| Polar Ft4f Heart Monitor Watch Only $63.98 @ Amazon   Rated 4 of 5 Stars by 205 Buyers!   |
Polar Ft4f Heart Monitor Watch
Hey folks, I just wanted to add a bit of data based on such a swell deal of remarks I’ve read on other Polar devices: The FT4, based on my tests, IS water-resistant and must work great to assist you track your statistics as you swim laps. I’ll update this once I’ve employed it for a few more lap swims, but both the heart monitor you wear on your chest and the watch itself are sealed and won’t without delay flood and destroy whether or not you take it into the pool. Only thing is, you probably don’t want to be pressing the buttons on the watch while you’re under water, which may mean you have to stop and arid off whether or not you want to take a break in the middle of your lap swim.
Update: I have now utilized my FT4 various times to track my lap swimming. It works great! Don’t press the buttons while you’re genuinely underwater, but I have had no trouble at all with the ‘pause’ or ‘continue’ functions at the end of the lap, even with wet fingers. Oh, and – you don’t have to wet the chest band before you put it on whether or not you’re going to swim in it 
I have the same beef as others regarding the FT4 – you can’t see all your workout stats at once while you work out – you have to press the bottom right-hand button to alter the display to heart rate vs. calories vs. workout time or what have you, and you can’t see your time while you’re working out (you may once you’re completed and you click STOP to end the workout session…at this point you in addition get your upper and intermediate heart rates and your time in the zone. You may as well hit ‘Pause’ to see your workout time.) Basically, this little gizmo does what it’s designed to do. It does make a distinguishable double-beep when you’re in your heart rate zone, which I find helpful.
A couple other details: the FT4 has a user-serviceable battery (some other Polar models don’t, which means you have to remunerate $$ and ship the device to Polar to change the battery.) The chest band is fabric, as opposed to the stiff plastic of other Polar models, also. You may buy software to download the information off your Polar, but the software is $80 and you need an infrared reader for your computer. I haven’t genuinely explored this, as I use the [...] internetsite to track my information and I just copy it straight off the Polar without downloading.
My one complaint is the difference in calorie burn among the FT4, my Garmin Forerunner and my GoWearFit…who knows how many I’m in truth burning…but I do have a small bit of a formula I may use to convert from one to the next…
Overall, I’d say this device is well worth the money, particularly whether or not you’re just doing casual exercise without the need for a GPS or an all-day calorie tracker. I’ll probably buy another one should the one I purchased break or wear out.
I have spent months looking for a heart rate monitor that would fit me comfortably, but still be pretty. This is it! I’ve decided to at long last get off my big butt and commence doing something healthy – walking or biking each day – but I wanted to be competent to keep track of the time AND make certain I was working at the right heart ranked As somebody who is actually out of shape, I find that I might feel like I am genuinely working hard, but my heart rate ends up being at the very low end, so I necessitated something that I could use to be certain my workouts are in truth worth it.
This watch is very exact and stylish. I as well like that it tracks my calories burned and my previous workouts so I may see whether or not I am becoming healthier. I was worried that it wouldn’t fit my wrist because it is a women’s watch and they tend to run small, but this fits my 7 3/4″ wrist with a small room to spare. The chest strap in addition fits and is super comfy! I am nearly 300lbs (at the time of purchase) and the M/XXL strap that comes with this fit me just fine – again with room to spare. I don’t even feel it once I get it on and begin moving.
So, for you bigger girls out there who are looking for a rate monitor that will fit, be accurate and comfortable AND is gorgeous – get this one!
So my trainer suggested I get a heart rate monitor watch, but for one, they were still pretty highpriced at the time and truthfully, not all that attractive. I didn’t want numerous vast thing on my wrist, nor did I necessarily want to advertize to the earth what I was doing! I just wanted something small sufficient to blend in yet hopefully cute enough to do the job. Then lo and behold, this watch was introduced, and what a great deal! One thing is, I in truth thought for such a good deal of reason that the strap was kind of a metal…it doesn’t make sense that it wouldn’t be rubber or plastic, but the photos–at least to me–make it appear like metal. On to the review!
I genuinely purchased this watch in March but only started using it last week. It does all the basic functions. I don’t know with regards to you guys, but my primary goal was to see whether or not what I was doing at the gym was negating all the crap I consume for the duration of the day at work (although, I eat fairly healthy. It’s the desk that kills you). I find it slightly interesting to see how my heart rate fluctuated when I wasn’t working out. It literally jumped back and forth amongst sitting at the computer to walking briskly up the hill to my car, then it shot up 15 beats while sitting in rush-hour LA traffic (ha-ha).
