Their software is OK. I wouldn’t call it top tier. What I would call top-tier is their device APIs - I have a polar h10 for example, which I made my own HR monitoring app for in a matter of hours.
The big difference, IMO, is polar is very friendly to 3rd party apps and devices first and foremost, while Garmin I personally feel is Garmin first, then 3rd party friendly. Just my opinion.
So with that, since its so easy to use other tools with them, you dont need to import to polar software. That said, polar works with tcx and gpx which can be converted to .fit easily, couldn’t tell you on the other way around.
It would be awesome if Polar was supported by GadgetBridge, because then you could have fully offline and private control of the device.
GB recently got Garmin support and it’s pretty solid. I switched from the Garmin app to GB exclusively and haven’t lost really any features. Besides the social networking, but that omission is a feature, not a bug.
If it’s really 3rd party friendly, I wonder how easy it would be to get support.
Thanks for the info. I won’t be jumping ship anytime soon as long as my current Garmin works fine but it is good to know for when this watch eventually bites the dust. I’ve always seen Polar but never really looked into them at all.
No problem! And thats not to say I don’t have my gripes.
We originally got the h10 for horse hr, the app they made for that is… Garbage. Which is one of the reasons I made my own app initially. Thats not the same as the regular “for people” app, Polar Beat, which works nicely but its simple and meant to send to third party services through their site IMO.
The M450 I have (bike computer) has also been running strong for like a decade, though the buttons could have better placement IMO.
I also replaced the strap with a 3rd party one that I like a lot more.
This is an example of one of my sessions from the polar beat app:
For me, I really like them overall, I think they have some shortcomings but nothing that would have me looking at competitors again without good reason.
I have been considering a bike computer for a while but for the most part my watch has been sufficient for my needs, I didn’t realise they made them as well. Might have to have a look into them.
Thanks for taking the time to screen shot the app too, funnily enough I actually recognise that as a friend of mine sends me screen shots from time to time when we are talking about workouts but he must crop the logo at the top off as I never realised that was a polar interface!
To be fair, the polar H10 uses the Bluetooth heart rate profile which is very widespread and already built into many dev libraries like zephyr.
Polar seems indeed very good with data export, probably coming from the fact that they were first a research company so being able to export data is very important!
100% on using BT hr, I think that it shows that it was an intentional choice though. Even their H7 was a BT sensor as well, and that (along with the m450) was over 10 years ago - and while it came with the m450, it was early BLE (at the time, “Bluetooth Smart”).
I’d have to agree that it was an intentional design choice that pairs with their roots, this is one of the reasons why I’ve been a fan for so long.
Not that I would ditch a Garmin if I had one just to switch, but I’d definitely say polar should be in the running when someone does need hardware.
Not Bluetooth in general. There are specific Bluetooth or BLE profiles instituted by the Bluetooth SIG that makes standards on how to format certain data so that it can be universally read as long as a device supports that profile. There are BLE profiles for SPO2, activity tracking (that nobody uses because they all use proprietary crap because it is faster to implement), as well as audio and like 50 different niches that Bluetooth is used in. It’s quite cool.
How does their software compare to Garmin?
Are you missing any features moving over?
Can you take your previous data from Garmin (.fit files iirc) and import them to fill out your “stats”?
Not op, but as a long term polar user…
Their software is OK. I wouldn’t call it top tier. What I would call top-tier is their device APIs - I have a polar h10 for example, which I made my own HR monitoring app for in a matter of hours.
The big difference, IMO, is polar is very friendly to 3rd party apps and devices first and foremost, while Garmin I personally feel is Garmin first, then 3rd party friendly. Just my opinion.
So with that, since its so easy to use other tools with them, you dont need to import to polar software. That said, polar works with tcx and gpx which can be converted to .fit easily, couldn’t tell you on the other way around.
Hope this helps answer
It would be awesome if Polar was supported by GadgetBridge, because then you could have fully offline and private control of the device.
GB recently got Garmin support and it’s pretty solid. I switched from the Garmin app to GB exclusively and haven’t lost really any features. Besides the social networking, but that omission is a feature, not a bug.
If it’s really 3rd party friendly, I wonder how easy it would be to get support.
Thanks for the info. I won’t be jumping ship anytime soon as long as my current Garmin works fine but it is good to know for when this watch eventually bites the dust. I’ve always seen Polar but never really looked into them at all.
No problem! And thats not to say I don’t have my gripes.
We originally got the h10 for horse hr, the app they made for that is… Garbage. Which is one of the reasons I made my own app initially. Thats not the same as the regular “for people” app, Polar Beat, which works nicely but its simple and meant to send to third party services through their site IMO.
The M450 I have (bike computer) has also been running strong for like a decade, though the buttons could have better placement IMO.
I also replaced the strap with a 3rd party one that I like a lot more.
This is an example of one of my sessions from the polar beat app:
For me, I really like them overall, I think they have some shortcomings but nothing that would have me looking at competitors again without good reason.
I have been considering a bike computer for a while but for the most part my watch has been sufficient for my needs, I didn’t realise they made them as well. Might have to have a look into them.
Thanks for taking the time to screen shot the app too, funnily enough I actually recognise that as a friend of mine sends me screen shots from time to time when we are talking about workouts but he must crop the logo at the top off as I never realised that was a polar interface!
To be fair, the polar H10 uses the Bluetooth heart rate profile which is very widespread and already built into many dev libraries like zephyr.
Polar seems indeed very good with data export, probably coming from the fact that they were first a research company so being able to export data is very important!
100% on using BT hr, I think that it shows that it was an intentional choice though. Even their H7 was a BT sensor as well, and that (along with the m450) was over 10 years ago - and while it came with the m450, it was early BLE (at the time, “Bluetooth Smart”).
I’d have to agree that it was an intentional design choice that pairs with their roots, this is one of the reasons why I’ve been a fan for so long.
Not that I would ditch a Garmin if I had one just to switch, but I’d definitely say polar should be in the running when someone does need hardware.
Not Bluetooth in general. There are specific Bluetooth or BLE profiles instituted by the Bluetooth SIG that makes standards on how to format certain data so that it can be universally read as long as a device supports that profile. There are BLE profiles for SPO2, activity tracking (that nobody uses because they all use proprietary crap because it is faster to implement), as well as audio and like 50 different niches that Bluetooth is used in. It’s quite cool.
Though I didn’t realize that polar actually were the people driving getting it adopted! https://www.bluetooth.org/docman/handlers/downloaddoc.ashx?doc_id=239865 it was adopted in 2011 so maybe they even pushed for it specifically because of the m450
I know, I’m pointing out that they were early adopters with Bluetooth smart (now BLE), leading from the m450 & h7 to the h10.