Polar FT7 Review

A Review of the Polar FT7 Heart Rate Monitor

The Polar FT7 is a simple heart rate training tool that tells you if you are burning far or improving your aerobic fitness. Although the watch isn’t GPS or foot pod enabled (for distance tracking), it is its simplicity that makes this one of Polar’s best selling heart rate training watches, and is why this year it has been re-released in three new colours.

This Polar FT7 Review is going to take a closer look at the watches features as well as testing how it performs when out training.

In The Box

Included in the box is the FT7 unit itself as well as a heart rate strap and user manuals. It is also possible to buy a USB FlowLink unit which allows you to download your training data from the watch to the FT7 so that you can track your long term training at PolarPersonalTrainer.com

Setup

Setup is easy as unlike models like Garmin’s Forerunner 610, there are no touch screens to contend with. Operations are all controlled using the five buttons that surround the face of the watch and each button is clearly labeled with a small symbol.

When you remove the FT7 from its box and press one of the buttons to wake the watch up. the first thing that you need to do is to enter in some personal information. The watch uses this information to calculate key metrics such as your maximum heart rate and the amount of calories you are likely to burn at  a given intensity of exercise. Setup takes a few minutes as you need to key in numbers like your date of birth, weight, height and age.

Once you have entered your profile information into the watch it is time to set up the heart rate monitor. The strap itself is adjustable and make of fabric for added flexibility and comfort. The strap itself wraps around your breast bone and then the plastic transmitter part clips onto the strap in the centre of your chest.

Sometimes heart rate straps don’t pick up your heart rate straight away as they rely on moisture to allow the electrodes that make up the sensors to pick up a reading. This isnt  a problem when you are out training but at the beginning of your session, all it takes is some spit or water on the two sensors for them to wake up.

Training Mode

Once you have the sensor fitted then the only thing that remains to do before you can get training is to set the watch to training mode.

By pressing the middle of the buttons on the right hand side of the watch face once, this tells the FT7 to start searching for a heart rate sensor. Paring takes about three seconds if you are wearing the transmitter and once paired there is no danger of you picking up anyone elses signal.

Once the watch has paired with the sensor and your heart rate (in beats per minute) is flashing up on the screen then you are ready to go. It is possible to use the FT7 without connecting it to a heart rate strap but this means that it only has the functionality of a stop watch.

The middle button starts the watch and the bottom left button pauses/stops the timer.

When in training mode you can cycle through several screens of training data using the scroll buttons. You can see your current heart rate, the amount of calories burned, duration of your training session and something called ‘training effect’

This training effect feature is a quick and easy way to tell if the current intensity of your training means that you are fat burning or working on your aerobic fitness. The watch calculates your heart rate zones based on your age and then matches your current heart rate to a zone. By measuring your workout intensity the watch can then tell if you are training at a level that is pushing the boundaries of your aerobic capacity or if you are running at a level where your body can draw its energy from fat stores.

Post Training

After a workout you can view a summary of your training session including the following info:

• Duration
• Average heart rate
• Maximum heart rate
• Total time spent burning fat
• Total time spent training for aerobic capacity

It is also possible to cycle back through past training sessions to see the vital stats of each past session. The Polar FT7 can store up to 99 past training sessions so you can check back on training sessions that you did months ago. When the amount of training sessions reached 99, the oldest training session is deleted in order to make room for the newest.

If you only wish to see summary statistics for all of your past stored training then the FT7 can display those details as well. You can view the total amount of calories burned, as well as the number of separate training sessions that you have undertaken and the total time that you have spent training to date.

You can also see a weekly level summary for a given week and you can navigate to a particular week by choosing the date that corresponds to that week of training.

Water Resistance

Both the heart rate strap/sensor and the FT7 are waterproof to 30m and so can be used for swimming. The lack of a split/lap functionality means that the watch lacks the functionality to make it an effective pool based training tool but if you want to track your heart rate over the entirety of a pool session, along with calories burned and the intensity of your training session then the FT7 will cope without a problem. Heart rate recording is just as accurate under water (sorry no photos as my local pool doesn’t allow photography) but you may find that you need to make some fine adjustments to the tightness of the heart rate strap as the extra upper body movement that is involved with swimming means that you need to ensure that the fit is spot on.

Battery Life + Time Settings

The battery life of the watch is about 8 months if you use the watch for training once per day for an hour at a time. There is no sleep or power off functionality (other than completely removing the battery) and the watch is always on. When not in training mode the watch reverts back to ‘time’ mode and displays the date and time.

