Strengths: Downloadable data to PC, Lots of functions
Weaknesses: Price... must read the manual and follow the directions contain in it for it to be "fit-for-purpose".
Bottom Line:
I have had no problems with this monitor. After reading the manual, I took it out of the box, put it on the bike, strapped on the transmitter, and started riding. If this product is installed properly and programmed the way the instruction manual says, it will work as advertised. After the ride, I uploaded all of the exercises recorded that day into the Polar Precision Performance software on my computer through a USB infrared receiver without any problems.
If you are serious about training or racing you must have a heart rate monitor and software to track and assess your performance. The 720i did exactly what the manufacturer said it would do, and what I expected it to do. There are other comparable products on the market but they all do about the same thing.
Submitted by
Annoyed
a Weekend Warrior
from London
Date Reviewed: October 7, 2005
Strengths: Altitude sensor, lots of data storage
Weaknesses: unreliable speed/cadence sensing. Have to dismantle sensors to change battery!
Bottom Line:
Like one of the other reviewers, I bought this in relative ignorance, believing it must be a quality product if it's made by a big name in the HRM world such as Polar. I just wish I'd read and believed the reviews on this forum before I did. BIG AND EXPENSIVE MISTAKE!
The first unit I had lasted all of 6 hrs(!) before the altitude sensor went bonkers. 0ft one minute, 20000ft the next.
The second (current) unit seems ok, but like many other reviewers, I find the speed sensor is just too unreliable, making the whole (expensive) setup no more than a useless geeky looking watch.
The speed sensor unreliability seems to be getting worse too. On my daily 5 mile trip to work I rarely manage to record the entire 5 miles, usually 4, and often as little as 1 mile! This suggests to me that it cannot be being caused by power lines, etc otherwise the data loss would be much more consistent and anyway, if the device can't cope with a typical suburban environment, it's no use to anybody.
It's no good Polar stating in their manual that reliability is affected by just about everthing that you might come across on a typical ride. If this is the case, then the product is definitely NOT (in english consumer law terms)fit-for-purpose.
However, I don't think the problem is exclusively caused by interference (although undoubtedly some of it is). Like one of the other reviewers, the unit often stops and starts itself when changing speed, but not stopping. - I often get this at traffic lights, when I slow down to say 5 or 6mph behind traffic, the unit gets all confused not knowing if I'm stopped or going, beeping all the way and then it seems to give up, and if it thinks I'm stopped when it does, it takes about 300yds before it wakes up and starts again. - Obviously a crap auto-start algorithm - I never had this problem with the VDO.
Originally, I thought the heavy metalwork of the MTB suspension fork was affecting the signal, but the road bike is all carbon, so that can't be it. I have also tried the two different magnets and just about every different orientation of sensor and magnet that's practically possible, all to no avail. And anyway, if the positioning is that critical, it's a crap design.
I've used it with 2 different heart sensors (I lost the first one), and the same speed sensor problem occurs on both the MTB going to/from work in a suburban environment AND the road bike in a rural environment at weekends (two different speed sensors, both with new replacement batteries).
On the subject of replacement batteries, the design of the speed sensors is incredibly poor. On other products, you use a coin to unscrew the cover, pop out the old battery, plop in a new one put the cover back and you're done. On the Polar ones, you have to take the sensor off the bike, then get hold of a jewellers screwdriver set, dismantle the unit, fiddle around with the cheap and nasty coin-battery clip and then re-assemble the whole thing. To make matters worse, the screws are very cheap soft metal self-tappers screwed into hard plastic, so after a couple of battery changes, the heads shear off. I'm an electronics engineer and have a range of very high quality suitably sized screwdrivers,and the whole operation was an incredibly frustrating experience requiring drilling out the old screws and then replacing them with a bigger set. The whole operation took nearly TWO HOURS TO REPLACE THE BATTERY!
While I'm talking about electronics experience, this product (the radio part anyway) smacks of being designed by an amateur using rules-of-thumb and not understanding the theory required to design a reliable radio device, and thus unable to fix the design when it doesn't perform as expected. I've seen this kind of approach time and time again with exactly these results.
In summary then...
