Revision as of 07:46, 2 November 2014

The Polar V800 is elegant and has outstanding GPS Accuracy, but it's pricy and has less functionality compared with its competitors. The limited support for Cadence is a particular concern, and when compared to the far cheaper Garmin 310XT, the V800 seems too expensive. (Polar is about to release the M400 which I will review when it becomes available.)

The Polar V800.

1 Polar V800 Pros

• The Polar V800 has considerably better GPS Accuracy than any other GPS watch I've tested. It's better than some of the older devices that have surprisingly good GPS Accuracy, and it's far better than most of the newer devices that have mediocre to appalling accuracy.
• The V800 also has a more rapid initial satellite acquisition than earlier watches, though it's not as fast as the watches that use a satellite pre-cache download. Note that while the GPS accuracy is quite remarkable, it is still not good enough to give a reliable readout of your current pace.
• The Polar V800 has elegant styling and it's made from beautiful materials. It's so aesthetically pleasing that it makes me think it's an Apple product. The V800 is actually quite heavy, but this tends to convey a sense of quality rather than excess. The V800 hides its bulk quite effectively, as of the watch extends out into what appears to be the first part of the watch strap.
• The elegant design continues into the user interface; the buttons, display, and the menu system combine aesthetics with usability. The V800 has five hard buttons, which I much prefer over a touchscreen interface, especially when wearing gloves or in the rain. In addition the V800 has a tap action that appears you to use the accelerometer rather than a touchscreen, and I found this did not work terribly well. If you're wearing the heart rate monitor strap, you can touch the V800 to the transmitter for an additional action, such as activating the backlight. The V800 provides more information when you pressed the lap button than other watches, as well as far more useful data at the end of the run.
• Like the Suunto Ambit2 R, the V800 can be configured via the website, which is easier than fiddling with the watch itself. Most of the options can be also set on the watch, which means you're not stuck if you're away from the Internet.
• The battery life is 13 hours with GPS recording set normally. If you change the recording interval to once per minute, the battery life extends to 50 hours, but there are no settings in between. For most runners 13 hours is adequate, but ultrarunners may need to use the extended mode. Recording GPS point once a minute can provide reasonable accuracy for straight, point-to-point courses, but could be very misleading in other situations.
• The V800 provides some interesting analysis of your training. This is similar to the Firstbeat Training Effect used by Garmin and Suunto, which is a simple number between 1.0 and 5.0. The V800 provides more detailed analysis with a text description of its evaluation. It has 17 different classifications including things like "maximum training", "tempo training", or "steady-state training". Each classification has a little congratulatory message associated with it that explains the benefit of that particular type of training. This is a nice feature, though it can be a little simplistic and may not be accurate for you. If you're prepared to take it with a pinch of salt, it's a nice feature. (This requires the Heart Rate Monitor.)
• The V800 also provides some guidance on your recovery. Again this is a little more sophisticated than the Garmin and Suunto approach which give the number of hours until you are recovered. The V800 will tell you how many hours of recovery are required for the latest workout, and if you are not recovered, it will tell you what time and day you will reach specific recovery thresholds. I think this is rather more useful information, and the V800 can include information from general daily activity as well as exercise sessions.
• The V800 can display your Heart Rate Variability (HRV), something that is quite unusual. I really like having HRV displayed, as it gives another indication of how stressful my current training session is. The V800 can also record your HRV, but not during a normal training session.
• There are a number of tests built into the V800.
  • The fitness test uses the Heart Rate Monitor to measure your Heart Rate Variability at rest to predict your V̇O₂max (a measure of fitness).
  • The orthostatic test measures your Heart Rate and HRV lying down and when you stand up to evaluate your recovery status. This test takes six minutes and it needs to be done on a regular basis in order to detect patterns of change. Looking at the scientific research, the reliability of this test is unclear.
  • There are jumping tests that use the Polar Stride Sensor to measure explosive strength.
• The V800 includes a barometric altimeter, which is helpful given that GPS is notoriously poor at estimating altitude.
• You can use the V800 as a simple activity monitor, but this uses only an internal accelerometer, so its value is limited compared with devices like the Basis Activity Tracker that include heart rate and other information.
• Unlike Ant+ based sensors that broadcast data to any device that's listening, Bluetooth sensors are currently limited to sending data to a single paired listening device. The V800 will rebroadcast the signals, but currently only the Polar App can receive them. Hopefully this will be fixed in the future, and later revisions of the Bluetooth specification will allow for fore broadcasting of data.

