I’m curious. Does it measure HR in the water and how good is it for swimming? My SST isn’t great with HR in water but otherwise very good for pool swimming.
Here in the US, you can indeed return a watch in most cases, say, if you purchased it from Amazon or Clever Training, for example. The former has a return window of 30 days and the latter is 60 days. Similar policies exist for retailers like Best Buy or Target. Some places have stipulations that the watch shouldn’t have been used. But that’s rare. Very few prohibit returns.
The customer is always right! As long as a watch isn’t broken/scratched and you include everything it came with and packaging isn’t damaged, sure. You can return it. Often for 100% of the value paid.
Besides, with watches these days… Some of them ship out so full of bugs, they are practically unusable. Like Vivoactive 3 that had a really nasty battery drain that couldn’t be fixed unless the watch went through a full factory reset. When I brought it to Best Buy for return last year the sales clerk told me they had been getting tons of Vivoactive back. Didn’t even bother to ask what was wrong or look at the package…
Not used other than ascertaining that the device lacks basic features. Bit like getting into a car and finding it has no steering wheel. I am sure Polar will be grateful for your concern though. There is, of course, no such thing as a stupid question…
I’ve recieved my M today and would say that is definitely so far at least an upgrade on my old 400.
I kind of agree with your comment regarding the display being dark however it does light up when you raise your wrist to view and find personally that to be acceptable. It would be better to have had the option to brighten however and whilst I don’t train with the back light on, again, an option to do so wouldn’t hurt for those that do.
With regard to pool length etc I was under the impression it does do exactly what you are saying it doesn’t. On the M at least when you go on the ‘pool swimming’ sport on the watch in the top left it gives a pool length which you can change to some pre defined lengths or enter a custom length. Now I haven’t swam with the watch yet but if that setting is not related to recording laps/lengths then what exactly is the point of asking? I can’t see the point of it being there if not used.
As for the lack of power zone indication during workout. I agree. Had I gone for a V I’d have expected that to be shown.
With regards to returning assuming you’ve set up and used will they be happy to except back?
I’ve had experience of Polars returns with my original M400 having a DOA god chip. Can’t fault them.
You posted again before I replied. Having seen you haven’t touched it then I imagine your return will be painless going off my experience. Assuming UK you’ve distance selling regs on tour side anyway.
Received my M today and went for my usual Monday easy 10k.
A few stuff that instantly caught my eye:
– Font is quite thin, which makes it hard to read during a run, even when lit in the dark. Will change the displays to 3 fields max like I did with the M430, and see if that improves readability.
– Sluggish navigation through menues, and while scrolling. Hopefully this improves through updates, or maybe it’s just a matter of a slow chipset. The M430 is more responsive, just saying…
– The bezel, while being quite thick, is about the same size as my 935’s, so it doesn’t bother me.
Of course the M doesn’t even come close to my 935 in terms of features, and customization, but that’s exactly why I got it: A no-frills running watch that I want to use with Flow, and Trainingpeaks, instead of GCM. So far it delivered. I will keep using it for a month now and then decide, whether it’s time to let my 935 go, and go back to basics for good with the M, or if I actually miss any of the 935’s features.
two other things:
– While my pod paired flawlessly, the H7 has yet to be recognized.
– despite Ray’s enthusiasm to use our 22mm bands, Polar uses some weird mechanism that prevents the usage of other bands than theirs. Bummer, was looking forward to using my different Garmin bands.
Hey flokon. Nice to hear some initial real world use of the M.
I received mine today but have only had chance to set up, hoping to get a run in tomorrow between family commitments.
Regarding some of your points.
My H7 paired instantly. I’m not sure whether the watch turns off the OHR when the H7 is detected/on but mine stayed lit. The H7 is in the paired devices though. Need to look into that just for clarification.
Moving through menus I’m finding is perfect. No lag or delay. I’m coming from the 400 and find it as fast if not maybe quicker.
With regards to the straps equally miffed about that!
Similar to my tracks in that they are correct in shape and direction etc but not right to the actual path on the ground. I reckon on the two sessions I’ve now done, one run and one walk the drift from the actual path is not as dramatic as what you appear to be experiencing. How’s the rest of the track?
Strange on the swim. Not something I’ve tested yet and probably won’t anytime soon. Did you set pool length on the watch?
@Manfred: Hard to say whether it’s an upgrade from a M430. The screen definitely is much nicer. Then again, the resolution and colours come at a price, namely readability. The watch face definitely looks crisper but the training views stand out much better on the M430. The font used on the Vantage is very thin.
Battery is about the same as the M430. GPS same as well. On paper the new OHR should be much better. I’d never rely on oHR for workouts though so cannot really say something about it. 24/7 HR tracking looks good though. Irregularities settle quickly.
It depends on what you’re after and also what you grew accustomed to from your M430. For instance I instantly missed the M430’s favourite workouts. The Vantage only stores the one you scheduled for the day via Flow. Another thing I miss is the option to change display from light to dark and v.v. which depending on time of day and position of sun improves visibility quite a bit. If you can live with the M430’s oldschool display I’d say no to an upgrade. The round watch face and the display are really the major differences.
Ray, Mke@PolarUSA, or anybody who got the watch and has access to Stryd…
Does Vantage support Stryd for pace/power? The answers in the comments appear to indicate yes, but I noticed that Mike’s answers are all carefully worded with future tense. And there’s no Stryd to be found in the list of supported third party sensors in the manual:
Thanks a lot for your insight flokon!
My 430M has 3 main issues:
OHR is crap, HR with H7 less so,but still buggy.
Battery lasts for about 5 hours.
Quality: wristband coming off, display sorta started bleedind.
I was quite worried when I read your article, especially because I am waiting for my Vantage V, in relation to the points touched:
1. At least I have seen the Power Zones in the Polar Flow application, to make a more detailed analysis. Not worry for me.
2. This point is important, Did you use the watch in the pool ?, because if not, is little serious to say that it does not have swimming metrics, when in the manual it clearly says it have. I do not think Polar reaches those levels of irresponsibility.
3. While it can be turned on via the wrist is not a worry for me.
4. I’ve had the V800 and the M600, amazing display to see, I’m worried about this point, since Ray said it was pretty clear and as I have 59, it’s a killer point for me.
I have to sold my spartan trainer, impossible to read for me.
Where is Mike? to clarify all this points, Sorry but I sold my Fenix 5, to return with Polar .
My favorite brand that i have been used more than 15 years.
1. Seeing power zones in retrospect is fine but for me not terribly useful. Polar Flow supports intervals consisting of multiple phases of training constrained by HR (of course), pace but NOT POWER! As the watch has power natively on the wrist not developing Polar Flow to fully support this seems to me to be a pretty serious omission. I can set a power zone target on my SSU (used with Stryd). I can also have multiple phases of interval training constrained by power on my Fenix 3 (it has taken a while but I can now do this using a Connect IQ intervals app* that I developed specifically for this). This stuff isn’t rocket science. It seems perverse not to implement it.
2. You don’t have to use a watch in the pool to test out swimming. You can simulate the swimming action on dry land. It does measure distance and lap distance. Unfortunately this is expressed in either miles or km and not in multiples of the pool length or in pool lengths. A 25m pool length is 0.0155343. That means I am back in the dark ages counting lengths or doing several decimal place divisions to work them out. Of course if your swimming is unstructured endless lengths this does not matter. Kind of sucky. No SWOLF.
3. But the wrist gesture switches an already dim backlight on at half strength. With a rather washed out display similar to the SSU it makes it pretty much unusable for a 60 yr old presbyope.
4. I think you should be worried. I agree the trainer’s display was awful and I gave it to my son for the same reason. The SSU has a slightly better display and is certainly bigger so just about acceptable. The Vantage V is similar to the SSU but the backlight is feeble and there is no adjustment of its brightness. It is harder to see than the M430 and V800.
I went running tonight with my old Fenix 3, Stryd and my Power Intervals app. It worked really well. The backlight is really bright (set to 50%) and the display is easy to see. It got me back to the car park through woodland in the dark (A bit creepy). I was pleased to have the ability to track back.
How would I have faired with the Vantage V?
I really liked the V800 but it was a bit heavy and I could never get a really good fit on my skinny wrists because of the fixed watch and antennae curvature. I was rather hoping this would be a round V800 with really good WOHR. It isn’t. It is in most respects not as good.
1. yes. i expect this to be added eg zone lock for power is clearly on flow for the Vanage and that never worked on the v800 iirc
2. no. try the pool swim mode it gives stroke detection, metres and swolf
3./4. yes it is a bit dim in some circumstances
2. Don’t understand. I attempted to configure pool swimming sport mode but attached are the only options presented. Is there an issue with my device I wonder?
Any possibility to have avanced power metric on cycling (NP, IF etc)? is it true that is not even possible to set 1, 3, 10 sec averaged power on the watch?
Thanks @the5krunner, I thought so. From a triathlon watch I’d have aspected more attention on cycling power not just the basic :( :( Maybe a strategy to sell more M460/V650..
Does Polar have a forum similar to forums.garmin.com where we can all read about common problems or ask questions?
If there is no official Polar forum, where do people go to exchange questions about the Vantage? forum.slowtwitch.com, or even watchuseek.com like for Suunto (forums.watchuseek.com/f233)?
Exactly that’s why I asked! Are we supposed to turn poor Ray’s blog post into a makeshift support forum? I think Polar should give us a place to discuss all this. It doesn’t make any sense if they don’t!
As much as I hate Facebook, that’s where the discussion is taking place (apart from here). There’s a ridiculous amount of posts in the two Vantage groups, ‘Polar Vantage Users’ and ‘Fans of Polar Vantage V’. And yes, some trolls as well.
Only now, people are actually getting their devices, so hopefully moving towards more substance and less speculation.
Oh wow, I also dislike Facebook and there is no way I will participate on a forum there. Man, why is it so hard for a single sports wearable company to get most things right? Suddenly the Garmin forum seems so advanced …
This makes me think that maybe Ray can see this as an opportunity! He can create a crosslinked forum for all major wearable brands (Suunto too) so that people can compare features and discuss bugs all in one unified place. At the end of the day we are all athletes trying to make the best out of our training tools.
Ray could also monetize it by giving specific API access to companies that presents aggregate information on bugs, problems, potential solutions and statistics. I wouldn’t mind contributing my data in such a forum even if Ray makes money off of it since the main objective would be to make our devices better and give us our money’s worth.
Maybe not a way for Ray to monetize it, but it’s save him work as well, I wonder if a simple sub Reddit would work as a place for people to discuss fitness wearables and such.
Reddit.com/r/wearables already exists although it is more generic than pure fitness.
Heart rate recording while swimming ???
(Source:nakan.ch)
See screenshot
Looking forward to test the M model this week ?
The test in nakan.ch showed that it measured 1475 instead of 1500 m. However I’ve also tried that with the Polar V800. Could be different reasons. Maybe your style or another swimmer close to you.
In the user manual it says you have to have it tighter than normal while swimming.
Hope someone could use these informations. Think I will get my Vantage M this week. It’s in transit and i ordered it Yesterday (Sunday).
I hope that Polar takes a few steps further to develop training with native power – at lest as far as the Vantage V is concerned. At least, I would expect to be able to manage intensities by power zones – as it is implemented for HR and Pace at the moment. The dedicated power screen does not show the power zone either – in contrast to the heart rate page which shows numbers colored according to the HR Zone.
Does anyone know if the Vantage works with Stryd also indoors in terms of pace and distance – or does it take power only and determine pace and distance from its internal accelerometer? That would be a big bummer for me as I very often train on treadmills and do not trust wrist based pace and distance at all.
Yes, eagerly awaiting my Vantage. Should be getting it today.
It does work with Stryd for pace and distance both indoor and outdoor and if you are using Stryd, it will also be the source of your power.
I specifically asked Polar if I would like to use Polar as power source but get pace and distance only from Stryd, would that be possible? The answer is no. If you connect a Stryd, power will be handled completely by Stryd.
Oh, and one more thing I heard is that Polar’s own implementation of Power actually do work with a stride-sensor. It appears to be a misunderstanding that it has to be GPS when in fact it is not.
Polar does listen to the community and hopefully they are in for the long run with Vantage, so I expect a lot of development to take place but primarily this will be on improving the existing stuff as much as possible (GPS, HRM and iron out bugs). Since now they even provide power themselves, I would be amazed if not a lot of development around this (such as power based training) would not be implemented.
“Oh, and one more thing I heard is that Polar’s own implementation of Power actually do work with a stride-sensor. It appears to be a misunderstanding that it has to be GPS when in fact it is not.”
This would be a good (and recent) change if so. Polar was very clear about this gap earlier in my discussions with them, as well as the discussions with The5KRunner. Nice to see if true.
@ray, I asked Polar Support in Sweden this – If Vantage V could connect to a Polar Stride Sensor to get pace, distance and also use that as foundation fo the power calculations in and outdoors.
The reply was a clear yes – and a maybe for other similar Bluetooth sensors.
I hope they are right, and I had a lot of contact with Polar Sweden the last years and never got any false information.
Oh, and if i din’t misread or had google mistranslate nakan.ch review from yesterday he wrote that Vantage V can get pace data form the wrist through the watch internal accelerometer and get pace and distance on threadmill.
A lot of maybes on that one, but from a technical view it sounds plausible.
Yeah, Polar did note that it could get pace inside no problem from wrist. They just had specified that they couldn’t use that data for power training. I suppose it’s easy enough to test – simply use the treadmill profile and go for a run outside (even if you don’t have a treadmill, since GPS will be off) and see if power values show or not.
Perhaps later today I’ll give it a quick whirl. Up to my ears in bike trainer stuff right now.
I know you’re busy so I’ll save you a few minutes ;-)
@StefanG – yes the polar stride sensor gives pace, distance and cadence on a treadmill as does the watch by itself with no sensor at all. neither of those scenarios calculate power on the V (I seem to remember a comment about not knowing the calibrated status of the pod as the reason for not calculating power)
So really, what you’re saying is that unless you use a Stryd, Vantage really will not give you any power unless you use GPS?
I also heard that if selecting to get pace and speed from a foot pod, one needs to turn GPS off. If true, this is also a let down. On V800 you could get select to have pace and speed from a footpod but still get the gps tracking
I might be mistaken from reading too many answers in too many places, but…
1) Vantage V own power calculation requires GPS. Vantage M doesn’t have power unless you connect Stryd or similar. This hasn’t changed since announcement, even though one hopes Vantage V would gain the ability to calculate power based on footpod provided pace.
2) My current assumption is that Vantage doesn’t let you choose the source of pace/distance when a footpod is connected. However, it will use footpod provided pace/distance over GPS while retaining the GPS for tracks.
Let’s see if people with the actual units who have done testing disagree…
I got this today from PolarGlobal regarding foot pod, speed and power (yes battery down to 42% in the pic. No lo-battery shaming please! ;)
“Hi Fredrik,
Thanks for holding. I managed to get hold of our product management.
Yes Vantage V will support BLE footpods and speed that you get from them (please note, however, that in the sport profile GPS needs to be turned OFF).
If you want to have power info our own Vantage V calculation is at least based on GPS speed, so for treadmill running you’ll need to use a foot pod that gives the power data, like Stryd.”
Well I squeezed a short run in today with the Vantage M. Nothing fancy, just a zone 3 (hr) session.
Took my M400 along also with that using my H7 and Vantage using its OHR.
Both were fairly close tbh. Distance was 3.28mile (M) vs 3.22mile (400). This was pretty much the case for the other metrics, all being pretty much identical.
The area that I noticed most deviation whilst out was the HR values.
The OHR on the Vantage started with a reading that fluctuated between 5 & 10bpm higher, but whilst into the run ‘seemed’ to be under reading by a similar amount against the H7 equipped M400. Not the end of the world but could result in you being in the wrong zone.
They both recorded the same maximum however but the Vantage had a lower average by 5 bpm which ties back in with it under reading at the start. Assuming the H7 is the more accurate of course!
Looking at the times in zone in flow and the graph the OHR had me in a lower zone for longer than the H7 and also seemed to be very spiky. I could in hindsight have worn the Vantage a hole tighter so that ‘may’ have made a difference but suspect not.
Personally not overly fussed about this as I will be swapping the H7 over to the Vantage now anyway. I am more interested in the OHR for just general day to day/continuous recording.
Going back to the different distances recorded and onto the gps tracks.
Both started poorly. Maybe 1-2metres off the actual path. Both however recovered quickly and stuck pretty close to the actual path (a mix of open and under tree cover plus several short tunnels) I would say though that the Vantage was tighter to the path going out and also dealing with two sections where I crossed over a canal via bridge perfectly whereas the M400 was not even close. It’s not a clear victory for the Vantage on this run however as on the return portion the Vantage went back to being 1-2metres off (but consistent line not wavering about) whereas the M400 tracked spot on barring a couple of random spikes where it was several metres off (not something I’ve noticed before tbh on this route) overall though for me I’m happy with the Vantages performance on this occasion and even though it wasn’t as tight to the track coming back, overall it was a better track than the 400’s.