You get applied to the strap very quickly quickly it would be nice to not have one at all…I don’t like engaged in a struggle with it in the locker room before a workout but whatever.) It’s not like it bulges out below your clothing, which is great.
Anyway it’s not going to compile your grocery list or babysit your children, but it’s a handy little device that does just what it needs to do. Oh and setup is a breeze too…you don’t even need the guide, really.
I had to replace my old Polar HRM, as the battery died and I didn’t want to return it to have it replaced. Also, I wanted to upgrade to a user replaceable battery model because of comfort of use/no down time. I ordered the Polar FT4M, silver w/black strip even altho I’m female. Turns out, I may program the user info, within the watch, to “female”.
Straight out of the box, the set up was super easy. Just a few quick steps and I was ready for my firstborn workout. The chest strap is adaptable from m-xxl so I was competent to make it work for me-I’m intermediate build. My previous Polar was geared towards women and came with a medium chest strap, just to give you a comparisons whether or not you’re petite, the included m-xxl chest strap *may be* to big for you. Regardless, the chest strap is all fabric/stretch band and fully unnoticable when you’re wearing it.
During my workout, I was without apparent effort competent to scroll through the dissimilar screens to see my “in zone” heart rate/range, calories burned, and duration of the workout. When I was finished working out, I was effortlessly competent to navigate to my workout totals for review.
I unquestionably commend this watch for males or females, the price is right!
Pros:
Ability to back-light the watch
Adjustable chest strap
Color (I prefer the mens color silver/black over the avaiable womens colors)
Watch Size (not too big, not to small)
Ease of scrolling through the screens for the duration of workout.
Cons:
None
I have been using my new Polar FT4 heart rate monitor literally non-stop for the past four days. I had several goals in mind with this purchase: 1) track my actual every day calorie expenditure (with and without working out); 2) track the intensity of my workouts and measure total calories burned for the workout; 3) use it to plan my meal/calorie distribution across the day. Recognizing that my demands on this simple device are ambitious, I may say that overall I am very pleased with it’s performance in every area.
Design of the watch:
The watch itself is a “pinkish/neutral/bronze” color that is hard to describe exactly. The good news is that somehow it manages to match in principle any color attire you might wear. The band is made out of a disappointingly cheap plastic material that feels like “kid’s watch” and pinches your skin easily. as well a botheration is the fact that the face of the watch has a sort of “fixed hinge” with the sides of the band. In other words, the watch will not lie flat, it’s constantly shaped in a rounded specifi spatial arrangements This may be severely problematic for humans with very small or very huge width wrists. The face of the watch is as well a rubbery plastic which seems moderately scratch resistant, even even though I expect that it may get beat up in the weight room at the gym. The display on the face is big and easy to read at a glance, which is nice.
Overall, I would rate the design of the watchband only 2 out of 5 stars. The material is very cheap and causes my skin to itch and sweat where it is strapped on.
Design of the chest strap:
I’m a instead petite female who is relatively lean (< 10% body fat) so the chest strap is conspicuous when I wear it with my sports bra and fitted tank top at the gym. You can see the imprint of the transmitter in the center of my chest, even though it doesn’t look overly out of place given the fact that I am at the gym. However, I have in addition been wearing the chest strap with my normal attire outside of the gym and it becomes instead uncomfortable with prolonged use (5+ hours). The strap material is elastic and polyester and easily collects sweat and moisture, so it will need to be cleaned frequently. The front share of the strap (housing the conductive electrodes) is made of a “pleather” type material that is for the most part inelastic. whether or not you work out very often times and for prolonged periods of time, you might look at purchasing the Polar sports bra with built-in chest strap. This particular chest strap appears as though it were designed for a man and is a little cumbersome in my personal views Overall, I would rate the design of the chest strap 2 out of 5 stars.
Features of watch:
The features of the watch/monitor are what make this such an aweinspiring training tool. The watch has three basic features: view your heart rate, view your calories burned, and view your heart rate relative to your “target range.” The heart rate reading is constant, real-time and easily read in large print digits. You can as well see a reading of your calories burned as you advancement through your workout. I chose to track an entire day, wake to sleep–so I tracked 15+ hours at a time in order to view my calories for the day. You cant collect multiple workouts at one time. For example: you cant track the day and then simultaneously track your workout on a discerned file. You must press “Stop” and begin over with a whole new file if you want your actual workout to be discerned from your entire day. Also, there is no way to run a stopwatch, which was reasonably disappointing. However, you can view a timer for your workout on one screen that in addition displays the time of day. Overall, I would rate the features of the watch 4 out of 5 stars. It has great functionality, but could use a few tweaks to make it much more optimal.