I WOULD NEVER BUY ANOTHER POLAR PRODUCT EVER - AND I WOULD HIGHLY RECOMMEND YOU DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY AS I DID.
Submitted by
Charles
a Weekend Warrior
from Manhattan, KS, USA
Date Reviewed: August 1, 2005
Strengths: great data logging
Weaknesses: steep learning curve, poor design of speed/cadence senders, peculiar restirictions on display.
Bottom Line:
I wanted to clear up some of the problems people have been reporting with the speed/cadence functions of the 720i. The units are fairly sensitive to alignment. First of all, for those who see their speed doubled, this is because the magnet is too close to the pickup. The sender is reading two pulses each time the magnet passes by; one as the magnet approaches the sensor, and another as the magnet leaves. To fix this you might try moving the magnet above or below the sensor snout. Intriguingly, when I first got the speed sensor working on my Bacchetta, it was reading 2x the correct speed until I got to 23 mph, then it would show the speed at 1x until I slowed down again. If your speed reading tends to drop out, you probably have the sender pointing too far forward. This is a matter of getting the antenna in the sender aligned with the antenna in the readout unit. As shown in the instructions, the long axis of the transmitter needs to be parallel to the axis of the cylinder around which the wrist unit is wrapped. Unfortunately, with the forks on my bikes, this was nearly impossible to do without making special adapters. On my Motobecane, with a semi-bladed Kinesis fork, I was able to saw off a piece of a wooden dowel that I could place against the flat portion of the fork blade while the speed sensor sat against the curve of the dowel and the whole thing was strapped onto the fork with the standard wire ties. I have had no problems with irregular data since making this modification. My Bacchetta was much more problematic. There was no way to get the speed sensor attached so that it would point inward enough to communicate with the receiver unit. I ended up carving a wooden mounting bracket that straps to the fork and has a peg pointing forward that the transmitter straps to with the Polar logo pointing down. With this setup, the unit is very reliable. But most people wouldn't be able to make this unit on their own. Polar really needs to fix this problem so that an average cyclist can get the units working on his bike right out of the box. One positive story about the monitor is that I bought it in winter and made a special bracket to put the speed sensor on the back wheel of my Motobecane while it was mounted in a resistance trainer. Even though the transmitter was over a meter from the receiver, I got reliable data and was able to make a systematic study of my pedaling efficiency at different cadences by maintaining constant wheel speed in different gears (and thus constant power) and comparing my heart rates for different pedaling cadences.
Bike Setup: Motobecane 2004 team issue; Bacchetta Corsa.
Overall Rating:
Value Rating:
Submitted by
Bob
a Cross Country Rider
from Cupertino, CA
Date Reviewed: July 27, 2005
Strengths: Records all the essentials at 5s intervals, and data can be downloaded and analyzed on your PC.
Weaknesses: Heart rate is very sensitive to power line interference. File is closed after 5 minutes of in-activity (this has been extended to 30m in newer models). Speed sensing is flaky even though the sensor is as close as physically possible (on my front fork).
Bottom Line:
I was excited about this initially, but its just too unreliable. Under power lines your HR shoots up to 225 and the speed goes crazy. You then have to edit the data afterwards to filter the results.
The speed sensor if flaky (I've replaced the batteries not too long ago, so that's not it) - I rarely make it through a ride with valid speed readings.
I've worked on the Linux decoding SW for this and they do some stupid things. Rather than recording the number of recolutions of the tire (which is the raw input), they record the speed and then derive the distance from this. This gives inaccurate distance measurements, even if you carefully calibrate the unit.
The 5 minute timeout is a pain. I was in a meeting a couple of years ago with a Polar rep. where we mentioned this problem - I hear this has been extended to 30 minutes in the newer units. Doesn't do me any good though.
The temperature readings seem to be quite a bit off as well.
There are lots of bells and whistles, but they just don't do the basics well. In designing something like this, you should focus on the basics: measuring speed, distance, HR, and altitude reliably, and then add features.
I really like the idea of recording all the keys stats about a ride, but I wish this thing was more reliable. It annoys me most of the time.
Unfortunately, there aren't too many alternatives ... and I hate to spend another $300.
Strengths: Lots of functions Easy to use after setting up on your PC Data transfer
Bottom Line:
The manual may be a bit long (over 100 pages) but you don't need to read all of it and it does explain the monitor's functions - and there are a LOT of functions.