Other things I’ve noticed not related to the run.
The Vantage is much comfier to wear imo.
The screen which is dim but acceptable for me is much brighter when training and see no reason for it to be an issue.
Syncing with Polar Flow is much quicker in both connection and time taken to complete vs the M400.
Only thing I need to keep an eye on for now is the Sleep Plus. It didn’t work last night giving only the basic metrics that I got anyway with the M400.
Overall, for me, I feel the Vantage M is a worthy upgrade to my M400.
Great first impressions.
Unfortunately, mine weren’t as nice.
– Been on my second run today, which was a 2mi warmup, followed by 4*(200/200/400m) repeats, and ended with a 2mi cooldown. The warmup’s track was most probably the worst any of my watches ever recorded. I don’t know why, tbh, because the cooldown, which was the same route back to start was actually quite tight.
– Another thing is the lack of a usable lap/step/phase display. There is basically none. At the end of an interval I didn’t even get as much as time, just the information that the next phase has started.
– Also, maybe I haven’t found it yet, but I got no countdown before the start of a next phase. I nearly missed a couple intervals because it’s just a faint vibration right at the start.
-Display brightness and font (it’s just way too thin) make it very hard to be of use during hard running, especially colours like blue are hardly readable on black background.
Was the Sleep Plus problem a one-time problem or is it still missing it?
I had it only for one night and didn’t worked, I hope it doesn’t end up like the A370 in the beginning where it took months until they fixed it (it would regularly miss several days in a month).
TBH I’m not much impressed so far :-( I bought it to replace V800 and A370 in a single device with continuous HR monitoring and knew about all the initial missing features re the V800, but some things really left me wondering like the Polar Scale not pairing and not being able to force the light on while training.
FWIW sleep data appeared in Sleep Plus a couple of hours after I woke up and synchronized. I noticed that basic metrics were immediately available in the Activity report when I synchronized so maybe it was just the back-end lagging behind.
A shame you are having issue/less than satisfactory results. I’m not claiming the Vantage M is perfect just yet. I did a very simple pretty much straight out and back due to time restraints so had hoped the god track would have been fairly decent.
Like you though I experienced the less than stellar track tightness but mine was poor on the return. To put it into perspective though baring one little section of it going mental (I’d stopped to deal with my four legged running partner!) it tracked a pretty much right to the actual trail track just 1-2m to the left of the actual track. It was close just not close enough at the minute. It dealt with changes in direction much better than the M400 on this run though.
The test for me will be future runs. A lot of my shorter runs are in the woods so I’ll see how it copes with heavy tree cover.
One thing I’m initially wondering is if it needs several minutes of being ‘locked’ to the satellites before starting a session to allow it to settle. Wouldn’t explain my poorer return portion however.
On yesterday’s run I set up a simple phased run (10min warmup/20min work/10min cooldown). As for the ‘notification’ to phase change I’m in two minds. I liked the audible warning on the M400 but couldn’t use headphones when training with phases as couldn’t hear so feel the vibration will be better there. I’m finding it strong enough after that run but on something more intense I will have to see.
As for counting down to phase change mine started to vibrate 3-5 seconds before change with a visible countdown along to bottom edge coupled with the green bar that reduces with time/phase progress. Visually I found it better than the M400 method. Will have to see how I feel after doing some more complex workouts.
I think the display brightness is going to be one of the main points people keep coming back too with these watches. I’m finding it acceptable, but, would like the option to brighten slightly. If that affects battery then so be it. The choice would be good. I definitely found the training screen to be brighter than the day to day screen so it’s clearly got adjustable brightness levels programmed in.
For me maybe it’s partly from coming from the mono M400. Seeing colour is much better!
I much prefer the way HR zones are shown on screen too with the coloured segments around the top. A little thing but I like!
I may have missed what watch you are coming from but compared to the M400 I’m finding the Vantage M a pretty big step up. I’d wanted to have continuous HR and the advanced Sleep metrics etc and had toyed with getting an A370 to get that but ultimately didn’t want two devices. Equally I didn’t want the M430 as even with those features it didn’t feel to me to be much of an upgrade to the 400.
I did debate getting the Vantage V but ultimately decided that whilst I’d like the barometer I didn’t want the touch screen, and whilst interesting I’m not 100% on power yet and ultimately can pick up a Stryd if I decide to explore that avenue.
I hope you get to a satisfactory level with your watch and that Polar are actively listening and addressing our early initial concerns/criticisms. I’ve been been Polar since the day the M400 shipped and I’m well tied into the experience and don’t want to change. That doesn’t mean I won’t but I’m prepared to see how things go for now.
I’m going to go with the Sleep Plus just being slow to update. Like you experienced it updated later into the day.
The same has occurred this morning with only basic metrics initially being available so will see if it also updates later.
This is the first watch I’ve had that offers it so not sure if this is to be expected or if the other watches that support the feature give the more detailed metrics as soon as you sync.
I will keep an eye on it for now but it initially at least just appears to be slow to process.
I come from a FR935, so obviously I’m used to a rich feature set, and customization in whatever way one sees fit. Regarding the former I don’t care so much, because it’s exactly the reason why I wanted to go back to Polar as soon as they come up with a round watch again (been using Polar since the end of the 90s and only recently made the switch to Garmin in May): A basic care-free feature set that just works without constant firmware updates, and Flow software, which beats Garmin Connect in pretty much every way.
The latter, i.e. customization, wouldn’t be that much of a problem if Polar had at least kept the quick menu from the M430 (which I used since its release, and lately parallel with the 935) to cover the most basic functions. Like toggle 24/7 HR, lock buttons, end an interval, set an interval timer, or just switch backlight on/off accessed with a long press of the upper right button, which on the Vantage sadly is just illumination.
I knew it would be a big change to go from what by many is considered the best running watch (935) to a new line-up, even if by someone renowned as Polar. But I’ll hang in there for now, eagerly awaiting what Polar comes up with hopefully not too distant firmware updates, simply for the reason that I like Flow (plus a premium TP) so much better than GCM.
P.S.: OHR is VERY shaky for me. I have a very low RHR of 38-41, and my HR hardly climbs above 60 during my day-to-day activities. The VM however displays any number between 40 and 140 while standing, sitting, walking. Tried different fits by adjusting the band’s width, and position on my wrist, with some resulting in less shaky numbers than others, but all in all HR seems quite random at times.
Thanks for the great early review on the Polar Vantage on DCR and YouTube. Definitely the best info pre-release info out there by far. Just ordered a Polar V using your link.
Hoping this helps me up my game for indoor cycling and strength training with occasional hikes and jogs. Excited to return to Polar as my first HRM was FT60, followed by Fenix 3 without HR and then Samsung Sport. The FT60 provided the functionality I wanted at the time without a myriad of unwanted features. The Fenix and Samsung provided some of that but a lot of other stuff I don’t care about. Looking forward to device that provides motivation and metrics to manage my training without burying the capability under a lot of unneeded functionality.
This is a leap of faith as it looks like substantial firmware upgrades are going to be required to deliver full capability. However, hoping this device will be focussed
Will you be able to use the power meter on the Polar Vantage V and use it for Zwift running?? I am did not want to have to purchase a seperate power meter and footpod after spending $500 on a watch??
Hello. I’m sorry, I don’t know English very well, so I used a translator.
I have a question for Ray and all those who have already received and use “M”. I am facing a choice of 920 / F3HR / M. The budget is limited, so here it is. Price including sensor +/- close. All friends use Garmin and advise it, as the largest set of features for the money, the most reliable and accurate tool. I used the M200 and M430 for 1.5 years, got used to Flow and sympathized with Polar, besides it is a new product. Of the requirements: running 60%, swimming 20%, power 20%. That is the most important thing for me is everything related to running. What do you recommend me to buy for the next 2 years?
Oh yes, I forgot to add, by the beginning of the next season I plan to buy a power sensor.
Since you are coming from a polar lineup and you already have data in Polar Flow, all other things being equal, I would stick with Polar and buy me a Vantage M.
Besides, Polar Flow is a much better tool for predicting your recovery status, your racing times, for making running programs tailored to your actual capabilities and now also for planning your training and racing season. And it is for free once you have a Polar device. You can forget this all with the other brands.
The M430 is great. So is the F920xt. The F3HR has terrible heart rate during activity though fine at rest. They are both light with a good form factor. The 920 will handle Stryd with their app or field from CIQ. The earlier Garmins are good devices, particularly the 920 but GC really sucks and you might then need to pay for a third party site to upload your data to such as TPs. You could wear a 920 to get power and the M430 on the other wrist just to get distance, pace and HR data input into Flow and get the recovery metrics, running index and predicted race times!
Agree with Nicola but I would wait a bit before risking VM. I am pretty disappointed with my VV. The firmware is not finished after all the waiting. They have had 4 yrs!
Hi Andrew,
I can’t help but make the reference to Suunto Spartan Ultra. Ray pretty much trashed it in his initial review due to bad firmware. I think it was 2016. Two years later I used Suunto’s midsummer deal this year and bought it for a great price IMO. Firmware has been updated tons of times since Ray’s review and today I don’t think you can find almost any bad review of that watch with its current firmware. The only negative I can think of now is that you can only pair one sensor of each type at a time, but that’s probably the only bad thing about SSU today, so for me it kind of looks like this is Polar doing a Suunto Spartan all over.
I’m eagerly awaiting Black Friday/Weekend to see how much the VV is be discounted, if any ;) The SSU might be a catch at BF btw.
I hope you are right but I suspect these are hardware issues rather than firmware. I suspect the backlight brightness is maximal on backlight button press (100% duty cycle of PWM but low light output LED) so no fix there. I also suspect there may be fundamental difficulties with the Sony chipset as the S9 has had similar GPS issues. I hope it is fixable in firmware but in the end it might not be. Synthesis of accelerometer, gyro, compass and GPS takes place on the Sony chip not in Polar’s firmware. (I can see why they did not release it with navigation as until they fix the GPS issues it just won’t do this reliably and they need to focus on this problem first and see if it is fixable)
Glad to have had the first 10k run with my new Vantage V, had it this Monday in Sweden/Stockholm.
Tried it along side my old M430 paired with H10,
M430 recorded 9.99k, the Vantage V 9.96k > can well be the difference between left and right hand from what I understand.
H10 recorded avg pulse of 158, the exact same as the Vantage V 158.
Hello! Very good sight you have here. Thanks for this.
I haven’t had time to read all about this polar V, maybe someone asked already, but i just wonder why does it have to have H10 heart rate sensor required? Doesn’t it pick up the HR through the watch?
Regards
Jussi
hey juha, you dont have to, it picks up HR but historically not as precise as a strap. The Vantage seems to have more precise readings and as such there might not be a need for chest strap i the day to day training.
I may be overstepping my mark but I have just created a new subreddit where I’m hoping we can have some of these discussions about all the (high end) fitness trackers and wearables.
Please feel free to check it out. And Ray, if I have overstepped the mark please feel free to delete this message.
Prize-wise it’s nearly the same and in regards to functionality it’s also pretty similar:
Pro VV:
– everything included in one device
– Recovery Pro (only if I can really manage to use it daily, which I doubt)
– a bit more battery (40 hours instead of 30). OK, doesn’t really matter to me
Pro VM + Stryd:
– instant pace from Stryd, e.g. to not overdo by starting a race
– lighter
– changeable straps which make it business compatible
My question is basically about power from VV which is to my knowledge dependent on good GPS
reception:
What happens if GPS reception is really bad, e.g. during a city marathon with skyscrapers? I guess that power isn’t usable / reliable in this scenario.
If I’m right, this probably gives the tip to VM + Stryd.
But as I’m running a marathon only every other year, VV + stride sensor (e.g. Milestone POD) might be a great option as well with only slightly increased costs.
Received my Vantage V yesterday and tried it out today for the first time. Brief overview: good watch, easy to use, has all functions I need. On the other hand: GPS is so far quite bad. And that’s in a city with no high buildings and/or narrow streets. Even in the park it did cut edges. Luckily I also have a Stryd foot pod that gives me the data and accuracy I need. Still, hopefully Polar fixes this soon.
Some more detail: I have been using polar watches since 2000, Last watch was V800 with which I was very happy for almost 4 years. Since I am kind of a data freak, I also have the A370 fitness tracker and bought the Stryd recently. The Vantage looks nice, but is still too big for me to wear it every day. I will stick to the A370 for now. What is really an asset of the Vantage is the optical heart rate sensor. Even though I am planning to still use the H10, it will surely help when I want to minimize the stuff I take with me, e.g. when going to the gym or while traveling.
If you guys are interested, I will share more experiences. Of course, I am far from competing with DC’s analysis, but let me know if you have a question.
Ultimately, thanks to DC for the great job. I have been following your site for quite a while but until now never commented.
@homer2010 Still waiting for mine. Hopefully any day now. :-)
A few questions:
1/ Assume in running profile you can set it like the V800 to take pace / distance and power from Stryd and have GPS only for the map?
2/ I also use V800 and A370. Have you noticed whether at rest / during the day that Vantage is more accurate?
3/ Is there any data that you won’t get if you use A370 during the day instead of Vantage V?
Thanks in advance.
1) I did not change anything, just connected the Stryd. But now that you ask: did not find where to adjust whether the Vantage shall use Stryd or GPS (will check later in detail)
2) to me the A370 seems pretty accurate. I did not see a big change with the Vantage (actually quite similar results). This said, it reads once a day or so very low heart rate values. I will also check and if I find anything starneg come back here
3) I don’t think so, but have to get used to the new features (e.g. recovery). From what I saw, the heart rate seems to be read now permanently instead of every 5 minutes. If that is so, I will check on battery life
Got my V yesterday, took it for a short run around the neighborhood followed by a crossfit session.
TLDR: It’s a fairly competent sports watch here and now. It otherwise feels unfinished and rushed. I’d say it’s at least 8-12 months away from something that begins to approach a true V800 replacement.
GPS: Meh! Roughly in line with Suunto 9, which is no surprise given it’s the same Sony chipset. But whereas Suunto tracks are often of jagged, wandering drunk variety, Polar is a smooth operator. Lots and lots of smooth. Hence, plenty of corner cutting. My V didn’t meet a corner it didn’t like to lop off. The test run distance from V800 was 2.58 miles, from Stryd 2.60. Suunto 9 reported 2.69 and V 2.52. Draw your own conclusions!
OHR: OK? Looked really solid and good for a steady run and on the hills. Indoor rowing hasn’t been awe inspiring, and fast hard effort was outright disappointing. Bodyweight exercises were a wash. Kettlebells and weights not too good. Things improved visibly 10-12 minutes in. I’d say raw here-and-now data wise, Suunto 9 Valencell sensor does roughly the same on a gym effort. But… And here comes a big BUT… There was no HR locking on cadence like Suunto. No spikes in steady state HR. And Polar does some post-processing Magic. Despite discrepancies during the session, my crossfit average HR from V matched H10 spot on, the overall shape of the graph was fairly close as was time spent in zones. At no point did my HR drop below 110, which is typical for wrist HR in these types of situation. Even though V missed most of the peaks, it recovered and locked quickly. I can see OHR being useful for most of my runs, easy rowing, and stretching/mobility exercises. Any heavy lifting or hard intervals are still better done with a heart rate strap, alas.
Running Power: Good, very good. At least, for a sample of one run. Color me surprised! Polar’s power followed Stryd fairly closely. Close enough that you could take one graph, move it by 40-50 “whatevers” (thank you, 5krunner!) and get less or more the other. All peaks and valleys and even a lot of in-between oscillation. It is definitely consistent with effort. So, if you haven’t purchased Stryd yet and are running outside, Polar has you covered.
Other nitpicks:
o Backlight is dim in poorly lit environments. Granted, screen lights up when you bring the watch up and you can always press a button, but there’s no way to change default or backlight intensity
o No Do-Not-Disturb/Theater mode. This means that at night your screen can light up waking you or your significant other. Again, Polar does a pretty good job distinguishing when you raise your hand to look at the watch vs just move your hand, but for some it may not be enough
o Alarm vibration is weakish. Would be enough to wake me up, but not a sound sleeper. What’s worse, if you don’t turn it off in the first 5-10 sec, it turns on sound alarm like Apple Watch. No way to select either vibration, or sound for an alarm
o Structured workouts are there, but there’s no way to jump phase or end a structured workout
o No quick menu during the workout (or at least I didn’t find one) to quickly change settings
o You get the whole of 2 (as in two) watch faces, and minimalistic doesn’t begin to describe it. Needless to say, there’s no way to customize them
o No background sync. At least for me the V requires a manual sync with the phone every time
o While Sleep Plus is there on the first attempt, it appears to come with a delay of 20-30 minutes. Perhaps, the V is making sure you actually woke up. Perhaps, it’s a delay on Polar processing servers. It is more accurate than what I got from M600 or A370 though.