2 Polar V800 Cons

• One of the big downsides to the V800 is its cost, which is far more expensive than the watches that I highly recommend. Given the V800's functionality, it's too expensive to be "highly recommended" at this price point.
• The second problem with the V800 is its support for Cadence. Even though the V800 has an internal accelerometer, this is not used to display cadence. Cadence is only available with a Bluetooth Footpod, and the options here are currently quite limited. There is the Polar Stride Sensor but this is enormous and heavy compared with the Garmin equivalent. It actually weighs about 1oz/30g, which I believe is unacceptable. There are other Bluetooth Footpods on the market, but none of these function fully with the V800.
• Compounding the lack of Cadence support, the V800 has no way of displaying your current pace from the Footpod while using GPS for overall distance and course. If you select "speed from Footpod" the Footpod is used for distance as well.
• The V800 will only upload the data to the Polar website. Polar has introduced to the export of TCX format data, but this export is incomplete (no laps). You can work around this by using the open source projects Bipolar and V800_downloader, but this is a far cry from the open approach that Garmin has taken.
• A minor niggle with the otherwise excellent user interface is that the beeps and vibration are extremely weak and ineffectual.
• Unlike the Suunto Ambit2 R, TomTom Cardio Runner, or Garmin Fenix 2, the V800 does not show any graphs of pace, heart rate, or other data point. It's nice to see not only your current data value, but the graph of how it's changing during your run.
• There is no support for displaying a map or outline of the track you've covered for navigation. There is a rudimentary "back to start" functionality that gives you an arrow pointing back.
• The polar website has some basic functionality, but it has the feel of an unfinished beta release than a complete solution.

3 Comparison Table

I evaluate running watches in three distinct ways. Firstly, you can use a watch on its own, without any kind of Footpod. This is probably the most common way runners use their watch, but you miss out on a lot. The second rating is with a standard Footpod that is available quite cheaply. These Footpod's can be reasonably accurate once the calibrated, but calibration is a little tedious. The final evaluation is with the Stryd Footpod, which is vastly more accurate than any other type of Footpod, or and more accurate than GPS. The table below looks at the score, and the value for money of each watch for each of the three conditions. (I’ve also tested the Apple Watch 3, but I’ve not included it in these tables as it’s not really a running watch.)

The score is the sum of how well each watch can answer the four basic questions (how far, how fast, where are you, what's your cadence), plus some bonus points.

1. The "How far you've run" will be based on GPS only for "without Footpod" and "with Standard Footpod", but based on Stryd if supported in the "with Stryd Footpod" table..
2. How fast you're running assumes you're using a Footpod if it's supported, otherwise the rating is 0-2 based on GPS accuracy.
3. The "Where are you?" is based on various navigation features such as back to start, breadcrumbs, and preloaded maps. For some watches, you have to turn GPS off to get the benefit of Stryd, so those watches have worse "where are you scores" with Stryd than without.
4. The cadence score uses 1 point for an internal cadence sensor, 2 points for footpod support, 1 point for support from chest strap cadence, and 1 point for cadence alerts.
5. I give 1-2 bonus points for application support, 1-2 bonus points for data upload, 1-2 bonus points for Optical Heart Rate Monitoring, and 0-1 bonus points for battery life.
6. Value for money is the score divided by the price (at the time I last updated the table.) Your needs may be different, so you might weight the different aspects of the watches differently, or be basing your decision on different criteria totally. Hopefully this table will give you a good starting point for your decision.

3.1 Score Breakdown without a Footpod

3.2 Score Breakdown with a Standard Footpod

3.3 Score Breakdown with a Stryd Footpod

3.4 Basic Features

4 Navigation Features

For "navigation":

• Color Maps gives you full color maps, rather like a smart phone, with roads and paths marked out.
• Track Outline is a display of where you've run, rather like a breadcrumb trail. If there are maps, the outline is superimposed otherwise this is just the outline on its own without any context.
• Course Outline is an outline of a route that can be downloaded. I've found this useful during ultras or in unfamiliar cities where I've needed to know where to go.
• Back To Start is a simple arrow point to your starting point, so it won't help you backtrack.
• Back To Waypoint returns you to a previously marked location using a simple arrow to point.
• Compass. A magnetic compass can help you orient yourself or the map. Without a magnetic compass you have to be moving for the GPS to give you a sense of direction.

(Older Reviews: Polar RC3 GPS, Soleus 1.0, Motorola Motoactv.)