Ease of use:
The watch is in general easy to set up and employed It may take a little bit of time to acquaint yourself with the buttons. I also found the backlight button to be mildly irritating. Unlike other watches, if you press the “backlight” button you permanently activate the backlight to come on any time you press any button on the watch. To de-activate it, you need to press and hold the backlight button and wait for a beep. These instructions are not in the manual. I also found that the chest sensor strap was susceptible to giving out when it became exceptionally wet. At one point I had to rinse it with tap water and let it thoroughly dry for a few hours before attempting to use it again. Overall, I would rate the total product with 4 out of 5 stars for comfort of use.
Overall Product: I have definitely been showing off my new heart rate monitor to my gym friends and co-workers, and I highly commend it is Though it has a few shortcomings (mostly in the design of the physical watch) it is an great tool and worthful for individuals who are getting serious in regards to their diet and/or training regimens I hardly feel justified giving it 3 stars, given that I have been happily using it non-stop for days. But, it is shortcomings cannot be overlooked entirely: Overall 4/5 stars. A solid product!
6 Months Post-Purchase Update: I have now been using the Polar FT4 every day for in regards to 6 months. Overall, I proceed to be pleased with it is features and functionality but I have already considered replacing or “upgrading” into something that addresses a few design flaws which have started out to bug me more and more each workout. First, the watch band is just flat out uncomfortable. There’s no other way to describe its It pinches your skin, refuses to lay flat and generally bruises my wrist when I wear it doing certain weight exercises practices squats and lat pull downs). I in truth take it off to a complete degree and put it on the bench or in my pocket for the duration of such a heap of exercises. Second, the fact that you have to scroll through 3-4 screens mid-workout to see your workout timer, heart rate, and calories burned is a bit annoying. It would be nice to be competent to see your heart rate on EVERY screen (perhaps in small print along the top of the screen) at a bare minimum. Instead, I fumble between the three screens every few minutes while doing cardio especially. This has gotten a bit aggravating. In terms of the performance of the heart rate sensor, I have begun to observe that if I don’t moisten the chest strap prior to putting it on, the watch will to a complete degree fail to register a signal until I either start sweating really heavy or wet the strap with tap water. Lately, I have also noticed that the watch “loses its connection” with the chest strap when my arms are fully extended above my head (such as for the duration of pull ups) and then when my heart rate reading comes back its either half or double it’s actual valued Hmmmm…. I’m not certain what to make of these quirks. Perhaps I need to replace the strap, the batteries or both. Keep in mind I do use these appliances at LEAST once per day, and commonly twice per day. I would imagine that the amount of wear and tear I put on my heart rate monitor is a bit more than the average user, but not withstanding, I am starting to consider looking in to a dissimilar set up.
This watch has the a great set of features that I use and very few that I don’t. I especially appreciate the 10 file storage and the replaceable battery. I use this for rowing, so I didn’t need any of the other “motivational” features of the higher end watches. The only draw back I find is the size of the heart rate number. It the most crucial thing and yet it occupies perchance 10% of the overall display. What’s aggravating is that there are a great deal of pixels available to used A HR display alike to the FT1 would work much better. Even with this limitation, it’s the best HRM for my use.
Edit: I accidentally found that pressing the up/down buttons when in HRM mode will display a large heart shortlisted This isn’t in the printed manual that came with the watch. It is in the online version.
I purchased this for my wife’s birthday a month before her birthday. That’s necessary because two weeks after she got it it stopped working. Jomashop who supplied it through Amazon said that they can only replace it if the issue is reported within 5 days of purchase, otherwise they do a repair. 5 days! That’s ridiculous.
When the watch was working it was great. When it stops working it’s plainly worthless. And if a company can’t stand behind the merchandise they trade for more than 5 days you really have to wonder why they’re retail them in the initial place.
This is an magnificent heart rate monitor! My former one was a unisex one and when I did push ups, the buttons would turn the calorie counter off. I higly recommend women to get a women’s watch and not a unisex. This watch is littler and the buttons do not interfere with my push ups. I love being able to tell how long I’m in my fat buring zone. My watch starts working shortly after I put it on. Also, the strap is very comfortable. You get precisely what you remunerate for with this products