One question, you said that there is no wait to jump a phase of a structured workout.
Is it as all possible on other Polar watches? I have a M430 and I do not know how to jump a phase there. I thought it was not possible at all…
The GPS isn’t that bad. I honestly expected worse from my experience with early Suunto 9 firmware. But it is no V800 and I don’t think it ever will be. Basically, as we go to low-power GPS chipsets, we traded accuracy for longevity.
Still, let’s be honest: even V800 isn’t perfect when it comes to pace and distance.
Couple V with a cheap but accurate pod like Milestone Pod, and you got yourself fairly pretty GPS tracks, accurate pace/distance, and lots of goodness that V800 doesn’t have. Higher resolution color screen, better backlight gesture, built-in wrist OHR, improved orthostatic test, 24/7 heart rate tracking and Sleep Plus, way faster sync times… Not to mention Training Load Pro and Recovery Pro, both of which look pretty well done and useful.
Definitely on V800 and I think M430 (not entirely sure though!), during structured workout do a long press of Light button to access Quick Menu, then scroll down. The structured workout options would be towards the end.
With V800, holding down the upper left button brings up a menu with options to set while performing an activity–and one of those options is to end the current phase and jump to the next.
> Not to mention Training Load Pro and Recovery Pro, both of which look pretty well done and useful.
I do wonder how well the new metrics are going to work with trail running. IIRC, some of the V800 goodness for running only applied to road running. I would expect that run power is only available for road running, in which case the training metrics might not be as useful for someone who runs primarily on trails.
Do you (or anyone) know if the use of v800 and/or Vantage with a Milestone, Stryd, or other 3rd party pod will cause the 3rd party pod’s GPS tracks to replace the watch’s own GPS tracks when it shows up in Flow/Strava?
Footpods don’t have GPS tracks of their own. So these will always come from the device. The distance/pace will come from the pod though. In case of V800, you can actually configure this, i.e. use foot pod for speed setting. Vantage — I haven’t tested it yet — but the rumors have it, foot pod pace/distance takes priority over GPS provide one. Will be testing this tonight.
Hence my suggestion above to combine V/M with a decent foot pod. Solves the problem of pace/distance in any environment while still providing GPS tracks.
Unlike Garmin/Firstbeat that indeed turn off VO2 Max and other goodness for trail runs, Polar’s running power is based on GPS and has nothing to do with training load in general, where power is only one of the components used to calculate muscle load. Your self assessment and heart rate are other training load components, and you’d gonna have them irrespective of trails or even activity type… Recovery is derived from their revised orthostatic test (HRV and all) and your exercise/activity history.
So, whether you run trails or roads, with Polar native power or Stryd, even if you do something completely different like crossfit or swimming, you still have access to Training Load and Recovery Pro.
Pretty much echoes my impressions but nicely presented! For me the dim backlight is a deal breaker as I am a 60 yr old presbyope. I can read the display on my V800 and M430 at night. They are twice as bright and also the contrast is better. Polar customer service has been helpful but they were unable to confirm or refute the backlight being at full intensity when the backlight button is pressed (If the duty cycle is at 100% then there is no firmware fix to improve brightness). Its a shame as the display is good in daylight. The firmware is obviously unfinished and there is a lot of catching up to do to get back to even the V800 functionality but the potential is there. Whether the inaccurate “swooshy” GPS is fixable or not is also questionable as I think the INS and GPS are integrated on the chip not in firmware using solid state analogue circuitry.
Thanks for that as I had not even taken that into consideration till I read your review. That is a big concern for me too. With all this mentioning of fine output/dim display, Ive decided to hold off till I can see one for myself. Luckily my pre-order with a dealer got botched by Polar who only informed them now, that they are not releasing certain colors(Red) to dealerships for at least another month. They were not happy!
I’d say a default backlight level is a on a dim side. Once brighter “active screen” backlight comes up, due to wrist movement or button press, the screen should be pretty readable to most. As a comparison point, I’d say think of Garmin Vivoactive or Suunto Spartan Trainer.
Of course, with Garmin you can crank up brightness. And as Andrew rightfully noted, it’s not clear if backlight we have in Vantage now is all there’s. Certainly, there’s no way to change it now.
Do you know if this means that v650 data collected–while using a power meter–will contributed to the data and analysis for Training Load Pro and Recovery Pro?
Yes V650 power data is added to the Vantage data and contributes to the Training Load Pro and Recovery Pro.
I’ve used Vantage V for a month with V650 for bike sessions and they work as expected together.
in fact i have about 8 weeks of Training Load Pro data which is a mix of data carried over from V800 + V650 (pre Vantage V) and Vantage V and V650 once I switched.
I must say I am exteremly happy with the Training Load Pro and Recovery Pro.
i may be one of teh most useful features of the Vantage V solution.
becase of continous HR monitoring, Vantage V and V650 training session I now have best possible view of where i am from training load and recovery!
Super happy with this function!
I also sync automatically with TrainingPeaks, and the combined view with Training Load Pro and Recovery Pro gives me an extremely good insight of where I am.
Anders, that is quite relieving. I was worried they broke their prized run/bike ecosystem and made my v650–which is now, like the v800, quite the matured little device with most everything I want, and nothing I don’t.
And this integration is accomplished so long as you use power meter on the bike, right?
And then here’s the hard question: if there is a problem mixing Vantage V power with Vantage V+Stryd power, could there be a problematic offset with the various non-Polar power meters supplying measurement data to the V650? Perhaps not as most power meters are within 5% accuracy/of each other–unlike Stryd vs. Vantage Power way off each other?
Do we have some triathlete friends to weigh in on this?
Glenn
I’ve been using the PowerTap P1s with my Vantage V, and haven’t noticed any issue. In the case of cycling, my assumption is that because Polar are simply reading a power number from a Power meter (i.e. not calculating a power number themselves) then there should be no issue for the strain and recovery metrics etc.
As you say, most power meters are within 1 or 2% of each other.
I use Specialized built in crank power meter connected to the V650. It’s a Tarmac S-Works (so underneath it it’s a 4iii power meter – see review here:link to dcrainmaker.com). it provides power data that is +/- 1% to 2% accurate.
All the power metric that the Specialized meter collects is sent to the V650 displaying exactly what I want and need (HR, NP, pace, lap time…) – V650 does not distort the power stats in any way (same as before when I have the V650 combined with V800).
Also V650 in my set up is not showing any confusing nonsense stuff – I prefer to focus on what I am supposed to do and prefer not to have any disturbances like music, graphs and other stuff (quite frankly listening to music or other distractions are dangerous at these speeds and in traffic/other people – I do not get how people can do that during training).
I agree, V650 does exactly what I want and need.
When the bike training is complete I sync the V650 with PolarFlow which syncs with TrainingPeaks and Strava perfectly as before.
PolarFlow now provides the FULL picture of what I have done and I mean EVERYTHING: every bike training, every non bike training, BUT also everything outside training: every step, every minute slept, garden work (and it’s stress impact), walking around the office etc, etc. (not just training sessions) Now I have a complete picture of how all these activities adds up to stressing my systems.
Already now (after 8 weeks), I feel that I have a much better handle on the “Fit vs. F…ed” balance – something which I have struggled with in the past, leading to fatigue and sometimes injuries.
I summary, I must say I am now super happy with this set up: Vantage V + V650 + PolarFlow (Recovery Load Pro etc) and feel I will actually get better and more controlled improvement ramp with this setup. I think so because I have better data and better actionable insights into the data.
One thing I can say is that now, being able to compare before and after, I feel like I was flying blind before. I mean I had PolarFlow old standard Recovery Status (which mostly flagged me as Strained or Very strained – I was not) and TrainingPeaks with TSS scores, TCL, TSB etc., etc. that gave me a ramp but it only covered my training sessions and did not take into account how I slept, how I felt, how stressful that last trip was or how recovered I actually was.
One think I did not mentioned was that you need to take your Orthostatic Test 3 times a week to get good recover data to complete the full picture with Recovery Pro – this is key.
You need your H10 for this – H10 is the best HR sensor I have ever used and I have used a lot of them!
I am going to continue with this set up (with Training Load Pro and Recovery Pro) and have some check points the coming 6 months to see if these insights actually leads to better results – so we’ll see.
This is largely a repost as no one was able to answer. No that a few people have the device, maybe someone can answer or or more of the 3 questions related to the interplay of steps/HR/activity/recovery.
I do think the overall activity tracking and integration with flow and reporting is quite good, but the precision seems to be undercounting very consistently by 10-15%. I know this only because I use a Fitbit as part of a work-related social/fitness program–and Fitbits are very precise w/steps.
In any case, setting aside (more advanced step-tracking) like immediate/real-time step track display and social stuff not in the “Polar athlete’s” lane, a person taking 20k steps a day (perhaps typical for a runner) can be undercut by 2-3k steps–which is rather significant loss of output.
Three questions then:
1) Will the step-tracking accuracy improve?
2) In calculating activity output, recovery, calorie burns, etc., will Polar Vantage compensate for this, perhaps with the use of 24/7 heart-rate tracking from the wrist as the measure of activity that indicates recovery times?
3) Will Vantage both count steps and calculate training cardio and muscle load using data from other devices histories, or will this start only once the Vantage is put into action?
#1 question should be addressed to Polar support. Though as a one-time Fitbit user, I wouldn’t call their step counting a benchmark to judge others by. They have assumptions and blind spots of their own.
#2 I don’t think your “activity level” and calories burnt rely solely on steps. If they did, I wouldn’t get half of my calories.
#3 Yes, Polar Flow activity can take multiple devices into account. So, you can walk around with M600 during a day, switch to A370 when at home or sleeping, and use Vantage V for training. This has been supported for a while.
For #2, I wasn’t suggesting Flow relies only on steps–but I am wondering. It seems like a mix of whatever’s coming from swinging the wrist + structured activity.
For #3, my question had less to do with the general use of multiple Polar devices, and more to do with Recovery Pro for muscle and cardio. Once I connect a Vantage to Flow, Is Vantage the only device that can collect the necessary data for this? Or does HAVING the device allow the use of this new Polar application while also using some historical data to show the historical trends? What data does the Vantage collect that other devices don’t?
Here’s what I do know. Recovery Pro is really looking at your cardio recovery only, mostly using Polar orthostatic test data and cardio load from exercise. The orthostatic test can only be administered by two devices — the new Vantage V (M can’t do that) and the veritable V800. Whether V800 orthostatic test can feed into recovery remains to be seen*. From the point of view of reporting, V’s orthostatic test results are no different from V800 and feed into the same reporting data buckets and display in the same reports.
* Checked my back data and was surprised to see two weeks in September and most of October that actually have Training/Recovery for them, kind of retroactively. Until yesterday I used offline OH1 and V800+OH1 or M430 for training and V800+H10 for orthostatic test. However, it wasn’t until Vantage V was added to my account that this new load/recovery became available. Nor it exists for period preceding public Vantage announcement.
So, I think it’s safe to say: you need Vantage to get new Training Load, which then can be calculated using data from older devices. You need V for Recovery Pro.
I just got my Vantage V and started to set it up.
I was positively surprised to see that the Cardio Load report function automatically transferred my V800 cardio data from September 20th until today November 1st .
This is EXCELLENT!
I now have more than a full month of cardio data which means I do not have to start from scratch and build up a load profile for the next month (before the values make sense)!
Nice to see that the past 40 days sessions where in the so called “productive zone” (high but still in zone :) consistently except the last week which was a recovery week. It will be interesting to see how that changes when I dial up again this and the coming 3 weeks lol.
As far as data is concerned, the transition from V800 to Vantage V is going much smoother than when I moved from RS800CX to V800.
Also, just set up some of the training views for my key sports trying to mimic the V800 once to see how that will work. Honestly, the key metrics I need during exercises is mainly HR, lap time, pace and power so it is pretty easy to customize some key views – done very similar to V800.
So far, I am missing some things V800 allowed me to do:
– Speed/Pace zone lock – obviously important
– HR zone lock – obviously important
– HeartTouch – this is a key feature to for instance Activate backlight, start a lap, or just check the time of day… and no Tap is not a replacement: if you are cross country skiing for instance try to Tap and tell me how that’s working out for you. Also Tap sometimes get confuse with a double poling motions so I turned it off on all cross skiing related sports profiles for V800 and used HeartTouch instead and that works.
Nonetheless, I read that most of these things are happening in future releases.
Tomorrow I’ll try my first session and I’ll see how that goes…
?
I think I’ll mount a tap stylus (I think I have some somewhere in my computer bag…) on my gloves, my forehead or on my jersey straight over my HR strap – just need to find that role duct tape… Wait! Taping the styles on my jersey/jacket over my H10 would be like – wait for it… Heart touch – problem solved ?!
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I travel a fair bit, both for work and for fun. Here’s a bunch of random trip reports and daily trip-logs that I’ve put together and posted. I’ve sorted it all by world geography, in an attempt to make it easy to figure out where I’ve been.
The most common question I receive outside of the “what’s the best GPS watch for me” variant, are photography-esq based. So in efforts to combat the amount of emails I need to sort through on a daily basis, I’ve complied this “My Photography Gear” post for your curious minds (including drones & action cams!)! It’s a nice break from the day-to-day sports-tech talk, and I hope you get something out of it!
Many readers stumble into my website in search of information on the latest and greatest sports tech products. But at the end of the day, you might just be wondering “What does Ray use when not testing new products?”. So here is the most up to date list of products I like and fit the bill for me and my training needs best! DC Rainmaker 2024 swim, bike, run, and general gear list. But wait, are you a female and feel like these things might not apply to you? If that’s the case (but certainly not saying my choices aren’t good for women), and you just want to see a different gear junkies “picks”, check out The Girl’s Gear Guide too.
Can you migrate any of your old training data from other devices into Flow? I can’t seem to find any answer, and since they don’t even support exporting, I’m not that hopeful…
I loved Flow for the well thought out design, but the ugly/bulky hardware made me switch to Garmin for day to day activity tracking. I’m really tempted to switch back to a Vantage, but losing all of my running data for the past couple of years would be a no-go.
Sure you can. I used syncmytracks for a bulk import but other popular services exist. Rungap appears to be possibly the best choice.
In general, it’s a good idea to export all your data from Garmin and Polar to a neutral service like training peaks and obviously something you can set up in Flow to happen automatically.
That way, next time you change vendor, you can continue to keep all your data in the same place.
I love Polar and flow but I would never lock myself into a vendor specific service.
My solution for avoiding any vendor lock-in is to use SyncMyTracks to keep in synch my current account with all the others. This way it does not matter what watch I am going to use, my history will be available everywhere and I can use the best feature of each service.
Ray,
what is your assessment on the consistency of running power?
If it relies only on GPS and GPS is all over the place, is running power useful at all or would it be better to go with a stryd?
Andy: That question is a whole article in itself. I think you will have to be patient and wait for the Polar Vantage review.
Yeah, in all honesty the whole GPS pace this is really the least of power meter for running issues. I know a lot of folks like to throw it out there in favor of Stryd, but if I look at all the challenges of running power across the board, I actually don’t see responsiveness of power shifts as a huge issue.
Some might say it impacts pace stability, but again, that’s also something relatively easily solved through accelerometer smoothing from the wrist and cross-referencing that (which most units do).
Now, where things can be impacted is if there’s just bad GPS accuracy to begin with – since that introduces extra distance. Too early to say there.
Seems Polar have taken the money out of my account today for the Vantage V. Getting excited. Possibly get it earlier than expected. In UK.
Likewise. UK also. Ended up going for the M as couldn’t really decide whether the ‘power’ bit was worth the extra outlay (I know there’s more differences than that but that’s probably the main one imo and I know I’d end up not putting the HR start on everyday for the Recovery Pro metrics) Hoping I made the right choice in the end. Can always get a Stryd or similar I guess.
Have just checked Polar account and just says ‘in progress’. Don’t recall if it said anything different previously though.
Hi. An important reason to make the purchase decision of the Polar Vantage V is to know if it will allow structured workouts by power zones in running and with alarms when I leave the power zone marked in the interval or concrete moment of the work. And if it was also compatible with the use of Stryd and not only with Polar’s power measurement. Do you know anything about this topic in both Vantage and Flow? (sorry my bad english)
DC Rainmaker,
This is my biggest question and it will determine if 1. The Polar M or V will be my watch of choice and 2. If it makes sense wearing either all day vs my Garmin 645. The reason is because of Garmin’s new Body Battery feature and if it will come to the Garmin FR 645. I would keep both just for comparison sake but it seems like the Polar Vantage V would take in account not only training metrics but also the 24/7 metrics like Steps, HR, and Sleep data. Is this true? If not then this would mean the Vantage M would be good enough for training only (it may not be needed at all depending) and I can rely on Garmin for the 24/7 data. What do you think?