Of course it's going to pick up interference just like any wireless product. You have to be aware of this fact and it's not a defect. As mentioned by someone earlier, you can change the power setting in the speed sensor but be warned that a higher setting means shorter battery life.
Similar Products Used: Polar S625x, Polar S210, Polar SportTester, CatEye
Overall Rating:
Value Rating:
Submitted by
wannabeRacer
a Weekend Warrior
from Melbourne, VIC, Australia
Date Reviewed: January 25, 2005
Strengths: like NASA
Weaknesses: too big....
Bottom Line:
This is nice and you get what you paid for but really, there are far better HR out there for a fraction of the price. For me, I now have Sigma and work just fine, also better looking & I just want to see my HR & % levels. Shop around & do your research before you buy the HR or buy the Polar if you got the cash.
Submitted by
Derek Boyd
a Cross Country Rider
from Acworth
Date Reviewed: November 2, 2004
Strengths: Cool Program features
Weaknesses: constant interferance, irratic HR readings, speed readings irratic, for the price it should work properly. Customer service is a headache even though they were nice in helping me set up software for the IR.
Bottom Line:
If you need dependable equipment and correct data DON'T buy it!
Strengths: 720i, easy to read. lots of info. downloadable. cool charts.
Weaknesses: interferance, on some rides the speed really goes wacko,for some reasons the speed doubles what it should be. some rides the milage is off by 20%. not easy to use.
Bottom Line:
this review is for the 720i. if you dont need wireless do not buy this computer. i wish polar could figure out how to eliminate the interferance. the auto feature is a pain,if you're going fast then slow down it beeps, stopping, then beeps again 2 seconds later, starting again. on a ten mile trail it will beep over a dozen times. overall its a good computer, but very disappointing. i figured polar would have got it right, the wireless computers have been out for some time.
Similar Products Used: cate eye mdx3, great computer.
Bike Setup: ritchey break/away, sc superlight
Overall Rating:
Value Rating:
Submitted by
Eric Vos
a Weekend Warrior
from Philadelphia
Date Reviewed: April 13, 2004
Strengths: This is a correction from my earlier review. The product is good for the gym and for the bike. The data is great.
Weaknesses: Small read out for a bike ride. You really don't want to be looking for data when your riding 25mph
Bottom Line:
I wrote a horrific review when I first got the unit. See above. As it turned out I was riding under high voltage wires for most of the 30 mile path. The ride is situated along an electric train path. Thus, the read out went wild on me. I thought it was the unit and it turned out it was the electric interf. from the overhead wires. Odd but true. I now know not to use the unit on that ride. Otherwise, I love the unit. I have been confined to a gym for the Winter and I still love to wear the watch. Another great feature is many cardio machines at the gym pick up the pulse from the chest belt and read out on the machine your on and the watch. I'm looking forward to spring and summer when I get back on my litespeed. I feel bad about the earlier review but I had no idea the overhead eletrical wires would make the unit go nutty.
Strengths: Great all around training tool. solid performer for 2 years.
Weaknesses: Can't think of any.
Bottom Line:
this monitor works as advertised. for those of you losing the signal regularly, there is a fix. the transmitters, either speed or cadence have 3 output settings adjustable inside the case. they come from polar set at the lowest output so they do not interfere with another riders monitor. if you open the case of the transmitter you will see a dip switch as i remember. just change the setting and give it a try, you'll not see an indication of what setting does what but trial and error will solve your problem. just make sure that the oring is seated properly when you close the case.
Submitted by
Jorin
a Racer
from Frozen wasteland, Saskatchewan
Date Reviewed: January 23, 2004
Strengths: Lots of features, computer download, and power reading abilities.
Weaknesses: Lots of features. READ THE MANUAL. Trust me...
Bottom Line:
A solid heart rate monitor. I have had only a couple of wacky readings due to interference. The computer download ability is a nice addition, as it allows for lots of analysis of ride data. 1 year, no problems. Just bought the power sensor...
