Polar Bike computer with heart monitor FT40M black

I've owned this for a year now and despite an annoying problem - details below, I’m still happy to give it five stars. Solid, robust quality build, easy to use and very useful facilities. Small point but I preferred the old style chest strap fastening method, as the new one is slightly fiddly. I have used this during swimming about half the time with only a couple of brief zero or strange readings. These were easily sorted by slightly repositioning the strap. The cross trainer in the gym picks up the strap signal as soon as I start the machine.Pros:-You can change the heart rate value to large easy to read numerals – great for the occasional quick glance.Simple to use.Fitness test.Data files record the essentials.Comfortable chest strap.The user can easily change both chest strap and wrist receiver batteries.Cons:-Slightly more fiddly chest strap fastening method but some may like it?No ‘Recovery Period’ measurement and record facility. This was a facility on an old Polar HRM I used to use about 15 years ago.The main problem mentioned above started after being worn about 5 times for about an hour each time but eventually, after about 15 times, it failed completely producing zero readings. Amazon responded very politely after I contacted them by email and asked if I would deal with Polar directly. I sent it off to them and they replaced the chest strap and it was returned in about 3 days. They said it was poor conductivity. This, after I've read some bad stories about Polar’s after-sales care, was a sensational result so can’t fault Amazon or Polar. The battery in the belt is still going since it was returned about 5 months ago and it’s used about twice a week for about an hour at a time. I make sure I give the conductor surfaces a gentle clean now with a non-stick scouring pad which should be pretty harmless and seems to work. It is also rinsed when I shower and I would be apprehensive about putting it in the washing machine – despite Polar’s recommendations.I haven’t tried downloading the data files as I’m happy to spend two minutes every now and then doing it manually onto a spreadsheet rather than buy a Flowlink device.I’m just really chuffed with this thing and I’d highly recommend this for anyone who needs to keep an eye on their heart rate and doesn't need an all-singing-all-dancing monitor but would also like to record the basic essential information.

Great product , delivered swiflty. Very simple to use, and highly intuative.-Attach the strap to the chest and then hit the big button in the middle and your off! To finish the work out its the bottom left button, enabling you to pause or finish the workout.-Instantly review your workout as once you stop it displays it there.-During workout you can toggle between -"effect" (measures your heart rate relative to your maximum heart rate and then tells you if you are in fat burn or fitness, useful as it tells you wether to increase or decrease intenisty of what you want to do)). -Heart rate. -Calories being burnt. -TimeThere's some other functions in there so you can customise it to your level of fitness, ie. enter in VO2 Max (Not essential as it defaults to an average based on your other criteria) , weight etcWeekly summaries are great as it allows you to compare week on week.The calorie counter really drives you to beat your last sesssion e.g. last week's spin class v this week's.Watch is comfortable, looks great.Had no issues so far and not sure withere or not its a "placebo" effect but generally I appear to be watching the pounds fall off, and has really revatilised my whole regime.Looked at the other "POLAR" HRMs but this seemed to be right, measures fat burn calories and fitness calories and allows you to compare sessions and weeks as a whole.

This gets two stars because it's a perfectly adequate basic heart rate monitor and watch, plus another star for Amazon dealing with the return and refund so quickly.However it is pretty flawed as a piece of fitness equipment. The biggest problem is that you cannot set a custom lower limit for a training band. You can only set a maximum. The minimum is always set at what it determines your 'fat burning' threshold to be (i.e. 65% of maximum heart rate).This is a problem if, like me, you are training for an endurance sport using a number of different heart rate training zones. For example I often want to do long-ish intervals at 80-85% of my heart rate reserve (so for me that's 172-179 bpm). On the cheaper, more basic FT4, I can set this custom band, together with an audible alarm and visual indicator if I go out of it. For some reason, on the FT40 doesn't have this feature - I'd have to settle for a training band of 65-85% of my maximum heart rate (so that's starting down at 130 - quite a difference).So it's a pretty blunt tool if you're serious about improving your fitness. Also, as well as only having one training threshold, it also seems to be determined as a percentage of maximum heart rate, whereas most athletes will work from percentage of heart rate reserve (i.e. the different between resting and maximum). For me, it suggested anything over 130 would improve my fitness, whereas the lowest intensity I actually work at is 148 plus. Now in fairness Polar don't know how fit you are when you start using the watch, and for people just starting an exercise plan using the maximum heart rate percentage is probably safer, but it's frustrating that you can't then progress, especially when cheaper models have this feature.So before you buy you've got to ask why you want a heart rate monitor.If all you want to do is go to the gym, get a bit sweaty on the machines, check out how many calories you burned, and incorporate this information into a calorie controlled diet, then this watch is fine. You can get cheaper models that will do the same thing, so think about whether you're happy paying the extra for the fat percentage gimmick and the fitness test. (Also be aware that it has an oddly large bump at the end of the strap that makes getting the watch on and off a bit of a test of a finger strength and dexterity.)If you really want to improve your fitness however then you're probably better off getting an FT4 and spending the difference on a book on heart rate training. You can see great results with the right heart rate training and it's just a shame that this model doesn't seem to be designed for it.

So, I bought the watch and this came with a HRM, which is great. However, I then found out that to get the data from the watch off, on to the Polar website I could only do this with a Polar FlowLink, which isn't cheap and given how accessible Garmin products are, was an unwelcome surprise.Once you have the flowlink, the Polar website is fairly limited as well and not as impressive as the GarminConnect system, that is their website which can be updated, but when you buy the Polar you are buying into the Polar Eco-system and this part is poor when compared to competitors in my view and something you are going to find out once you've paid for the watch and use it.The watch is made of good quality and has a number of useful features such as Fitness test and Training Programme.

arrived in a couple of days,very well packagedim really pleased with the watch and strap!! made a lot of difference than relying on the machines in the gym to tell you my heart rate and how many calories i burnt ( bike said i had burnt 400ish calories in a certain time and my watch said it was more like 600ish!!) plus it automaticly syncs with most machines so they give you a far better read out!i found that i had to wet the strap every time i used it where some people say they only had to wet it once but to be honest with you it only takes two seconds to run under a tap then put it on so its not a problem!VERY pleased with this product it gives you more incentive to push yourself to burn more calories