Polar Vantage M vs. Garmin Vivoactive 3 vs. Suunto Spartan Trainer?
Any thoughts?
If correct HR is a deal breaker I’d say do not choose Suunto. It shows cadence for me 95% of the time. Other than that I like it except the lag for starting and stopping activities. Great for running, roller skiing and pool swimming for instance. The others look good. Polar has great OHR in OH1, Vantage should be good! Garmin is sometimes great. VA3 is probably good value. Not sure about touch screen. Have no Garmins with touch screen.
Suunto Trainer is not so easy to read on the run, small screen!
Jens has pretty much said what I would have said.
I should just clarify that Garmin models to avoid are the Fenix 5 and 5+ if you want accurate GPS and good battery life.@
Suunto’s optical HRMs just don’t work @(which is odd as they are by Valencell and used in the Scosche which does).
I did an acutely embarrassing Youtube video which, however bad, nicely demonstrates the cadence lock problem on the Suunto 9 (which I also had with the Trainer)
link to youtube.com
My F3 without optical HR is a good all rounder and only cost me 160 quid. GPS is better than on later models (despite the Glonass / Galileo marketing hype) but not as good as the FR910 and 920.
The problem with any comparison is it really depends what you are going to use it for. The old Ambit 3 is great for GPS accuracy, battery life, navigation and OWS. Polar (M400, M430, V800) is great for serious athletes looking to improve through structured training. The old F3 is a good all-rounder though master of none. It gives you access to apps through the best SDK for a non-Android watch.
We seem to have passed the zenith for these devices by 2-3 yrs and newer is most definitely not better so save you can yourself a chunk of money by getting a new(ish) older model.
An old FR920xt is still a great device despite being ugly. It is lightweight with a good battery life, good GPS, runs Connect IQ apps and gives running dynamics with the HRM Run or Tri straps.
In the end you “pays your money and takes your choice”. (-;
@ from my experience.
I’d narrow down what features you want. For example, to consider:
Vivoactive 3: Good all-arounder, even has onboard music option. But no openwater swim. Does have a baro altimeter, which is handy for some. Also has Connect IQ app support.
Polar Vantage M: No baro altimeter, but can do openwater swim. Also supports both cycling and running power meters. One of my favorites of the three from a looks standpoint.
Suunto Spartan Trainer: A better optical HR sensor than the Garmin, has OW swim support, running and cycling power support, but is a bit chunky in some ways. Less ideal screen than the others.
The’re kinda similiar, but also quite different.
Note that most of Suunto’s optical HR woes seem to be tied to the size of the device being used. No real surprise there. Heavier devices, specifically top-heavy devices as Suunto designs them, generally perform more poorly with optical HR due to tendency to lock onto cadence. Whereas thinner watches or those ‘lower’ to the wrist tend not to bounce, and thus less cadence lock issues. None of which affect the three watches you’ve asked about.
I have to disagree with the SSTrainer. I don’t know if it was a “cadence lock” issue or just a bug, but I had 2 different watches and both had the same problem: extremely high HR values the first 5-10 minutes of the runs.
And that is something I’ve also seen in the HR comparisons you’ve done with Suuntos (S9 and SST)… And it is a pity, as I liked the watch, the interfaces and the Movescount app (not so many people would say that hehe)
Hi Luis, Ray.
My experience with the SST was as bad as the S9 in terms of cadence lock and crazy high HRs. I wonder if age is a factor (I am 60 so the skin on my wrist is less elastic). Tightening the strap does not seem to help with any of the WOHRs I have used.
I pre-ordered a Vantage V from Clever Training. Just checked with Polar when they will ship to the US. October has now become the last week in November
Polar Watches are now on Amazon for pre-order and they say “Starts shipping in late November”.
However, EU people are reporting early expected dates.
Just checked. Amazon now promises delivery on Monday, 11/19 for prettty much all Vantage models.
I have been told first week in Nov here in the UK.
I wanted to check with Polar themselves, as they have now kicked back Vantage V US ship dates at least twice. The new date of “the last week of November” (which is still later than what Amazon is advertising) is over a month after the initial date. This is right around US Thanksgiving/Black Friday, which has to be the worst supply chain launch period decision, but one they are clearly forced to make because the product isn’t ready. So I don’t really trust any of these dates anymore. If Polar can’t get the hardware out when they say they will, how can we trust the software update timelines?
Anyway, this is too close to an early Dec. trail ultra I’m running for me to have time to give it a proper shake down. I may cancel and look at a Suunto 9. Or stick with my Spartan Sport sine HR.
Not sure about differing ship dates in EU and US but the hardware should be definitely ready. The first V Models shall be sold from tomorrow noon onwards at the marathon expo in Frankfurt. This is said to be the sales start event in Germany.
I’d be very interested if that actually happens…
There are several pages on the Frankfurt Marathon Homepage announcing a new partnership with POLAR and sales starting at the Expo tomorrow noon.
link to frankfurt-marathon.com
Would be a bummer if the big announcement does not hold true. Maybe they will sell VANTAGE pre-order vouchers? :-)
“Maybe they will sell VANTAGE pre-order vouchers? ?”
Ah, like the toy company KENNER did when they did not have STAR WARS figures ready for us 8-year olds ;) The parents bought a pre-order voucher for that little YODA with orange plastic snake.
Does, Garmin have anything that competes with Polar’s Recovery Pro or the Orthostatic Test? That would be the only reason for me to switch sides. I’ve tried the HRV test from Garmin but if I can’t do it multiple times a day and get some sort of feedback, what good is it?
Recovery Pro is covered by Garmin’s partnership via FirstBeat, with all the Training Load and Recovery data. More or less the same concept, just displayed a bit different. Sorta like agrueing Android vs iOS.
I’m not aware of anything the same as the Orthostatic test on Garmin devices natively, but I think I have seen some Connect IQ apps that do it. As of a year ago they were able to access HRV/RR info via CIQ.
Thank you so much for the response!
Does the Recovery Pro feature include 24/7 information in it’s metric (Sleep, Steps)? It seems that this information is just “pretty data” instead of being useful. The one thing I like about polar is that your daily goal is based off caloric burn instead of steps. I feel if I just did a crazy workout, why does Garmin still focus on how many steps I achieved? Do you think Body Battery helps solve this? I just can’t find a reason to let go of my F645.
I searched Garmin’s Connect IQ App store for “orthostatic” and did not find anything: link to apps.garmin.com
But I searched just “stress”, got 23 results, then filtered for fenix 5X plus, and there are 5: link to apps.garmin.com
First app, Heart Rate/HRSS – brings up some interesting questions about the best way to measure: link to apps.garmin.com
HRSS is like HrTSS from TrainingPeaks.. read more here.. link to trainingpeaks.com
This article concludes TSS (Training Stress Score) is better than HrTSS (heart rate training stress score), but doesn’t mention anything about HRSS. (Heart Rate Stress Score).
Zone Runner has a LOT of data available… link to apps.garmin.com
hrTSS only shows the same number in multiple times..
Zone Runner is really the star of the show here… So much so that I’m pasting the whole description for you to read here:
“Zone Runner is an all in one data field that displays relevant information on a single screen and uses colour to allow a quick view of your current HR and Pace information.
Forum thread here: link to forums.garmin.com
Optionally Uses Joe Freil for Running formula from TrainingPeaks to calculate HR and Pace Zones.
Features 8 configurable data fields that use color to indicate training zones at a glance.
• Current pace – uses Garmin Connect colors to indicate pace zone
• 4-Second Smoothed Pace
• 30-Second Smoothed Pace
• Average pace
• Current HR Zone
• Current HR
• Distance Travelled
• Cadence
• Estimated hrTSS (Heart Rate Training Stress Score) – link to help.trainingpeaks.com
• Estimated rTSS (Running Training Stress Score – This is a much more accurate formula than hrTSS) – link to help.trainingpeaks.com
• RRE (Relative Running Economy) – link to fellrnr.com
• Power – Requires Stryd (Does not work with Garmin Power)
• 4 Sec Smoothed Power
• 30 Sec Smoothed Power
• TRIMP (Training Impulse) – link to trainingimpulse.com
• Intensity Factor (1 Hour Rolling Average) – link to help.trainingpeaks.com”
(End of Zone Runner description)
Note that Zone Runner includes rTSS, and says it’s also more accurate than hrTSS.
If the orthostatic test was the only thing the polar had over garmin devices, I’d simply manually calculate my orthostatic heart rate, the jump and fitness tests are pretty cool. I suppose one could do the same type of physical movement for the polar tests, and watch how they trend… Worth noting is that Polar’s orthostatic test is more advanced than a simple standing heart rate average – resting heart rate average. It’d be interesting to see if that’s true though.
I’m not too swayed by having music on the fenix 5 plus series, although the pulse oximeter is really cool. Some day I plan on getting a real smartwatch to go on my other wrist, which will have better music capabilities, and allow me to worry less about people potentially trying to contact me. As others have noted, the smartphone notifications on the fenix 5 are pretty useless, since you have to have your smartphone in range. I really wish the fenix 5 asked the user their rate their perceived exertion and take that into account like the polar… That might be the straw that breaks the camels back here.
Add in the fact that I’m planning on getting a real smartwatch to go on the other wrist, I really only need this fitness watch to do the fitness stuff and do it the best it can. The polar also seems more accurate thanks to having 9 sensors.
Now – something I have yet to consider – is which watch acts as a better sleep tracker, or integrates with a good sleep tracker. I’m guessing the Garmin is the device/ecosystem to invest in, but it’d be worth checking what a good android wear smartwatch has when it comes to fitness apps, and I should also note that samsung watches have their own unique OS and smaller app store, I’m guessing samsungs S-Health is probably the best app on that platform overall, but there’s probably at least one other fitness app providing more detailed fitness metrics.
I guess maybe my question here, is what’s the best fitness watch and smartwatch combination? I’m definitely interested in using a heart rate strap for more accurate heart rate data.
My fitness concerns can be boiled down to: Which fitness tracker is going to give the most conservative advice on which days I can play bball, how many games can I play, and when I should stop playing? Polar Vantage V or a Garmin watch? Price/time/convenience are not major factors. It would also be nice if the watch could recognize and track reps for any lift where the hands are moving. Being able to tell me when to stop lifting would also be very valuable information.
The Polar Vantage V is Sport Watch targeted at triathletes, suitable for running, cycling and swimming. Even though it has dozens of sport profiles for many other sports, I doubt it goes into the details you indicated.
Regarding the Garmin offering I let others respond, as I am not familiar with it.
You already have a device that does exactly what you asked for: your brain.
In all seriousness. The cardiovascular load from playing ball is negligible, play as much as you like.
I am totally confused with delivery times, yesterday at noon I received this email from Clever Training:
Thank you for your order for the Polar Vantage GPS Watch. Based on the most recent information available from the manufacturer we are still on track to process your order the end of October.
I can Trust??
I suspect the custom pre-order message for Vantage folks just wasn’t caught as needing to be updated. I’ll let someone know.
(Typically for major products like this with longer-lead pre-order times CT will customize the pre-order/backorder type e-mail a bit, as well as usually provide weekly or biweekly updates. My guess is this just slipped through the crack to update the pre-order with the correct November dates.)
Actually, update on that update a few minutes ago.
Just got off a chat with Clever Training, who in turn also just got off a call with Polar. They will have units shipping to them today or tomorrow, so they’ll go out to customers early next week – ahead of schedule.
The dates shown online right now are mostly just placeholders based on previous updated Polar guidance, as well as CT’s own take on how reliable a given date is from a given company. They tend to be pretty conservative, so usually push dates out slightly beyond what manufs say.
In any case, you should be getting Vantage units from CT by the end of next week, short of something last minute changing.
Thanks for the support!
Apparently individual order shipping has started. Reported on facebook that order 22826535 has been dispatched. My order is almost 2000 after that number….
Ray, thanks for getting to the bottom of this. I received the same CT email yesterday. Seems like you’re more tapped into what’s going on at Polar than the chat person on the Polar website!
The initial inventory delivery (at least for here in the United States) has arrived. Those who have pre-ordered (whether direct through Polar.com or 3rd party sites like Clever Training) will see shipments starting to arrive starting mid-next week. Demand/Supply will be high early on and once these initial orders are fulfilled, subsequent orders will be processed on a first come/first served basis. – Mike@PolarUSA
Just been notified (this pm) of shipping with tracking number.
In that case perhaps there is a slight chance it will have a better price during Black Friday/weekend? Wonder how stores do with such a new product? I got the M430 solely for its OHR but am disappointed with it in general.Probably my best OHR watch but not only does it lack such a simple thing as a beep at autolap but also there are huge limitations when it comes to editing sport profiles WHEN YOU ALREADY HAD OLD ONES CONNECTED TO OTHER POLAR WATCHES. Super stupid bug.
Am tempted to get the Vantage V.
What is the best Try watch in the market now ? Polar Vantage V or any other ? I am using Polar V800 (I bought back in 2013 based upon your review) . I want your honest opinion ?
I think it’d be pretty tough to argue the Polar Vantage V as the best triathlon watch in the market, at least in terms of features. We’ll see on optical HR accuracy (so far, it’s pretty good). But there’s a lot more to a tri watch than just that.
If we talk about features (amount of) then I guess Garmin wins. But considering the price to quality ratio, what would you say? I mean, for a non professional triathlete that will not benefit from some of that extra features, the accuracy of the Polar could make it a contender?
So If you were me. Which watch will you buy ? I need make and model. I want best Tri watch in the market now. which I can use for next 5-6 year.
What triathlon features do you miss?
I’d say anyone who wanna buy a watch and have it for a long time should go for Polar. V800 has been updated for 4 years.
Vantage might be the first watch with reliable OHRM and you can trust Polar to keep finetuning this watch for years to come, at least if they have the same approach as before.
“But considering the price to quality ratio, what would you say? I mean, for a non professional triathlete that will not benefit from some of that extra features, the accuracy of the Polar could make it a contender?”
I don’t know.
Personally, I don’t see any meaningful differences between what Firstbeat is doing and what Polar is doing in terms of training load/recovery type stuff. Slight nuances to each, but basically the same fundamentals (Polar noted as such during their presentation to me). Both companies have a solid reputation in this area, though, there’s no question that Firstbeat’s footprint in terms of technology licensed is far larger (as well as the various pro sports team pieces they do). But insofar as consumer stuff, it’s basically a wash.
There is the Orthostatic feature in Polars units – if you’re planning on buying one of their HR straps. I did find the HRV app that I had seen before on Garmin’s side of the house, here: link to apps.garmin.com
Optical HR sensor wise, there’s no question Polar’s going to win that game based on what I’ve seen. Of course, if you don’t have plans to use the optical HR sensor for whatever reason, then that’s a non-isue.
GPS-wise, the jury is out. I received a final production unit this morning, so we’ll see over the weekend how things shake out. Up till this point it’s no secret from all reviewers that GPS accuracy hasn’t been awesome by any means.
In terms of feature upgrades, I don’t really put a ton of stock into the argument that Polar keeps on updating features for years to come. Yes, that’s true – but one has to provide context. That’s because they were missing at launch. So it’s not really new features above/beyond what the competition is doing – it’s always been catch-up. So it’s kinda like trying to get extra credit for turning in your homework two years late.
I think the most relevant competitor for the Vantage V series is the FR935 – same price last I checked. Like always, you somewhat need to figure out what you value the most.
Hi Rhena,
My opinion is that there isn’t a definitive answer to your question. Too many variables, too subjective. What’s your price point? How long of a Battery life do you need? Do you care if the watch is Heavy? Do you like music on your watch? Do you have any other sensors that you need to pair too? Do you care if it has a barometer? Do you want a quick release mount?
Anything we buy right now, can’t be guaranteed to be future proofed, when was the last update for V800? November 2017 firmware, so Polar updated it for 3 years. Sometimes manufacturers make one offs either to help with their manufacturing process, or the lack of sales kills the product. Like the Garmin Epix, Suunto Ambit Vertical Garmin Chronos, or Garmin 735 (which Garmin is still updating firmware.)
The V800 was available to purchase Late June 2014, and if you read Ray’s review at the time, he wasn’t a fan of it, because, IIRC, Polar was going to roll out features over time, which other competitors already had in their older watches, and at the time Ray didn’t have confidence that Polar would keep there promises. He wasn’t slamming Polar, but took a, I’ll believe it when I see it stance. I did buy the V800 at the time, and had to put up with the swollen batteries, and H7 eating CR2016’s once a week, but Polar has a great 2 year warranty, so things where fixed up. I did like the Flow interface over Garmin Connect, and I did preorder the Vantage V (after selling my 935), and I’m waiting for Ray’s review to see if the GPS has improved, but if you look at some of his other reviews where the Vantage is in the mix, it doesn’t look pretty.