Strengths: - Has been very reliable so far. - Extremely valuable when combined with the Power Output kit - Software is ok and there are alternatives out there, even for my Pocket PC (check out MySportTraining.com) - Definitely helped improve my fitness
Weaknesses: - The watch battery (CR2356) is hard to find (not to Polar's fault though) - Occasional spurious data - Connection shuts down if I am far from the monitor for a few minutes
Bottom Line:
A must have for anyone serious about training. There is nothing on the market that comes close to it. It's pricey with the Power Output kit, but serious cycling takes commitment anyway. I not once regretted the purchase and in fact, I'm still amazed at how much this little watch can get so much data. To download in my Pocket PC right after the workout is the blessing.
Similar Products Used: S510. I upgraded to the S710 because of the better sample granularity (5 sec), the extra goodies (altitude, etc.) and the Output Power kit.
Bike Setup: Lemond Zurich 2000, mostly stock.
Overall Rating:
Value Rating:
Submitted by
Eric Vos
a Weekend Warrior
from Philadelphia
Date Reviewed: August 29, 2003
Strengths: Lots of bells and whistles. Documentation is better than most but still hard. Software is good. Yet, the graphics and navagating is "old school." With all of the great graphics and programs out there function and form should have been better.
Weaknesses: While the manual is better than most you better have some serious time to read it. Close to 100 pages. The watch has too many features. That is coming from a tech nut. Unlike other like products the read out is small and you are glancing to get info. They have crammed so much info on the display that it is hard to read while biking 20MPH. At any given point the display will be providing you with 4 readings. The wireless reception is for hell. It quits out on me at least once per three minutes. When I used the mount for the bike it was near impossible to keep a signal. I had to wear it on my wrist. How dumb is that? There were also readings which were impossible. Unless of course my heart rate jumped to 225 and I was doing 56MPH on my road bike. If this unit isn't defective then they should give up.
Bottom Line:
During my third ride trying to use the watch I had this overwhelming desire to smash the little bugger with a large rock. The watch beeps every time the signal is lost from the wheel sensor. Thus, you get reminded continuously during your ride that the watch is unable to keep data from the wireless sensor on your wheel. We are talking every 30 to 45 seconds. I doubt I ever got more than 5 minutes during the two hour ride with a constant signal. Then when you look at the watch and it tells you your going 56 MPH and your heart is doing 225 bpm you know you have wasted close to $300. I had a Suunto Advizor and bought this b/c of the biking components. My favorite flaw was that no signal can be received when the unit is mounted on the handle bars. It works on the wrist but not on the provided mount. There must be some alloy or something on my bars which interferes with the signal. Since my setup is not exotic who knows why? I have read the 100 page manual three times in the hopes of getting better acquainted with the unit. I know it well and it still works for crap.
I am running it with the IR USB on Windows 98 w/o any problems. The data gets through after two or three tries. The software’s looks is ten years old. With all of the great program designs and graphics you feel they should have gone the extra mile. One nice thing was I was able to get a person, rather quickly, at the company to help me with the driver for the USB. Not the most technical guy but we worked it out.
In the end if this product isn’t defective the company should be flogged for selling the unit. I love their by-line....”Train Like the Pro’s.” I don’t think so.
It pains me to leave this review b/c I wanted to love the product and spent close to 300 bucks on the unit, an extra sensor for my mountain bike and the USB IR. My Suunto Advizor didn’t have the bike interface or the software. Yet, at least I got data. I would seriously look to Ciclosport units. They are well priced and can’t be any worse than this.
Strengths: This is actually a review of a S610 but as nobody will look there I'm posting it here as the strentghts and weaknesses are more relavent to MTBs. Strengths - keeps me motivated, manged to track my HR without a glitch for a 24hr race. Data logging is excellent.
Weaknesses: Have twice lost buttons. Wearing it all the time has resulted in a badly scratched face. Face and surrounding plastic now have several cracks and it leaks water if worn swimming. Sensetive to train tracks, traffic lights etc and the error correction in the software is tedious to use. Strap has broken.
Bottom Line:
I actually like this product a lot, it is just let down by being too delicatate. Am going to upgrade to a 710 and give the 610 to my wife.
G'day All,
My Polar S710 HRM has recently displayed 'memory failed' and I'm unable to reset it. I've checked and re-checked the user manual and also checked on-line at the Pola Read More »
