Others amongst you will be fascinated by the sleep stages part of Polar’s offering – I’ve seen that fascination from reader comments about other similar products. So, Polar is probably responding well to what their market research is telling them that their target Fitness consumer is looking for. Special Feature – Serene Guided Breathing Multiband GPS: The Vantage V3 is equipped with a new multiband GPS chipset that builds upon the dual-frequency GPS seen in the Polar Ignite. The redesigned antenna promises enhanced GPS accuracy, essential for those relying on precise location data during outdoor activities. Workouts Summary: This Polar Ignite Review finds that Polar specifically designs their watches for sport and it shows. The Polar Ignite does a great job when you are starting your workout and when you are working out. Some of the screens look unusual but they all DO work well. Even on a bright mid-June day, the screen is readable. The touchscreen does work Ok whilst hot and sweaty BUT it could be better. Post Workout Stats Refreshed aesthetics – new colours, new bezel and new watch straps, including crystal-studded straps. Despite its premium looks, the Polar Ignite 2 is surprisingly light, weighing 35g with the wristband, or 21g without. For comparison, the Apple Watch 6 tips the scales at 47.1g and the Fitbit Sense is 45.9g.

What Next? When you choose the workout type you are effectively starting a pre-canned, Polar workout in an appropriate sport profile. I’ll cover what happens IN the workout, later on. Following a formal Plan Polar cite studies by Pesonen et al (2018) and Parent et al (2018) to validate their sleep features (not sleep stages).

A superb mid-range watch that pairs style with great adaptive training tools

Similar to Garmin and Coros, Polar has also developed an algorithm that uses sleep and activity data to give you a recovery score, which helps you determine whether you're ready for a hard training session, or should take it easy and rest. It's a genuinely useful tool; knowing how you slept last night is one thing, but having practical advice to act upon is far more useful. Vibite M 500 Tablet can be prescribed alone or together with other diabetes medications. All diabetes medicines work best when used along with a healthy diet and regular exercise. The dose you are given will depend on your condition, blood sugar levels, and what other medicines you are taking. Taking it with meals helps to reduce the chances of developing an upset stomach.

You’d be hard pressed to find a watch without some type of mindfulness feature today, and recent Polar watches all feature a breathing exercise tool called ‘Serene’ to help you in stressful moments, with animations to provide guidance as you focus on each inhalation and exhalation. Sensors – Compatible with Polar BLE heart rate sensors . The onboard optical HR sensor is the impressive-looking Precision Prime, shared with the top-end Vantage V2 model.

Fact Box

It’s nice to watch the pretty bubbles on the screen and it’s always good to relax but I’m not entirely sure where this fits into the metrics on the Polar platform, although it’s a perfectly valid nicety to add. Your serenity is scored and your challenge is to achieve more than 90 seconds in the “diamond zone”., shown in the results at the end of the breathing period. Competitive meditation…what next!

Display – Colour touch display (IPS TFT) with an ambient light sensor (ALS), resolution 240×204. Dragontrail glass lens – the resolution seems WAY better than that, it must be the great colours and brightness that make it look so good, as that resolution is not great. Water resistance – Water-resistant 30 m (ISO 22810, suitable for swimming) – Just suitable for swimming. Polar’s Sleep Score covers 3 aspects of your sleep namely, amount, solidity (interruptions, continuity & actual sleep) and regeneration (REM+Deep sleep). These are all calculated from a combination of wrist movements, HR/HRV and other data derived from those such as breathing rate. Apart from Polar’s Sleep Stages Plus, much of the science is well understood and, for example, I wouldn’t query Polar’s ability to calculate breathing rate from HRV…providing the captured source data is accurate. Personally, I’m more impressed by the cleverness of the FITSPARK training. It’s second-to-none. We are all different in the degree to which we want to ‘free train’, ‘rigidly adhere to a plan’ or ‘loosely follow a plan’. FITSPARK handles ANY approach to training.

References

Accurate heart rate is a key input to the Polar fat/carb and workout calculations. I strongly recommend using Polar’s VERITY SENSE armband which gives market-leading HR accuracy. Polar Ignite 2 Review – Takeout & Further Thoughts Polar does seem to have slightly improved accuracy compared to the earlier Ignite but GPS accuracy is still not as good as a 4-year-old Garmin 235 (green, below). Here you can see the Ignite 2 (red) cuts corners and wanders from one side of the road to the other. Maybe that’s OK for you? I prefer as much accuracy as possible. You can’t create more complex workouts on the watch and instead would do that on the app or online. Your favourites are…well…your favourites. They are existing workouts that you can follow repeatedly permanently on the Ignite 2.. Swipe to the training screen and you'll see one of three workout types: cardio, strength, or supportive. Here, you can select a workout to try, and the watch will guide you through the process. That might be a run in heart rate zones 1-3 for cardio, a set of core exercises for support, or bodyweight exercises for strength. It's a great tool that helps push you out of your comfort zone and work on areas where you may currently be weak. Polar Ignite 2 companion app This covers a much wider range of ability levels than most other plans and has the advantage for those who want structure. Indeed following a progressive, periodised training plan, like this, is probably the best way to get to your race goals.