Regards,
Chris,
If people rely on WOHR some of the calculated Firstbeat metrics on the Polar are less likely to mislead because the input data supplied to (identical?) algorithms will be more accurate. I remember getting flattering/silly VO2 max readings with my Garmin F3 HR (but not with my F3 using the HRM Run belt). Of course if you habitually use an hr strap it should, as you say, be a wash. The development of an acceptably accurate wrist OHR would be the development to make the hr belt an historic curio. With Polar it seems close. It probably isn’t quite there yet (R-R variability and swimming) but for many it will be close enough.
I’ve read that Vantage M seems to have more accurate results from a GPS standpoint. May it be a case of metallic case-bezel interfering with the GPS signal? I may be mistaken but I remember reading some review of a GPS watch that was affected by this problem (Suunto maybe? I can’t remember!).
Anyway, it is true that Vantage V has a price tag not so competitive (ok, it is not a Suunto 9 but as you said, the FR935, and even the F5 can be found at the same price or even slightly cheaper). But what are your thoughts on the M? May it be superior to the rest of entry level try watches such as SST (hated its HR initial spiking) or Instinct (loved the looks, not so much what I’ve read in your review).
As you may have guessed, I’m in doubt between both watches (more prone to the M, as barometric altimeter, cadence measures etc are not dealbreakers for me…).
Ray, please let us know here how your GPS testing of the retail unit went!
Thanks,
P.
It was cold, wet, and windy today. So while I did rides around town as normal in this city for errands and such, I didn’t do any workouts outside. Saturday/Sunday are supposed to be pretty though. :)
Will be here waiting for your reports! :)
Thanks,
P.
Hey Ray, it’s Monday already :) How did the Vantage V do over the weekend? How is GPS on a retail unit?
Thanks,
P.
Ride from yesterday (Vantage V): link to analyze.dcrainmaker.com
HR: So-so, on-par or better than a Garmin, but clearly worse than Apple Watch 4 or TICKR HR strap.
GPS: Some pretty unusual errors for road-riding (I rarely see road-riding errors with any GPS units I test), including place shifting and corner cutting.
Thanks Ray, I guess I’ll have to wait some time and see how Polar responds with firmware updates and if these will actually fix anything.
P.
Just got shipping notification from Polar for my Vantage M…
Excited! Hopefully it gets here before with leave for a week on Monday!
Just paid £10 in the hope that DPD can deliver before my taxi arrives on Monday.
Same, got notification yesterday, ordered this week..
This is Polar Germany/Austria.
Hi David Congratulations!!
I order mine 15 days ago !! So excited !!, where are yo from?
I ordered mine on the 22nd September and I’m in the UK…
I ordered mine 13th September in UK. Still no shipping notification. Boo…
Hopefully soon!
Thanks for the first review!
I don’t get updates or followups.
Dear DC Rainmaker:
Does Polar have any plans to develop a watch along the lines of the Polar Vantage M, but specifically for running, and possibly at a more inexpensive price in the near future?
All the best,
Felix Alicea
It’s plausible, but I suspect Polar would say that the M430 fits that pretty well.
Does the Vantage allow for manual entry of distance (i.e., treadmill calibration) when using it in treadmill mode prior to the workout being saved?
Not to put salt in anyones wound, but shipment of polar vantage v was confirmed today (Sweden). Looking forward to getting started testing it.
No wound. No salt either. Should be here this weekend.
Andrew
Mine seems to have enjoyed the weekend in holland somewhere. Have you gotten yours? Any quick updates? Seems like there’s some bad vibes coming in here atm…
Manuals for Vantage series are now available on global site :-)
Not happy reading in the Polar Vantage M manual!
Regarding heart rate recording through the wrist while swimming, there seems to be bad news. However, I like that Polar are honest. Actually, they also came up with a solution for open water in the manual: Use the H10 and start the recording through the Polar Beat app. (Then it doesn’t use Bluetooth) I have actually tried this during the summer, and it works fine in open water. However it is not optimal, that you can’t start it on the watch like in the good-old-days with 5 kHz Polar watches like the Rcx5. It’s not the most important data while swimming, but it’s nice to have after a swim session. (GPS-accuracy, distance, average speed and counting swim lanes would be more important when swimming than heart rate.)
The manual is really honest here on page 99 on the Polar Vantage M:
“Polar devices with wrist-based heart rate measurement are suitable for swimming and bathing. They will collect your activity data from your wrist movements also when swimming. In our tests, how- ever, we found that the wrist-based heart rate measurement doesn’t work optimally in water, so we can- not recommend wrist-based heart rate measurement for swimming.
In the watch industry, water resistance is generally indicated as meters, which means the static water pressure of that depth. Polar uses this same indication system. Water resistance of Polar products is tested according to International Standard ISO 22810 or IEC60529. Every Polar device that has water resistance indication is tested before the delivery to stand water pressure.
Polar products are divided into four different categories according to their water resistance. Check the back of your Polar product for the water resistance category, and compare it to the chart below. Please note that these definitions do not necessarily apply to products of other manufacturers.
When performing any underwater activity, the dynamic pressure generated by moving in water is greater than the static pressure. This means that moving the product under water subjects it to a greater pres- sure than if the product were stationary.”
Really looking forward to see more testings from Ray. You’re the man :-) And a busy kind of man :-)
Reading reviews from other Polar users who have gained experiences with these parts of the watch, would be very helpful.
At the moment, I actually stepped back a bit, and I think the Vantage M would fulfil my needs for data – and a feature that I really like: it’s really lightweight and almost half the prize than the Vantage V. I’m not training like a pro, so at the moment, I think the data from the Vantage M would be fine for me. Stepping back, was actually an advise from Ray. Thank you. I think I would be a bit more frugal and not just buy the newest and most expensive versions.
My impression is actually, that the Garmin 935 is one of the best and most allround triathlon watches out there, but it’s still more expensive than the Vantage M. The Garmin has more connectivity options e.g. power meters, but I don’t use that. At least not now. Maybe later. By now, I would just need some more miles in the saddle. And when the season is running, I often use my intuition when it comes to how much I could push the bike.
Power while running on the Vantage V…it’s a nice detail, but for me, it’s didn’t whet my appetite – and I think my wallet would be grateful.
Actually, I think most people have focus on the Vantage V. It seems like a lot of people are whiling to spend more and more money on triathlon. Just during the 7 years I have done triathlon – people spend a lot of money on different kind of equipment.
The Polar Vantage M would probably be a very good watch for a lot of people – and it’s close to half prize of the Vantage V. Not bad! But I respect, that there are different demands to the watches out there on the market. Depending on what you need, is a useful reflection to make.
Link to the manual:
link to support.polar.com
Kind regards,
Robert
I have the same feeling regarding HR in the water, Sad but the People of Polar is Trusted
My recommendation : If they said is not accurate why did they stop the band for swimming, for me should be a customer choice in the sport profile, for example in open water i choose by H10 and in a pool the wrist.
Other issues : I did not see the field Temperature in any display!!
Altitude graph the same.
I hope Polar have this in his plans
I agree.
Heart rate touch function where you place the watch infront of the monitor and it would show data or time is maybe also left out.
I prefer to have hour:minutes:seconds showed digital. I can’t see anywhere that you could have seconds showimg unless it is the analog display. Hope they could fix some of these things in an update.
Either the DCR10BTF coupon and the VIP membership @clever training does it mean one can get 2X 10% discount?
Just once at 10% off, not twice. You just need the coupon code – not the VIP.
Thanks for the support!
I have just purchased the Vantage V at Brussels Matathon Expo 5 minutes ago. They have a all colors and models available.
Here is one on sale at the Frankfurt Marathon this morning.
What was the sale price for M and V?
I did not ask.
Personally a feel like the vantage’s (M) has nothing’s advanced…. no Baro ,no altimeter , not better screen,no touchscreen ,no protection , no music …. ok it’s a sport watch but in 3 months every watch will have all of this and better screen ….EVEN THE COROS A THE SAME PRICE HAVE it all ….. so my question is why they took 5 years to sort a watches that will be killed in my opinion in 3 months with new hardware ?!!
Because not all athletes care about Music, Payments, Body Battery, Barometers and other consumer-level features that Garmin and other companies introduce to entice the general population. Either way, those people who need these kinds of features will be more attracted and better served by an Apple Watch which is almost impossible to compete with.
To me a running watch is a glorified stopwatch. It’s an accurate tool that helps someone train and none of the above mentioned features has anything to do with (my personal at least) training. So if the accuracy and reliability is there, I am going to be all over the Vantage M. I am done with chasing Garmin bugs on every firmware release, Garmin has lost my trust. Now whether or not I will trust Polar is another story but less (but dependable) features is a great thing in my book not a shortcoming.
Marios,
Agreed not all care about these features. It’s worth saying, though, that even pros are humans that buy things (especially food/fuel), making payments useful; and listen to music while running even though many take the “meditative” approach to listen to the body. The alternatives are not very attractive: carry a much bigger additional item (phone/music player and a wallet/cash/credit cards). And no one likes to carry extra stuff, especially the pros.
Suffice to say that the perfect device would have these features. But it’s trade-off. I believe Polar is excluding them from Vantage because of battery life (wireless audio sucks battery), and payments just because of the sheer investment it takes to get it done. It’s a rational decision.
If you’re REALLY into music and canNOT carry your phone or a music player with you, and want a Polar that gets updates and w/Android, Polar’s m600 has all that and many other smart-watch features. Just not battery life. It can do 8 hrs w/GPS, although 36 w/out it. Upgrade to Android 2.0 has breathed a lot of new life into it. And it already has many of the core Polar features. This article from ZDNet tells quite a story about this product that doesn’t get much media play:
link to zdnet.com
g
This.
I’ve been using Polar watches since the late 90s (Accurex Plus), and grew tired of their rectangular design. So I bought a 735XT, and shortly after that a FR935 in May. Except for the fact that those Garmins are round, they offered nothing to my training. Quite on the contrary, Garmin Connect Mobile is a mess compared to Flow, and their firmware updates seem to fix two bugs, and introduce like three new ones. Not to mention the bad GPS tracks, and unusable instant pace from my 935. For some time now I’e been using both my M430, and the FR935, and have a Vantage M on the way.
I couldn’t care less about the “missing features”. I’m actually glad about all the stuff that’s missing, less stuff that can clutter menues, go wrong during firmware updates, or unnecessarily eat battery. I just want a no frills running watch with a round face that puts the focus on training for serious athletes instead of ticking all marketing boxes for the consumer-level like Garmin. I chose the M because I want to be able to switch bands, and I don’t need a barometer/power nor Recovery Pro, because as a TP Premium user my training load/recovery is taken care of.
I for one am looking forward to go back to working with Flow+TP, and ditch that mess that is GCM.
@ray or anyone else that can give input:
What is your take on the practical usefulness of Recovery Pro? I realise that this feature need time to dial in, but in general?
I don’t compete, and probably wont for maybe more than charity races etc, but I started running only 3 years ago and in total i do 4 runs a week plus 2 strengths sessions, which at 54 years old definitely put me at the limit – or over.
Recovery Pro and Power are the two main features I see in Vantage V that makes me want it (plus the design), but if Recovery Pro lacks usefulness then a Vantage M together with a Stryde pod might be the better option since it will give me (hopefully) more developed power measurements, accurate distance and pace (using Polar Stride Sensor now anyway) as well as some other running metrics.
@Stefan
If you use common sense, I think you could easily live without recovery pro.
Vary your training and intensity and listen to the body signals. Many triathletes have done this. I even heard an interview with Chrissie Wellington who won the world championship on Hawaii – she didn’t use a powermeter on the bike. She knew her limits and raced on intuition. Oldschool and cool! (In my opinion)
I just ordered the Vantage M yesterday. You could still see your training load if you want to look at that. Actually not something I use in my everyday life from the old Polar watches. Anyway, it’s data you could take into consideration.
The M model is super light weight. It apeals to me. I use the running index data. I know it lacks altitude measurement and navigation, but it’s almost half the price as the Vantage V.
In the end. It’s up to you. Maybe the V is a bit more exclusive looking
At 60 if I were to listen to my body signals I wouldn’t do anything!
The serious point is that not everyone is blessed with reliable body signals. I have run the same route and felt great and felt terrible on different occasions but the performance metrics didn’t correlate often doing surprisingly well when feeling crap. Recovery pro uses how you feel as part of its algorithm. There is some good science behind heart rate variability and it is used to detect foetal distress in labour. I suspect professional athletes become very in-tune with their bodies (I also suspect their coaches handle a lot of the balance of training and recovery).
Maybe Recovery-Pro is a bad name for it but I suspect it will be useful for may.
P.S.
I have not had an injury in two years using the basic recovery data in Polar Flow. I even won a race (only in my age cat). Prior to that I was always pulling a hamstring, hip flexor or something. I think many non-pro athletes overtrain and don’t polarise their training so get injuries and don’t improve. I have run the London Marathon 3 times, once in my own name. The other numbers came from injured over-trainers (yes, that is going back a bit and no, I didn’t eat the Mars bar at the end!).
How are you supposed to – blatantly put – feel when you cannot interpret your body’s signals, as you said? The problem with those algorithms is, that they rely on correct data. Polar’s Recovery thus far has worked with VO2Max. Put in a wrong value, e.g. much too high, and you can easily see how the balanced, strained, very strained sectors are shifted. Since it’s been shown in studies that Polar’s fitness test, and general running index, calculates one’s VO2Max much too high, I wouldn’t trust metrics derived from that value too much tbh. Heck, according to Polar my VO2Max is 71, resulting in race times I am far from clocking. Garmin puts me at a more realistic 57, which is kinda in line with my recent times (5k in the high 19mins). I guess my real value is somewhere in between. With that in mind, how is an algorithm based on wrong data better than an inaccurate/inexperienced interpretation of one’s body signals? I’d take the latter approach any day. You also have to keep in mind that recovery is always meant as recovery from quality sessions before your body is ready to benefit from another workout. There’s no need to recover from or before easy miles. If there is, then those miles weren’t easy to begin with.
@Andrew
I went from long distance triathlon to shorter distances. It works fine for me.
Once I guess I overtrained and pushed my self to heard. Sometimes I tried to make to much progres by adjusting two things at the same time: speed and distance. I think it’s better just to adjust on parameter at a time.
I also found out, that it’s a joy to take some slow runs. It could be a long run in the forrest. However, it is benefitial anyway in many ways. I guess, many people try to push themselves too hard. I’ve been there to, and also had problems with injuries. But I learned from my mistakes.
With Vantage there is also a Perceived Load which can be handy when having done a session that you feel was a lot harder on you than the “mesardued” value indicates. I come across those sessions a lot, especially when i do some stength/gym sessions which Polar seems to underestimate.
@robert, andrew
I cannot say (unfortunately), that I trust my own body signals. Well maybe I do, but I do not trust my own judgement of them. After quitting rugby when i was 23, I did not do any serious exercising apart from a bit of leisury mountainbking in mid 90s and the odd visits to a gym until i started running almost 30 years later and I am quite certain that some issues I had with my shins last winter that kept me from running almost 3 months could have been avoided if I had more self.knowledge. At that time I wanted to run, so I ran even if it was a (more than) bit uncomfortable. Of course, I do not believe that Recovery Pro can give me 100% correct answers, but i was hoping it could give me reliable enough information so that I would at least think a second time before going out for a run (or staying home).
@flokon Im afraid your reasoning is not a strong point for me since Polars Running Index can estimate my 5k and 10k times pretty well. Running Index/Fitness Index are quite different from Recovery Pro in that they measure single instances and that Recovery Pro is based on comparing a daily value with historical trends. as @andrew write, HRV/Orthostatic test is quite established as such for estimating your current fitness. Question is how well it work in practice outside laboratory or in Polars settung
I could also add that 2 years ago I went for emergency surgery for a ruptured appendix that went quite wrong and I ended up 10 days at ICU, followed by 3 weeks in a ward.
Since then my body have not been as before – i’m all recovered and healthy now, but my body sometimes feels like someone elses, the signals doesn’t match up all the time they way they did before surgery. On the positive side is that I got tolerance for alcohol and seldon may bad hangovers the times I do drink… ;)
Just got delivery of my Vantage V. I feel a bit like Ray when he first tested the SSU. I don’t really see the point.
I am going to send it back to Polar.
Here is a copy of my letter to them:
“…Hi
Just got my new Polar Vantage V
I am very disappointed both with the device and with Polar.
It is missing basic features which were present on the V800.
1. No display of power zones on watch. You would think this would simply re-use the HR display algorithm.
2. Absence of Pool Swimming Metrics. It doesn’t even record lengths and lap lengths.
3. No option to keep the backlight on during an activity
4. No adjustment of the brightness of the backlight (it is dim and the display is pretty hard to see).
The website is also missing something fundamental to a watch with native power:
1. No interval training using power! It just uses HR and pace.
I have not included a lack of route navigation as I know this is in the pipeline in software developments. A few more watch faces would have been nice but not a deal breaker.