It is possible to change the way that time is displayed on the watch by pressing and holding the ‘up’ button for a second or two. YOu are given the choice of having date + time or date + time + polar logo displayed.

The watch is dual time and you can also set an alarm, meaning that the watch can be used as a functional time piece as well as a training device

Watch Looks

The Polar FT7 is slightly smaller then any of the Garmin Forerunners, Suunto or Nike GPS watches, mainly because it doesnt have a GPS sensor inside. This means that Polar have been able to keep the watch as small as possible. The watch face itself is about 20% smaller then the Forerunner series, the Nike GPS watch or the Suunto T series. I havent had a problem reading the screen but those that need larger print or a clearer screen should go for something with a larger screen.

Due to its popularity, the FT7 has been re-released this year in three new colours. There is something to suit everyone and I tested out the red/black model as in my opinion it is the most professional looking watch in the series. The watch is made entirely of plastic but doesn’t look tacky, and because of its small understated design I would wear it not just for training.

Testing

Testing this watch was relatively straightforward as because the FT7 is just a heart rate monitor, there was none of the usual GPS accuracy testing or foot pod calibration to go through.

I took both the Suunto Quest that I tested a few weeks ago and the FT7 out running with me on three separate occasions and hooked both watches up to their supplied heart rate monitors. Although wearing two heart rate monitors at the same time isnt the most comfortable of things, this was the only way that I could see how quickly each watch displayed my changing hear rate.

The Suunto was always the first to change its HR display to reflect my current heart rate but it was also the most erratic. Although the Polar was a second or two slower to change, it seemed to level out the volatility that was evident with the Suunto.

I did sometimes find that when I took both watches out together, that the Polar would struggle to maintain a connection with the heart rate strap and I guess that the Quest seemed to interfere with the Polar heart rate straps transmission.

Uploading Training Data to PolarPersonalTrainer.com

Polar Personal Trainer

PolarPersonalTrainer is Polar’s equivalent to Garmin Connect or Suunto’s MovesCount. It is a place where you can store all of your training data from the FT7, tracking your long term fitness and analysing each of your training sessions in more detail.

In order to transfer training date from the FT7 you need to buy the optional FlowLink USB adapter. Once installed, you then place the FT7 onto the FlowLink pad and the training data is wirelessly transferred over to the PolarPersonalTrainer web site.

The whole transfer process is almost instantaneous, even when you are uploading multiple sessions and I have yet to encounter any kind of error when making the transfer.

In order to transfer training data to the Polar training poral you need to download and install a small piece of software (about 20mb) from the Polar website. The software takes a few minutes to install and is available for windows or Mac OSX.

When you place the FT7 onto the FlowLink pad for the first time you are taken to the PolatPersonalTrainer website and prompted to register your details. The whole sign up process is quick and painless and unlike the Garmin Connect portal there are no extra bits of software that require pairing with the watch.

Once your training data is uploaded to the PolarPersonalTrainer portal, you can analyse each individual training session in more detail. You can view all of your recorded metrics such as calories and heart rate, as well as adding notes and missing data such as distance to your training sessions.

You can also view weekly and monthly summaries for your training data in chart and grid format. You can chose which metrics you wish to overlay against each other on a a simple chart so you can easily keep track of your long term fitness.

The PolarPersonalTrainer portal wouldn’t live up to its name if it didn’t provide some sort of training advice. You can create a variety of bespoke training programs for running, cycling and weight training by filling out a few options on a simple online questionnaire. For the running program you can specify your exercise intensity as well as the amount of times you exercise a week in order to create a training plan for 5k, 10k, half marathon or a full marathon over as many weeks or months as you feel you need. Once your program has been created a diary is populated so that you can easily keep track of what training session you need to plan into your week as well as the different type of training session. The program specifies wether you need to do an easy run, a hill run or an interval session and also specifies the distance and heart rate level that you need to be training towards.

The best way to get to know the PolarPersonalTrainer training portal is to sign up for a free account and explore yourself. There is w whole wealth of information that I haven’t explored on the site such as training articles and a community or polar users that post in the forums on the site.

Polar FT7 Review Summary

No Polar FT7 review would be complete without a final round up. The FT7 is a heart rate monitor that tracks your heart rate over a training session and calculates wether or not you are training at fat burning level or if you are training at an intensity that is actively pushing your aerobic fitness. The watch also calculates how many calories you are burning and is waterproof to 30m. The watch does lack the ability to lap/split and so its use it limited but if you are looking for an accurate heart rate monitor that can track your long term fitness,has a good battery life and is professional looking then the Polar FT7 is one of the best value for money options out there.