The media could not be loaded. POLAR REVIEW VANTAGE V – November 17, 2018 I have been wearing the Vantage V for two weeks straight now, and have used it for a dozen workouts, including running a marathon, strength training (TRX), swimming and continuous daily use. * Note - I am an experienced triathlete (going on 30 years now, including 6 full Ironman races, dozens of 70.3 distance races and 13 NYC Marathons since 1990) and longtime user of Polar products, most recently the V800, M400 and M430 units. I loved the V800 until I was able to leave the strap behind with the M430 and have a V650 permanently mounted on my bike. The Vantage V is immediately intuitive if you’ve used Polar products before, and easy to learn otherwise. Center right button to select/start, up and down buttons to scroll, lower left button to go back or see the main menu, top left button for the light. The touch screen makes the buttons almost superfluous. A single tap on the start button provides your current heart rate. I have found this Sizewise, it’s bigger (46mm diameter, 13mm thick) than earlier Polar HRMs, but nowhere near as big as the giant Garmin’s I have seen. Everyday Use – I wear the Vantage V as my everyday watch. I have gotten complements on it and so far, it has only needed to be recharged once, unlike the Garmin units I have also used, which in my experience ALWAYS needed to be charged when I needed them. Polar HRM battery life in general for me has always been superior to any other HRM or GPS unit. The last Garmin I owned was a 610 – I gave up on them after the frustrations it gave me from horrible battery to random resets and loss of data. In the Box - The Vantage V, charging cable and a Polar H10 Heart Rate Sensor chest strap. Getting started with the watch and pairing it to my iPhone and chest straps has been quick and simple. Software/App – The Polar flow app is an amazing tool for demystifying training. Letting you easily see both your moment to moment data simultaneously displaying it as a graph, as well as letting you separately view both automatic laps (you set the distance or time length) and your own laps from hitting the button. Like the V800, M400 and M430, the Vantage V uploads to automatically to the Polar Flow app, and I have it set up to automatically upload to Training Peaks and Strava. I currently have 9 sports profiles (workout types and associated screens) loaded up and over a hundred to easily choose from and customize using the app. GPS – Since the V800 and through to the Vantage V, I have always found Polar units to be highly accurate, moreso than even the Garmin Forerunner units I have used. A trip from New York to Maine and a couple of runs there let me test out the syncing of the GPS signal far from my home base. No problems encountered. Running – I wore the Vantage V for the NYC marathon last week, and it passed the trail by fire with flying colors. I wore the M430 on the other wrist and glanced at both as I ran. I am including images of the automatic splits and graphs from Polar Flow. It even corrected for signal loss while crossing the lower level of the Queensborough Bridge, which in the past has vexed both Polar and Garmin units. Swimming – for the last year or more, I’ve used the M430 for swim heart rate but had to track my yardage separately. It’s all in one with the Vantage V and, similar to the V800, it knows when I’m doing breast stroke and backstroke (butterfly seems to be too similar to freestyle to tell the difference). The V800 was excellent for this but needed a chest strap to get HR and it would never stay on through a push-off. The Vantage V included the new H10 chest strap, but I have to remember to bring it to the pool (I’ve gotten spoiled by wrist based HR and keep forgetting to pack it in my morning bag). With the Vantage V, I like getting HR feedback immediately and being able to read it clearly even with my goggles on. That’s a big deal for me – can’t easily use reading glasses in the pool. Its also super easy to change the pool distance. My Masters team workouts alternate between short course years (25y), short course meters (25m) and long course (50 m). Pool length comes up as an option when you scroll to the swim profile and you can set a custom distance as well. Fitness Tracking – Using the Vantage V for both workouts and everyday use, Polar Flow tracks steps, total distance, active time, calories burned and shows them to you on the Vantage as well as in Polar Flow. Running Power – I haven’t used this before and I will be monitoring it for a future update to this review. Training Load Pro, Recovery Pro – acts like a coach to give you feedback on your training load and recover. Since I used the Vantage V for a marathon after two days of taper, it told me I was overtraining, and it gave me messages that I am detraining over the next few days during my recovery. Two weeks in, it is learning from my workout patters and frequency - today the screen displays that I am “Productive - training progressively which should improve my fitness level”. Sleep Tracker – How it knows, I don’t know, but it knows when I am sleeping, it knows when I’m awake, it knows when I am restless and rates my sleep (for goodness sake). In the last decade, I came to realize that tracking my sleep has had a direct positive affect on my overall health. Colors – I got the White band but it also comes in black and Orange. Chest Strap - I haven’t used the included H10 chest strap for swimming yet, but the strap seems like it might survive a fast lane push-off without ending up around my ankles. Stay tuned on that front. The chest strap is needed for the orthostatic test. In the coming days will try it out on a run as well and compare it with the M430 and post an update. Pros - Heart Rate Accuracy - Chest strap not required! Wrist based sensors in general do not seem to be as immediately accurate as the chest straps (optical in the wrist, electrical impulses detected by the chest strap), but its close enough that I have no desire to go back to the chest strap except for the Orthostatic Test but I am only just starting to use the included H10 chest strap. - GPS Accuracy – As good as any Polar and better than Garmin in my experience. - Battery Life. I ran a marathon last week and it was still going on the original charge a week later with several workouts and other functions. I only recharged it because I was going out of state for a long weekend. - Easy to read. I don’t need my reading glasses to see the screen. The larger face and control of the screens (using the Polar Flow app) allows me to customize the view but I can still easily see the numbers at night with the light activated as well as through my goggles when swimming. The first update made the screen even brighter and easier to read. - On screen indication of training zones. I love this feature – the customizable heart and power zones are displayed in color as both an analog scale along the top and on the HR or power reading itself. I LOVE this feature. - Easy to sync and update. All setup and updates can be done through the Polar Flow app. No need to plug It into a computer. - Comfort – the band and watch are not overly big and awkward. I doesn’t sit too high on my wrist and this is a key feature for me as I’m a bit of a klutz but haven’t smacked the Vantage into any walls or tables yet after more than a week on continuous use. Cons - A chest strap is needed for Orthostatic test. Whatever telemetry the chest strap provides can’t be provided by the optical sensor. The test works with the H7 chest strap as well. - It’s not complete yet. No show stoppers for me but some folks are not pleased that its incomplete. Firmware updates have been announced (according to Polar): o Update 1 – November 8, 2018 – Bug fixes, brighter backlight (installed) o Update 2 – December 2018 – (Polar Vantage V&M) - Stopwatch, countdown timer and interval timer: Enhancements for existing features. o Update 3 – “Ear