This device is virtually in every respect not as good as its predecessor the V800.
I now wish to return the device and would be grateful for your instructions on how to do this.
…”
Andrew,
Re: your issues #3 and #4. I don’t remember V800 having backlight on during activity options — a heart gesture, yes. But not a toggle, but then maybe I haven’t looked into settings for a long time. Could you please confirm?
More importantly, am I reading it correctly that Vantage doesn’t support structured workouts with power as intensity target? Only heart rate and pace?
Because that would be a huge omission.
I’ve been reading lots of comments on this site where people return watches when they are not satisfied with their watch. Forgive my stupid question, but do all manufacturers have some kind of money back and return policy for the watches? I am really surprised people are able to return something they bought and used. I see people selling their used watches which is understandable but returning is for me “too good to be true”. I get the feeling I have missed some rules that all watch manufacturers have some kind of “try it and return if not happy” policy.
Is this a fact?
In any case it’s great to hear reviews from people actually having the device in question and testing it.
Thanks for a great site :)
In other news I’ve just ordered an M600 because I’m curious. Does it measure HR in the water and how good is it for swimming? My SST isn’t great with HR in water but otherwise very good for pool swimming.
Here in the US, you can indeed return a watch in most cases, say, if you purchased it from Amazon or Clever Training, for example. The former has a return window of 30 days and the latter is 60 days. Similar policies exist for retailers like Best Buy or Target. Some places have stipulations that the watch shouldn’t have been used. But that’s rare. Very few prohibit returns.
The customer is always right! As long as a watch isn’t broken/scratched and you include everything it came with and packaging isn’t damaged, sure. You can return it. Often for 100% of the value paid.
Besides, with watches these days… Some of them ship out so full of bugs, they are practically unusable. Like Vivoactive 3 that had a really nasty battery drain that couldn’t be fixed unless the watch went through a full factory reset. When I brought it to Best Buy for return last year the sales clerk told me they had been getting tons of Vivoactive back. Didn’t even bother to ask what was wrong or look at the package…
Not used other than ascertaining that the device lacks basic features. Bit like getting into a car and finding it has no steering wheel. I am sure Polar will be grateful for your concern though. There is, of course, no such thing as a stupid question…
Hey Andrew. Shame you are unhappy.
I’ve recieved my M today and would say that is definitely so far at least an upgrade on my old 400.
I kind of agree with your comment regarding the display being dark however it does light up when you raise your wrist to view and find personally that to be acceptable. It would be better to have had the option to brighten however and whilst I don’t train with the back light on, again, an option to do so wouldn’t hurt for those that do.
With regard to pool length etc I was under the impression it does do exactly what you are saying it doesn’t. On the M at least when you go on the ‘pool swimming’ sport on the watch in the top left it gives a pool length which you can change to some pre defined lengths or enter a custom length. Now I haven’t swam with the watch yet but if that setting is not related to recording laps/lengths then what exactly is the point of asking? I can’t see the point of it being there if not used.
As for the lack of power zone indication during workout. I agree. Had I gone for a V I’d have expected that to be shown.
With regards to returning assuming you’ve set up and used will they be happy to except back?
I’ve had experience of Polars returns with my original M400 having a DOA god chip. Can’t fault them.
That should read GPS chip. Stupid auto correct!
You posted again before I replied. Having seen you haven’t touched it then I imagine your return will be painless going off my experience. Assuming UK you’ve distance selling regs on tour side anyway.
Received my M today and went for my usual Monday easy 10k.
A few stuff that instantly caught my eye:
– Font is quite thin, which makes it hard to read during a run, even when lit in the dark. Will change the displays to 3 fields max like I did with the M430, and see if that improves readability.
– Sluggish navigation through menues, and while scrolling. Hopefully this improves through updates, or maybe it’s just a matter of a slow chipset. The M430 is more responsive, just saying…
– The bezel, while being quite thick, is about the same size as my 935’s, so it doesn’t bother me.
Of course the M doesn’t even come close to my 935 in terms of features, and customization, but that’s exactly why I got it: A no-frills running watch that I want to use with Flow, and Trainingpeaks, instead of GCM. So far it delivered. I will keep using it for a month now and then decide, whether it’s time to let my 935 go, and go back to basics for good with the M, or if I actually miss any of the 935’s features.
two other things:
– While my pod paired flawlessly, the H7 has yet to be recognized.
– despite Ray’s enthusiasm to use our 22mm bands, Polar uses some weird mechanism that prevents the usage of other bands than theirs. Bummer, was looking forward to using my different Garmin bands.
Hey flokon. Nice to hear some initial real world use of the M.
I received mine today but have only had chance to set up, hoping to get a run in tomorrow between family commitments.
Regarding some of your points.
My H7 paired instantly. I’m not sure whether the watch turns off the OHR when the H7 is detected/on but mine stayed lit. The H7 is in the paired devices though. Need to look into that just for clarification.
Moving through menus I’m finding is perfect. No lag or delay. I’m coming from the 400 and find it as fast if not maybe quicker.
With regards to the straps equally miffed about that!
Update. Here is a pool swim.
Here is a run
Round the bend.
Around another
Similar to my tracks in that they are correct in shape and direction etc but not right to the actual path on the ground. I reckon on the two sessions I’ve now done, one run and one walk the drift from the actual path is not as dramatic as what you appear to be experiencing. How’s the rest of the track?
Strange on the swim. Not something I’ve tested yet and probably won’t anytime soon. Did you set pool length on the watch?
pool swim:
That is a really good time for a single backstroke length in a 36 m pool?
It is a quadzillion times better data set than mine! (-;
P.S. and I bet you never left dry land?!
he he he
it was drills, not backstroke. I’m a triathlete…I DON’T DO BACKSTROKE…I don’t even know what it is ;-)
it was 1600m i think, see top of image. but I had to get home for a quiche or something. i think i normally do 3.5k on tuesday??
jeez. someone should write a proper review on this.
Lorraine? Classic!
I thought you said you didn’t use it prior to returning it?
Hi flokon,
how would you describe the difference to the M430?
Anything stand out especially?
I’m curious as intend to replace the M430 real soon.
BR
Manfred
@Manfred: Hard to say whether it’s an upgrade from a M430. The screen definitely is much nicer. Then again, the resolution and colours come at a price, namely readability. The watch face definitely looks crisper but the training views stand out much better on the M430. The font used on the Vantage is very thin.
Battery is about the same as the M430. GPS same as well. On paper the new OHR should be much better. I’d never rely on oHR for workouts though so cannot really say something about it. 24/7 HR tracking looks good though. Irregularities settle quickly.
It depends on what you’re after and also what you grew accustomed to from your M430. For instance I instantly missed the M430’s favourite workouts. The Vantage only stores the one you scheduled for the day via Flow. Another thing I miss is the option to change display from light to dark and v.v. which depending on time of day and position of sun improves visibility quite a bit. If you can live with the M430’s oldschool display I’d say no to an upgrade. The round watch face and the display are really the major differences.
does it not have pool distance tracking
Yes it does. Tracks your lengths / style and Heart rate etc.
Ray, Mke@PolarUSA, or anybody who got the watch and has access to Stryd…
Does Vantage support Stryd for pace/power? The answers in the comments appear to indicate yes, but I noticed that Mike’s answers are all carefully worded with future tense. And there’s no Stryd to be found in the list of supported third party sensors in the manual:
link to support.polar.com
And if the answer is No, when should we expect this support?
Thanks a lot for your insight flokon!
My 430M has 3 main issues:
OHR is crap, HR with H7 less so,but still buggy.
Battery lasts for about 5 hours.
Quality: wristband coming off, display sorta started bleedind.
Andrew,
I was quite worried when I read your article, especially because I am waiting for my Vantage V, in relation to the points touched:
1. At least I have seen the Power Zones in the Polar Flow application, to make a more detailed analysis. Not worry for me.
2. This point is important, Did you use the watch in the pool ?, because if not, is little serious to say that it does not have swimming metrics, when in the manual it clearly says it have. I do not think Polar reaches those levels of irresponsibility.
3. While it can be turned on via the wrist is not a worry for me.
4. I’ve had the V800 and the M600, amazing display to see, I’m worried about this point, since Ray said it was pretty clear and as I have 59, it’s a killer point for me.
I have to sold my spartan trainer, impossible to read for me.
Where is Mike? to clarify all this points, Sorry but I sold my Fenix 5, to return with Polar .
My favorite brand that i have been used more than 15 years.
Hi Jorge
1. Seeing power zones in retrospect is fine but for me not terribly useful. Polar Flow supports intervals consisting of multiple phases of training constrained by HR (of course), pace but NOT POWER! As the watch has power natively on the wrist not developing Polar Flow to fully support this seems to me to be a pretty serious omission. I can set a power zone target on my SSU (used with Stryd). I can also have multiple phases of interval training constrained by power on my Fenix 3 (it has taken a while but I can now do this using a Connect IQ intervals app* that I developed specifically for this). This stuff isn’t rocket science. It seems perverse not to implement it.
2. You don’t have to use a watch in the pool to test out swimming. You can simulate the swimming action on dry land. It does measure distance and lap distance. Unfortunately this is expressed in either miles or km and not in multiples of the pool length or in pool lengths. A 25m pool length is 0.0155343. That means I am back in the dark ages counting lengths or doing several decimal place divisions to work them out. Of course if your swimming is unstructured endless lengths this does not matter. Kind of sucky. No SWOLF.
3. But the wrist gesture switches an already dim backlight on at half strength. With a rather washed out display similar to the SSU it makes it pretty much unusable for a 60 yr old presbyope.
4. I think you should be worried. I agree the trainer’s display was awful and I gave it to my son for the same reason. The SSU has a slightly better display and is certainly bigger so just about acceptable. The Vantage V is similar to the SSU but the backlight is feeble and there is no adjustment of its brightness. It is harder to see than the M430 and V800.
I went running tonight with my old Fenix 3, Stryd and my Power Intervals app. It worked really well. The backlight is really bright (set to 50%) and the display is easy to see. It got me back to the car park through woodland in the dark (A bit creepy). I was pleased to have the ability to track back.
How would I have faired with the Vantage V?
I really liked the V800 but it was a bit heavy and I could never get a really good fit on my skinny wrists because of the fixed watch and antennae curvature. I was rather hoping this would be a round V800 with really good WOHR. It isn’t. It is in most respects not as good.
Gutted.
P.S. The wait is finally over! lol…
P.P.S. My new intervals Connect IQ field.
link to apps.garmin.com
1. yes. i expect this to be added eg zone lock for power is clearly on flow for the Vanage and that never worked on the v800 iirc
2. no. try the pool swim mode it gives stroke detection, metres and swolf
3./4. yes it is a bit dim in some circumstances
Hi 5k
2. Don’t understand. I attempted to configure pool swimming sport mode but attached are the only options presented. Is there an issue with my device I wonder?
but not while you are swimming!
Any possibility to have avanced power metric on cycling (NP, IF etc)? is it true that is not even possible to set 1, 3, 10 sec averaged power on the watch?
@Paolo 2x No.
IIRC the V800 did allow what you are saying with the moving average time period being set on the watch
Thanks @the5krunner, I thought so. From a triathlon watch I’d have aspected more attention on cycling power not just the basic :( :( Maybe a strategy to sell more M460/V650..
Does Polar have a forum similar to forums.garmin.com where we can all read about common problems or ask questions?
If there is no official Polar forum, where do people go to exchange questions about the Vantage? forum.slowtwitch.com, or even watchuseek.com like for Suunto (forums.watchuseek.com/f233)?
Polar forum is no longer available :-(
link to forum.polar.com
Exactly that’s why I asked! Are we supposed to turn poor Ray’s blog post into a makeshift support forum? I think Polar should give us a place to discuss all this. It doesn’t make any sense if they don’t!
As much as I hate Facebook, that’s where the discussion is taking place (apart from here). There’s a ridiculous amount of posts in the two Vantage groups, ‘Polar Vantage Users’ and ‘Fans of Polar Vantage V’. And yes, some trolls as well.
Only now, people are actually getting their devices, so hopefully moving towards more substance and less speculation.
Oh wow, I also dislike Facebook and there is no way I will participate on a forum there. Man, why is it so hard for a single sports wearable company to get most things right? Suddenly the Garmin forum seems so advanced …
This makes me think that maybe Ray can see this as an opportunity! He can create a crosslinked forum for all major wearable brands (Suunto too) so that people can compare features and discuss bugs all in one unified place. At the end of the day we are all athletes trying to make the best out of our training tools.
Ray could also monetize it by giving specific API access to companies that presents aggregate information on bugs, problems, potential solutions and statistics. I wouldn’t mind contributing my data in such a forum even if Ray makes money off of it since the main objective would be to make our devices better and give us our money’s worth.
Just an idea …
Maybe not a way for Ray to monetize it, but it’s save him work as well, I wonder if a simple sub Reddit would work as a place for people to discuss fitness wearables and such.
Reddit.com/r/wearables already exists although it is more generic than pure fitness.
Heart rate recording while swimming ???
(Source:nakan.ch)
See screenshot
Looking forward to test the M model this week ?
The test in nakan.ch showed that it measured 1475 instead of 1500 m. However I’ve also tried that with the Polar V800. Could be different reasons. Maybe your style or another swimmer close to you.
In the user manual it says you have to have it tighter than normal while swimming.
Hope someone could use these informations. Think I will get my Vantage M this week. It’s in transit and i ordered it Yesterday (Sunday).
Gratulations to all new born Vantage owners!
I hope that Polar takes a few steps further to develop training with native power – at lest as far as the Vantage V is concerned. At least, I would expect to be able to manage intensities by power zones – as it is implemented for HR and Pace at the moment. The dedicated power screen does not show the power zone either – in contrast to the heart rate page which shows numbers colored according to the HR Zone.
Does anyone know if the Vantage works with Stryd also indoors in terms of pace and distance – or does it take power only and determine pace and distance from its internal accelerometer? That would be a big bummer for me as I very often train on treadmills and do not trust wrist based pace and distance at all.
Yes, eagerly awaiting my Vantage. Should be getting it today.
It does work with Stryd for pace and distance both indoor and outdoor and if you are using Stryd, it will also be the source of your power.
I specifically asked Polar if I would like to use Polar as power source but get pace and distance only from Stryd, would that be possible? The answer is no. If you connect a Stryd, power will be handled completely by Stryd.
Oh, and one more thing I heard is that Polar’s own implementation of Power actually do work with a stride-sensor. It appears to be a misunderstanding that it has to be GPS when in fact it is not.
Polar does listen to the community and hopefully they are in for the long run with Vantage, so I expect a lot of development to take place but primarily this will be on improving the existing stuff as much as possible (GPS, HRM and iron out bugs). Since now they even provide power themselves, I would be amazed if not a lot of development around this (such as power based training) would not be implemented.
“Oh, and one more thing I heard is that Polar’s own implementation of Power actually do work with a stride-sensor. It appears to be a misunderstanding that it has to be GPS when in fact it is not.”
This would be a good (and recent) change if so. Polar was very clear about this gap earlier in my discussions with them, as well as the discussions with The5KRunner. Nice to see if true.
@ray, I asked Polar Support in Sweden this – If Vantage V could connect to a Polar Stride Sensor to get pace, distance and also use that as foundation fo the power calculations in and outdoors.
The reply was a clear yes – and a maybe for other similar Bluetooth sensors.
I hope they are right, and I had a lot of contact with Polar Sweden the last years and never got any false information.
Oh, and if i din’t misread or had google mistranslate nakan.ch review from yesterday he wrote that Vantage V can get pace data form the wrist through the watch internal accelerometer and get pace and distance on threadmill.
A lot of maybes on that one, but from a technical view it sounds plausible.
Gotchya.
Yeah, Polar did note that it could get pace inside no problem from wrist. They just had specified that they couldn’t use that data for power training. I suppose it’s easy enough to test – simply use the treadmill profile and go for a run outside (even if you don’t have a treadmill, since GPS will be off) and see if power values show or not.
Perhaps later today I’ll give it a quick whirl. Up to my ears in bike trainer stuff right now.
I know you’re busy so I’ll save you a few minutes ;-)
@StefanG – yes the polar stride sensor gives pace, distance and cadence on a treadmill as does the watch by itself with no sensor at all. neither of those scenarios calculate power on the V (I seem to remember a comment about not knowing the calibrated status of the pod as the reason for not calculating power)
So really, what you’re saying is that unless you use a Stryd, Vantage really will not give you any power unless you use GPS?
I also heard that if selecting to get pace and speed from a foot pod, one needs to turn GPS off. If true, this is also a let down. On V800 you could get select to have pace and speed from a footpod but still get the gps tracking
I might be mistaken from reading too many answers in too many places, but…
1) Vantage V own power calculation requires GPS. Vantage M doesn’t have power unless you connect Stryd or similar. This hasn’t changed since announcement, even though one hopes Vantage V would gain the ability to calculate power based on footpod provided pace.
2) My current assumption is that Vantage doesn’t let you choose the source of pace/distance when a footpod is connected. However, it will use footpod provided pace/distance over GPS while retaining the GPS for tracks.
Let’s see if people with the actual units who have done testing disagree…
>> it will use footpod provided pace/distance over GPS while retaining the GPS for tracks <<
I surely hope this is how it works. Even the Polar 430 works this way.
I got this today from PolarGlobal regarding foot pod, speed and power (yes battery down to 42% in the pic. No lo-battery shaming please! ;)
“Hi Fredrik,
Thanks for holding. I managed to get hold of our product management.
Yes Vantage V will support BLE footpods and speed that you get from them (please note, however, that in the sport profile GPS needs to be turned OFF).
If you want to have power info our own Vantage V calculation is at least based on GPS speed, so for treadmill running you’ll need to use a foot pod that gives the power data, like Stryd.”
Well I squeezed a short run in today with the Vantage M. Nothing fancy, just a zone 3 (hr) session.
Took my M400 along also with that using my H7 and Vantage using its OHR.
Both were fairly close tbh. Distance was 3.28mile (M) vs 3.22mile (400). This was pretty much the case for the other metrics, all being pretty much identical.
The area that I noticed most deviation whilst out was the HR values.
The OHR on the Vantage started with a reading that fluctuated between 5 & 10bpm higher, but whilst into the run ‘seemed’ to be under reading by a similar amount against the H7 equipped M400. Not the end of the world but could result in you being in the wrong zone.
They both recorded the same maximum however but the Vantage had a lower average by 5 bpm which ties back in with it under reading at the start. Assuming the H7 is the more accurate of course!
Looking at the times in zone in flow and the graph the OHR had me in a lower zone for longer than the H7 and also seemed to be very spiky. I could in hindsight have worn the Vantage a hole tighter so that ‘may’ have made a difference but suspect not.
Personally not overly fussed about this as I will be swapping the H7 over to the Vantage now anyway. I am more interested in the OHR for just general day to day/continuous recording.
Going back to the different distances recorded and onto the gps tracks.
Both started poorly. Maybe 1-2metres off the actual path. Both however recovered quickly and stuck pretty close to the actual path (a mix of open and under tree cover plus several short tunnels) I would say though that the Vantage was tighter to the path going out and also dealing with two sections where I crossed over a canal via bridge perfectly whereas the M400 was not even close. It’s not a clear victory for the Vantage on this run however as on the return portion the Vantage went back to being 1-2metres off (but consistent line not wavering about) whereas the M400 tracked spot on barring a couple of random spikes where it was several metres off (not something I’ve noticed before tbh on this route) overall though for me I’m happy with the Vantages performance on this occasion and even though it wasn’t as tight to the track coming back, overall it was a better track than the 400’s.
Other things I’ve noticed not related to the run.
The Vantage is much comfier to wear imo.
The screen which is dim but acceptable for me is much brighter when training and see no reason for it to be an issue.
Syncing with Polar Flow is much quicker in both connection and time taken to complete vs the M400.
Only thing I need to keep an eye on for now is the Sleep Plus. It didn’t work last night giving only the basic metrics that I got anyway with the M400.
Overall, for me, I feel the Vantage M is a worthy upgrade to my M400.
Great first impressions.
Unfortunately, mine weren’t as nice.
– Been on my second run today, which was a 2mi warmup, followed by 4*(200/200/400m) repeats, and ended with a 2mi cooldown. The warmup’s track was most probably the worst any of my watches ever recorded. I don’t know why, tbh, because the cooldown, which was the same route back to start was actually quite tight.
– Another thing is the lack of a usable lap/step/phase display. There is basically none. At the end of an interval I didn’t even get as much as time, just the information that the next phase has started.
– Also, maybe I haven’t found it yet, but I got no countdown before the start of a next phase. I nearly missed a couple intervals because it’s just a faint vibration right at the start.
-Display brightness and font (it’s just way too thin) make it very hard to be of use during hard running, especially colours like blue are hardly readable on black background.
Was the Sleep Plus problem a one-time problem or is it still missing it?
I had it only for one night and didn’t worked, I hope it doesn’t end up like the A370 in the beginning where it took months until they fixed it (it would regularly miss several days in a month).
TBH I’m not much impressed so far :-( I bought it to replace V800 and A370 in a single device with continuous HR monitoring and knew about all the initial missing features re the V800, but some things really left me wondering like the Polar Scale not pairing and not being able to force the light on while training.
FWIW sleep data appeared in Sleep Plus a couple of hours after I woke up and synchronized. I noticed that basic metrics were immediately available in the Activity report when I synchronized so maybe it was just the back-end lagging behind.
Hi flokon.
A shame you are having issue/less than satisfactory results. I’m not claiming the Vantage M is perfect just yet. I did a very simple pretty much straight out and back due to time restraints so had hoped the god track would have been fairly decent.
Like you though I experienced the less than stellar track tightness but mine was poor on the return. To put it into perspective though baring one little section of it going mental (I’d stopped to deal with my four legged running partner!) it tracked a pretty much right to the actual trail track just 1-2m to the left of the actual track. It was close just not close enough at the minute. It dealt with changes in direction much better than the M400 on this run though.
The test for me will be future runs. A lot of my shorter runs are in the woods so I’ll see how it copes with heavy tree cover.
One thing I’m initially wondering is if it needs several minutes of being ‘locked’ to the satellites before starting a session to allow it to settle. Wouldn’t explain my poorer return portion however.
On yesterday’s run I set up a simple phased run (10min warmup/20min work/10min cooldown). As for the ‘notification’ to phase change I’m in two minds. I liked the audible warning on the M400 but couldn’t use headphones when training with phases as couldn’t hear so feel the vibration will be better there. I’m finding it strong enough after that run but on something more intense I will have to see.
As for counting down to phase change mine started to vibrate 3-5 seconds before change with a visible countdown along to bottom edge coupled with the green bar that reduces with time/phase progress. Visually I found it better than the M400 method. Will have to see how I feel after doing some more complex workouts.
I think the display brightness is going to be one of the main points people keep coming back too with these watches. I’m finding it acceptable, but, would like the option to brighten slightly. If that affects battery then so be it. The choice would be good. I definitely found the training screen to be brighter than the day to day screen so it’s clearly got adjustable brightness levels programmed in.
For me maybe it’s partly from coming from the mono M400. Seeing colour is much better!
I much prefer the way HR zones are shown on screen too with the coloured segments around the top. A little thing but I like!
I may have missed what watch you are coming from but compared to the M400 I’m finding the Vantage M a pretty big step up. I’d wanted to have continuous HR and the advanced Sleep metrics etc and had toyed with getting an A370 to get that but ultimately didn’t want two devices. Equally I didn’t want the M430 as even with those features it didn’t feel to me to be much of an upgrade to the 400.
I did debate getting the Vantage V but ultimately decided that whilst I’d like the barometer I didn’t want the touch screen, and whilst interesting I’m not 100% on power yet and ultimately can pick up a Stryd if I decide to explore that avenue.
I hope you get to a satisfactory level with your watch and that Polar are actively listening and addressing our early initial concerns/criticisms. I’ve been been Polar since the day the M400 shipped and I’m well tied into the experience and don’t want to change. That doesn’t mean I won’t but I’m prepared to see how things go for now.
Hi Gianluca
I’m going to go with the Sleep Plus just being slow to update. Like you experienced it updated later into the day.
The same has occurred this morning with only basic metrics initially being available so will see if it also updates later.
This is the first watch I’ve had that offers it so not sure if this is to be expected or if the other watches that support the feature give the more detailed metrics as soon as you sync.
I will keep an eye on it for now but it initially at least just appears to be slow to process.
I come from a FR935, so obviously I’m used to a rich feature set, and customization in whatever way one sees fit. Regarding the former I don’t care so much, because it’s exactly the reason why I wanted to go back to Polar as soon as they come up with a round watch again (been using Polar since the end of the 90s and only recently made the switch to Garmin in May): A basic care-free feature set that just works without constant firmware updates, and Flow software, which beats Garmin Connect in pretty much every way.
The latter, i.e. customization, wouldn’t be that much of a problem if Polar had at least kept the quick menu from the M430 (which I used since its release, and lately parallel with the 935) to cover the most basic functions. Like toggle 24/7 HR, lock buttons, end an interval, set an interval timer, or just switch backlight on/off accessed with a long press of the upper right button, which on the Vantage sadly is just illumination.
I knew it would be a big change to go from what by many is considered the best running watch (935) to a new line-up, even if by someone renowned as Polar. But I’ll hang in there for now, eagerly awaiting what Polar comes up with hopefully not too distant firmware updates, simply for the reason that I like Flow (plus a premium TP) so much better than GCM.
P.S.: OHR is VERY shaky for me. I have a very low RHR of 38-41, and my HR hardly climbs above 60 during my day-to-day activities. The VM however displays any number between 40 and 140 while standing, sitting, walking. Tried different fits by adjusting the band’s width, and position on my wrist, with some resulting in less shaky numbers than others, but all in all HR seems quite random at times.
Thanks for the great early review on the Polar Vantage on DCR and YouTube. Definitely the best info pre-release info out there by far. Just ordered a Polar V using your link.
Hoping this helps me up my game for indoor cycling and strength training with occasional hikes and jogs. Excited to return to Polar as my first HRM was FT60, followed by Fenix 3 without HR and then Samsung Sport. The FT60 provided the functionality I wanted at the time without a myriad of unwanted features. The Fenix and Samsung provided some of that but a lot of other stuff I don’t care about. Looking forward to device that provides motivation and metrics to manage my training without burying the capability under a lot of unneeded functionality.
This is a leap of faith as it looks like substantial firmware upgrades are going to be required to deliver full capability. However, hoping this device will be focussed
Will you be able to use the power meter on the Polar Vantage V and use it for Zwift running?? I am did not want to have to purchase a seperate power meter and footpod after spending $500 on a watch??
let me know thanks for the great review.
On HR tracking, do I understand correctly that, when not in training mode, the Vantage only shows you maximum and minimum HR and not current HR?
No it will also show you your current HR if you have continuous HR on or it will do a scan for it.
Also shows your lowest HR from sleep if you had it on.
Hello. I’m sorry, I don’t know English very well, so I used a translator.
I have a question for Ray and all those who have already received and use “M”. I am facing a choice of 920 / F3HR / M. The budget is limited, so here it is. Price including sensor +/- close. All friends use Garmin and advise it, as the largest set of features for the money, the most reliable and accurate tool. I used the M200 and M430 for 1.5 years, got used to Flow and sympathized with Polar, besides it is a new product. Of the requirements: running 60%, swimming 20%, power 20%. That is the most important thing for me is everything related to running. What do you recommend me to buy for the next 2 years?
Oh yes, I forgot to add, by the beginning of the next season I plan to buy a power sensor.
Since you are coming from a polar lineup and you already have data in Polar Flow, all other things being equal, I would stick with Polar and buy me a Vantage M.
Besides, Polar Flow is a much better tool for predicting your recovery status, your racing times, for making running programs tailored to your actual capabilities and now also for planning your training and racing season. And it is for free once you have a Polar device. You can forget this all with the other brands.
The M430 is great. So is the F920xt. The F3HR has terrible heart rate during activity though fine at rest. They are both light with a good form factor. The 920 will handle Stryd with their app or field from CIQ. The earlier Garmins are good devices, particularly the 920 but GC really sucks and you might then need to pay for a third party site to upload your data to such as TPs. You could wear a 920 to get power and the M430 on the other wrist just to get distance, pace and HR data input into Flow and get the recovery metrics, running index and predicted race times!
Agree with Nicola but I would wait a bit before risking VM. I am pretty disappointed with my VV. The firmware is not finished after all the waiting. They have had 4 yrs!
Hi Andrew,
I can’t help but make the reference to Suunto Spartan Ultra. Ray pretty much trashed it in his initial review due to bad firmware. I think it was 2016. Two years later I used Suunto’s midsummer deal this year and bought it for a great price IMO. Firmware has been updated tons of times since Ray’s review and today I don’t think you can find almost any bad review of that watch with its current firmware. The only negative I can think of now is that you can only pair one sensor of each type at a time, but that’s probably the only bad thing about SSU today, so for me it kind of looks like this is Polar doing a Suunto Spartan all over.
I’m eagerly awaiting Black Friday/Weekend to see how much the VV is be discounted, if any ;) The SSU might be a catch at BF btw.
I hope you are right but I suspect these are hardware issues rather than firmware. I suspect the backlight brightness is maximal on backlight button press (100% duty cycle of PWM but low light output LED) so no fix there. I also suspect there may be fundamental difficulties with the Sony chipset as the S9 has had similar GPS issues. I hope it is fixable in firmware but in the end it might not be. Synthesis of accelerometer, gyro, compass and GPS takes place on the Sony chip not in Polar’s firmware. (I can see why they did not release it with navigation as until they fix the GPS issues it just won’t do this reliably and they need to focus on this problem first and see if it is fixable)
Glad to have had the first 10k run with my new Vantage V, had it this Monday in Sweden/Stockholm.
Tried it along side my old M430 paired with H10,
M430 recorded 9.99k, the Vantage V 9.96k > can well be the difference between left and right hand from what I understand.
H10 recorded avg pulse of 158, the exact same as the Vantage V 158.
Solid.
Hello! Very good sight you have here. Thanks for this.
I haven’t had time to read all about this polar V, maybe someone asked already, but i just wonder why does it have to have H10 heart rate sensor required? Doesn’t it pick up the HR through the watch?
Regards
Jussi
hey juha, you dont have to, it picks up HR but historically not as precise as a strap. The Vantage seems to have more precise readings and as such there might not be a need for chest strap i the day to day training.
I may be overstepping my mark but I have just created a new subreddit where I’m hoping we can have some of these discussions about all the (high end) fitness trackers and wearables.
Please feel free to check it out. And Ray, if I have overstepped the mark please feel free to delete this message.
David
Got a link to that. Not finding anything.
My options are VV (standalone) or VM + Stryd.
Prize-wise it’s nearly the same and in regards to functionality it’s also pretty similar:
Pro VV:
– everything included in one device
– Recovery Pro (only if I can really manage to use it daily, which I doubt)
– a bit more battery (40 hours instead of 30). OK, doesn’t really matter to me
Pro VM + Stryd:
– instant pace from Stryd, e.g. to not overdo by starting a race
– lighter
– changeable straps which make it business compatible
My question is basically about power from VV which is to my knowledge dependent on good GPS
reception:
What happens if GPS reception is really bad, e.g. during a city marathon with skyscrapers? I guess that power isn’t usable / reliable in this scenario.
If I’m right, this probably gives the tip to VM + Stryd.
But as I’m running a marathon only every other year, VV + stride sensor (e.g. Milestone POD) might be a great option as well with only slightly increased costs.
Received my Vantage V yesterday and tried it out today for the first time. Brief overview: good watch, easy to use, has all functions I need. On the other hand: GPS is so far quite bad. And that’s in a city with no high buildings and/or narrow streets. Even in the park it did cut edges. Luckily I also have a Stryd foot pod that gives me the data and accuracy I need. Still, hopefully Polar fixes this soon.
Some more detail: I have been using polar watches since 2000, Last watch was V800 with which I was very happy for almost 4 years. Since I am kind of a data freak, I also have the A370 fitness tracker and bought the Stryd recently. The Vantage looks nice, but is still too big for me to wear it every day. I will stick to the A370 for now. What is really an asset of the Vantage is the optical heart rate sensor. Even though I am planning to still use the H10, it will surely help when I want to minimize the stuff I take with me, e.g. when going to the gym or while traveling.
If you guys are interested, I will share more experiences. Of course, I am far from competing with DC’s analysis, but let me know if you have a question.
Ultimately, thanks to DC for the great job. I have been following your site for quite a while but until now never commented.
@homer2010 Still waiting for mine. Hopefully any day now. :-)
A few questions:
1/ Assume in running profile you can set it like the V800 to take pace / distance and power from Stryd and have GPS only for the map?
2/ I also use V800 and A370. Have you noticed whether at rest / during the day that Vantage is more accurate?
3/ Is there any data that you won’t get if you use A370 during the day instead of Vantage V?
Thanks in advance.
@Marathon Man
1) I did not change anything, just connected the Stryd. But now that you ask: did not find where to adjust whether the Vantage shall use Stryd or GPS (will check later in detail)
2) to me the A370 seems pretty accurate. I did not see a big change with the Vantage (actually quite similar results). This said, it reads once a day or so very low heart rate values. I will also check and if I find anything starneg come back here
3) I don’t think so, but have to get used to the new features (e.g. recovery). From what I saw, the heart rate seems to be read now permanently instead of every 5 minutes. If that is so, I will check on battery life
One ammendment: it is nice to have more information shown, e.g. it shows the current heart rate now
Got my V yesterday, took it for a short run around the neighborhood followed by a crossfit session.
TLDR: It’s a fairly competent sports watch here and now. It otherwise feels unfinished and rushed. I’d say it’s at least 8-12 months away from something that begins to approach a true V800 replacement.
GPS: Meh! Roughly in line with Suunto 9, which is no surprise given it’s the same Sony chipset. But whereas Suunto tracks are often of jagged, wandering drunk variety, Polar is a smooth operator. Lots and lots of smooth. Hence, plenty of corner cutting. My V didn’t meet a corner it didn’t like to lop off. The test run distance from V800 was 2.58 miles, from Stryd 2.60. Suunto 9 reported 2.69 and V 2.52. Draw your own conclusions!
OHR: OK? Looked really solid and good for a steady run and on the hills. Indoor rowing hasn’t been awe inspiring, and fast hard effort was outright disappointing. Bodyweight exercises were a wash. Kettlebells and weights not too good. Things improved visibly 10-12 minutes in. I’d say raw here-and-now data wise, Suunto 9 Valencell sensor does roughly the same on a gym effort. But… And here comes a big BUT… There was no HR locking on cadence like Suunto. No spikes in steady state HR. And Polar does some post-processing Magic. Despite discrepancies during the session, my crossfit average HR from V matched H10 spot on, the overall shape of the graph was fairly close as was time spent in zones. At no point did my HR drop below 110, which is typical for wrist HR in these types of situation. Even though V missed most of the peaks, it recovered and locked quickly. I can see OHR being useful for most of my runs, easy rowing, and stretching/mobility exercises. Any heavy lifting or hard intervals are still better done with a heart rate strap, alas.
Running Power: Good, very good. At least, for a sample of one run. Color me surprised! Polar’s power followed Stryd fairly closely. Close enough that you could take one graph, move it by 40-50 “whatevers” (thank you, 5krunner!) and get less or more the other. All peaks and valleys and even a lot of in-between oscillation. It is definitely consistent with effort. So, if you haven’t purchased Stryd yet and are running outside, Polar has you covered.
Other nitpicks:
o Backlight is dim in poorly lit environments. Granted, screen lights up when you bring the watch up and you can always press a button, but there’s no way to change default or backlight intensity
o No Do-Not-Disturb/Theater mode. This means that at night your screen can light up waking you or your significant other. Again, Polar does a pretty good job distinguishing when you raise your hand to look at the watch vs just move your hand, but for some it may not be enough
o Alarm vibration is weakish. Would be enough to wake me up, but not a sound sleeper. What’s worse, if you don’t turn it off in the first 5-10 sec, it turns on sound alarm like Apple Watch. No way to select either vibration, or sound for an alarm
o Structured workouts are there, but there’s no way to jump phase or end a structured workout
o No quick menu during the workout (or at least I didn’t find one) to quickly change settings
o You get the whole of 2 (as in two) watch faces, and minimalistic doesn’t begin to describe it. Needless to say, there’s no way to customize them
o No background sync. At least for me the V requires a manual sync with the phone every time
o While Sleep Plus is there on the first attempt, it appears to come with a delay of 20-30 minutes. Perhaps, the V is making sure you actually woke up. Perhaps, it’s a delay on Polar processing servers. It is more accurate than what I got from M600 or A370 though.
Hmm. I’m glad I waited to be honest. The worry about GPS accuracy was the reason. That’s going to be harder to fix, the feature wait I was fine with.
I’m thinking of sticking with my trusty V800 but purchase an H10 (need to pair with 2 devices) and a Styrd instead.
Gutted!
Oh, and thank you for posting this :)
Thanks for your report Nick.
One question, you said that there is no wait to jump a phase of a structured workout.
Is it as all possible on other Polar watches? I have a M430 and I do not know how to jump a phase there. I thought it was not possible at all…
The GPS isn’t that bad. I honestly expected worse from my experience with early Suunto 9 firmware. But it is no V800 and I don’t think it ever will be. Basically, as we go to low-power GPS chipsets, we traded accuracy for longevity.
Still, let’s be honest: even V800 isn’t perfect when it comes to pace and distance.
Couple V with a cheap but accurate pod like Milestone Pod, and you got yourself fairly pretty GPS tracks, accurate pace/distance, and lots of goodness that V800 doesn’t have. Higher resolution color screen, better backlight gesture, built-in wrist OHR, improved orthostatic test, 24/7 heart rate tracking and Sleep Plus, way faster sync times… Not to mention Training Load Pro and Recovery Pro, both of which look pretty well done and useful.
Nicola —
Definitely on V800 and I think M430 (not entirely sure though!), during structured workout do a long press of Light button to access Quick Menu, then scroll down. The structured workout options would be towards the end.
Nicola,
With V800, holding down the upper left button brings up a menu with options to set while performing an activity–and one of those options is to end the current phase and jump to the next.
g
> Not to mention Training Load Pro and Recovery Pro, both of which look pretty well done and useful.
I do wonder how well the new metrics are going to work with trail running. IIRC, some of the V800 goodness for running only applied to road running. I would expect that run power is only available for road running, in which case the training metrics might not be as useful for someone who runs primarily on trails.
Nick,
Do you (or anyone) know if the use of v800 and/or Vantage with a Milestone, Stryd, or other 3rd party pod will cause the 3rd party pod’s GPS tracks to replace the watch’s own GPS tracks when it shows up in Flow/Strava?
g
Footpods don’t have GPS tracks of their own. So these will always come from the device. The distance/pace will come from the pod though. In case of V800, you can actually configure this, i.e. use foot pod for speed setting. Vantage — I haven’t tested it yet — but the rumors have it, foot pod pace/distance takes priority over GPS provide one. Will be testing this tonight.
Hence my suggestion above to combine V/M with a decent foot pod. Solves the problem of pace/distance in any environment while still providing GPS tracks.
Glenn —
Unlike Garmin/Firstbeat that indeed turn off VO2 Max and other goodness for trail runs, Polar’s running power is based on GPS and has nothing to do with training load in general, where power is only one of the components used to calculate muscle load. Your self assessment and heart rate are other training load components, and you’d gonna have them irrespective of trails or even activity type… Recovery is derived from their revised orthostatic test (HRV and all) and your exercise/activity history.
So, whether you run trails or roads, with Polar native power or Stryd, even if you do something completely different like crossfit or swimming, you still have access to Training Load and Recovery Pro.
Pretty much echoes my impressions but nicely presented! For me the dim backlight is a deal breaker as I am a 60 yr old presbyope. I can read the display on my V800 and M430 at night. They are twice as bright and also the contrast is better. Polar customer service has been helpful but they were unable to confirm or refute the backlight being at full intensity when the backlight button is pressed (If the duty cycle is at 100% then there is no firmware fix to improve brightness). Its a shame as the display is good in daylight. The firmware is obviously unfinished and there is a lot of catching up to do to get back to even the V800 functionality but the potential is there. Whether the inaccurate “swooshy” GPS is fixable or not is also questionable as I think the INS and GPS are integrated on the chip not in firmware using solid state analogue circuitry.
They have agreed to accept the device back.
Thanks for that as I had not even taken that into consideration till I read your review. That is a big concern for me too. With all this mentioning of fine output/dim display, Ive decided to hold off till I can see one for myself. Luckily my pre-order with a dealer got botched by Polar who only informed them now, that they are not releasing certain colors(Red) to dealerships for at least another month. They were not happy!
I’d say a default backlight level is a on a dim side. Once brighter “active screen” backlight comes up, due to wrist movement or button press, the screen should be pretty readable to most. As a comparison point, I’d say think of Garmin Vivoactive or Suunto Spartan Trainer.
Of course, with Garmin you can crank up brightness. And as Andrew rightfully noted, it’s not clear if backlight we have in Vantage now is all there’s. Certainly, there’s no way to change it now.
Nick,
Do you know if this means that v650 data collected–while using a power meter–will contributed to the data and analysis for Training Load Pro and Recovery Pro?
g
@Glenn Levine,
Yes V650 power data is added to the Vantage data and contributes to the Training Load Pro and Recovery Pro.
I’ve used Vantage V for a month with V650 for bike sessions and they work as expected together.
in fact i have about 8 weeks of Training Load Pro data which is a mix of data carried over from V800 + V650 (pre Vantage V) and Vantage V and V650 once I switched.
I must say I am exteremly happy with the Training Load Pro and Recovery Pro.
i may be one of teh most useful features of the Vantage V solution.
becase of continous HR monitoring, Vantage V and V650 training session I now have best possible view of where i am from training load and recovery!
Super happy with this function!
I also sync automatically with TrainingPeaks, and the combined view with Training Load Pro and Recovery Pro gives me an extremely good insight of where I am.
LOVE IT!
Anders, that is quite relieving. I was worried they broke their prized run/bike ecosystem and made my v650–which is now, like the v800, quite the matured little device with most everything I want, and nothing I don’t.
And this integration is accomplished so long as you use power meter on the bike, right?
And then here’s the hard question: if there is a problem mixing Vantage V power with Vantage V+Stryd power, could there be a problematic offset with the various non-Polar power meters supplying measurement data to the V650? Perhaps not as most power meters are within 5% accuracy/of each other–unlike Stryd vs. Vantage Power way off each other?
Do we have some triathlete friends to weigh in on this?
g
Glenn
I’ve been using the PowerTap P1s with my Vantage V, and haven’t noticed any issue. In the case of cycling, my assumption is that because Polar are simply reading a power number from a Power meter (i.e. not calculating a power number themselves) then there should be no issue for the strain and recovery metrics etc.
As you say, most power meters are within 1 or 2% of each other.
@Glenn Levine,
I use Specialized built in crank power meter connected to the V650. It’s a Tarmac S-Works (so underneath it it’s a 4iii power meter – see review here:link to dcrainmaker.com). it provides power data that is +/- 1% to 2% accurate.
All the power metric that the Specialized meter collects is sent to the V650 displaying exactly what I want and need (HR, NP, pace, lap time…) – V650 does not distort the power stats in any way (same as before when I have the V650 combined with V800).
Also V650 in my set up is not showing any confusing nonsense stuff – I prefer to focus on what I am supposed to do and prefer not to have any disturbances like music, graphs and other stuff (quite frankly listening to music or other distractions are dangerous at these speeds and in traffic/other people – I do not get how people can do that during training).
I agree, V650 does exactly what I want and need.
When the bike training is complete I sync the V650 with PolarFlow which syncs with TrainingPeaks and Strava perfectly as before.
PolarFlow now provides the FULL picture of what I have done and I mean EVERYTHING: every bike training, every non bike training, BUT also everything outside training: every step, every minute slept, garden work (and it’s stress impact), walking around the office etc, etc. (not just training sessions) Now I have a complete picture of how all these activities adds up to stressing my systems.
Already now (after 8 weeks), I feel that I have a much better handle on the “Fit vs. F…ed” balance – something which I have struggled with in the past, leading to fatigue and sometimes injuries.
I summary, I must say I am now super happy with this set up: Vantage V + V650 + PolarFlow (Recovery Load Pro etc) and feel I will actually get better and more controlled improvement ramp with this setup. I think so because I have better data and better actionable insights into the data.
One thing I can say is that now, being able to compare before and after, I feel like I was flying blind before. I mean I had PolarFlow old standard Recovery Status (which mostly flagged me as Strained or Very strained – I was not) and TrainingPeaks with TSS scores, TCL, TSB etc., etc. that gave me a ramp but it only covered my training sessions and did not take into account how I slept, how I felt, how stressful that last trip was or how recovered I actually was.
One think I did not mentioned was that you need to take your Orthostatic Test 3 times a week to get good recover data to complete the full picture with Recovery Pro – this is key.
You need your H10 for this – H10 is the best HR sensor I have ever used and I have used a lot of them!
I am going to continue with this set up (with Training Load Pro and Recovery Pro) and have some check points the coming 6 months to see if these insights actually leads to better results – so we’ll see.
This is largely a repost as no one was able to answer. No that a few people have the device, maybe someone can answer or or more of the 3 questions related to the interplay of steps/HR/activity/recovery.
I do think the overall activity tracking and integration with flow and reporting is quite good, but the precision seems to be undercounting very consistently by 10-15%. I know this only because I use a Fitbit as part of a work-related social/fitness program–and Fitbits are very precise w/steps.
In any case, setting aside (more advanced step-tracking) like immediate/real-time step track display and social stuff not in the “Polar athlete’s” lane, a person taking 20k steps a day (perhaps typical for a runner) can be undercut by 2-3k steps–which is rather significant loss of output.
Three questions then:
1) Will the step-tracking accuracy improve?
2) In calculating activity output, recovery, calorie burns, etc., will Polar Vantage compensate for this, perhaps with the use of 24/7 heart-rate tracking from the wrist as the measure of activity that indicates recovery times?
3) Will Vantage both count steps and calculate training cardio and muscle load using data from other devices histories, or will this start only once the Vantage is put into action?
g
Glenn —
#1 question should be addressed to Polar support. Though as a one-time Fitbit user, I wouldn’t call their step counting a benchmark to judge others by. They have assumptions and blind spots of their own.
#2 I don’t think your “activity level” and calories burnt rely solely on steps. If they did, I wouldn’t get half of my calories.
#3 Yes, Polar Flow activity can take multiple devices into account. So, you can walk around with M600 during a day, switch to A370 when at home or sleeping, and use Vantage V for training. This has been supported for a while.
Thanks for the response, Nick.
For #2, I wasn’t suggesting Flow relies only on steps–but I am wondering. It seems like a mix of whatever’s coming from swinging the wrist + structured activity.
For #3, my question had less to do with the general use of multiple Polar devices, and more to do with Recovery Pro for muscle and cardio. Once I connect a Vantage to Flow, Is Vantage the only device that can collect the necessary data for this? Or does HAVING the device allow the use of this new Polar application while also using some historical data to show the historical trends? What data does the Vantage collect that other devices don’t?
Can’t answer #3 for sure.
Here’s what I do know. Recovery Pro is really looking at your cardio recovery only, mostly using Polar orthostatic test data and cardio load from exercise. The orthostatic test can only be administered by two devices — the new Vantage V (M can’t do that) and the veritable V800. Whether V800 orthostatic test can feed into recovery remains to be seen*. From the point of view of reporting, V’s orthostatic test results are no different from V800 and feed into the same reporting data buckets and display in the same reports.
* Checked my back data and was surprised to see two weeks in September and most of October that actually have Training/Recovery for them, kind of retroactively. Until yesterday I used offline OH1 and V800+OH1 or M430 for training and V800+H10 for orthostatic test. However, it wasn’t until Vantage V was added to my account that this new load/recovery became available. Nor it exists for period preceding public Vantage announcement.
So, I think it’s safe to say: you need Vantage to get new Training Load, which then can be calculated using data from older devices. You need V for Recovery Pro.
hi,
I just got my Vantage V and started to set it up.
I was positively surprised to see that the Cardio Load report function automatically transferred my V800 cardio data from September 20th until today November 1st .
This is EXCELLENT!
I now have more than a full month of cardio data which means I do not have to start from scratch and build up a load profile for the next month (before the values make sense)!
Nice to see that the past 40 days sessions where in the so called “productive zone” (high but still in zone :) consistently except the last week which was a recovery week. It will be interesting to see how that changes when I dial up again this and the coming 3 weeks lol.
As far as data is concerned, the transition from V800 to Vantage V is going much smoother than when I moved from RS800CX to V800.
Also, just set up some of the training views for my key sports trying to mimic the V800 once to see how that will work. Honestly, the key metrics I need during exercises is mainly HR, lap time, pace and power so it is pretty easy to customize some key views – done very similar to V800.
So far, I am missing some things V800 allowed me to do:
– Speed/Pace zone lock – obviously important
– HR zone lock – obviously important
– HeartTouch – this is a key feature to for instance Activate backlight, start a lap, or just check the time of day… and no Tap is not a replacement: if you are cross country skiing for instance try to Tap and tell me how that’s working out for you. Also Tap sometimes get confuse with a double poling motions so I turned it off on all cross skiing related sports profiles for V800 and used HeartTouch instead and that works.
Nonetheless, I read that most of these things are happening in future releases.
Tomorrow I’ll try my first session and I’ll see how that goes…
try tapping lots of different things…see what happens. Friends, neighbours, doors.
finish up with tapping the watch. That should give you a lap ;-)
@the5krunner,
?
I think I’ll mount a tap stylus (I think I have some somewhere in my computer bag…) on my gloves, my forehead or on my jersey straight over my HR strap – just need to find that role duct tape… Wait! Taping the styles on my jersey/jacket over my H10 would be like – wait for it… Heart touch – problem solved ?!