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Re: Polar V800 - Ask me anything [Lokiwthor] [ In reply to ]
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Lokiwthor wrote:
Chris, Thanks for the reply. As for the stride sensor - give the user the option of pulling distance and pace from either the v800 or the stride sensor. In my experience using my RCX5, the calibration on the foot pod was worthless. My stride length varies depending upon my speed. That's why I want the data from the gps - it's more accurate. As for telling me to use the manual setting - this is one more piece of evidence the v800 was released with partially-developed software. Why offer an automatic setting if it doesn't work? How do I get the automatic calibration to work? Like I said, manual calibration is worthless because my stride length varies. I tried it multiple times on the RCX5 on a treadmill and outside and never received an accuracy closer than 10%.

I second that comment on footpods. I have a long history of failing to calibrate either Garmin or Polar footpods. If you change your pace, e.g. endurance vs interval, or the nature of the terrain (e.g. hard "street run" vs soft "forest run" surface), then you would need to recalibrate each time. Impossible to do. Even exactly same workout on same exact terrain at same exact pace the next day would give different results.

So, footpods being better might have been true at one point in time. But GPS, at least the recent ones, are now much more accurate for pacing. So, I am delighted to see that polar is considering offering the choice of GPS vs footpod.

Chris@Polar wrote:

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So, same question ... bug (if so, when fixed) or faulty device ?
I would really appreciate help and solutions for those two issues.

Shoot me an email, we'd love to look at some of the data and figure out what's going on. chris.zoller@polar.com

I guess that this part of your reply to @Lokiwthor was in fact for my post. I will shoot you an email and share any data you would need to get those two issues fixed.

Many thanks,

Jef
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Re: Polar V800 - Ask me anything [Chris@Polar] [ In reply to ]
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Chris@Polar wrote:
Not sure what to tell you here.

Here's what a company that cared about its potential customers would tell us:
  • Polar recognizes that training and racing with power is very important to many triathletes and that many of those potential customers have a significant investment in power meters with which the V800 cannot communicate.
  • Polar also understands that there are third-party devices such as the Viiiiva that could help those potential customers transition to Polar computers by making their existing power meters compatible with the V800.
  • Polar's immediate focus is on ensuring compatibility with its own line of sensors; however, Polar strongly believes in open standards such as BLE. As a demonstration of that commitment, Polar is already scheduling full interoperability testing with many of those third-party devices, including the Viiiiva.
  • Polar commits to working jointly with 4iiii and other vendors to address any incompatibilities that the interoperability testing uncovers.

Speaking for myself, and notwithstanding the fact that I have multiple thousands of dollars invested in ANT+ power meters, I'll never buy the Polar power meter as it currently exists. Look pedals simply don't work for me. If Polar wants me to use a V800 (or V650) for training, they're going to have to find some way to support bridging power meters from ANT+ to BLE. I don't think I'm unique.
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Re: Polar V800 - Ask me anything [sathomasga] [ In reply to ]
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You're not.

I was 100% on board to buy a v800 and v650 as I just sold my rcx5 setup. After seeing how slow and hesitant Polar has been with dates for PM support, lack of ability to upload to Strava, and the footpod issue I am looking at the Fenix 2 with a 510. Garmin products have always been buggy for me but they will work with Stages PM and upload to my training log.

"Base training is bull shit" - desertdude
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Re: Polar V800 - Ask me anything [sathomasga] [ In reply to ]
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As for adding another GPS power mode was requested months ago by dcrainmaker in his review of a prototype that Polar sent him! Given the v800 is supposed to be targeted at triathletes it would make sense to meet the needs of the audience you're targeting.

I gave Ray the beta V800, and got his feedback personally. This was something already under consideration/testing. We have a pretty good idea what's needed in this respect, we did a TON of research. A lot happens behind the curtains, and with something like this trade offs have to be made from a technical standpoint. This is just something that's simply not as simple as it may seem here. I'm in the same boat as you, doing my first Ironman next month (Lake Placid), hoping to break 13h - but may not happen.

Something you may not know - you can set GPS power mode in each individual sport profile. So for example, you set the swim profile to low power mode, but high power for bike + run - you'll squeeze quite a bit more out of it.

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Not sure what to tell you here.
Here's what a company that cared about its potential customers would tell us:

Now that's not fair at all. Your comment was not at all referencing power meter support. You very clearly commented on the fact that heart rate variability (R-R)based Polar features were only supported by Polar sensors, which they are not (as I wrote in my reply).

I (we) almost entirely agree with your general points on power meters. I've answered and commented quite a bit in this thread that almost verbatim mirror your 1-3 bullet points.

My only add is simple: If device manufacturers are completely on spec for the Bluetooth Smart profile they're supporting. That is working jointly to ensure full interoperability. That's what open standards are all about. Complying with specifications and not having the wild west of sensor implementation.

Also something that may or may not be relevant. The V800 will support Bluetooth Smart power meters likely before we go to market with our/Looks Bluetooth Smart Keo Power pedals.
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Re: Polar V800 - Ask me anything [Chris@Polar] [ In reply to ]
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It also seems like a few people missed the webinar/phone conversation on the V800 and Flow. I'd be completely open to doing another one..

This is something that could be good if you just got the V800, or considering buying it and would like to get a feel for the user experience. Likely not the best for the power users.

So if you'd be interested - let me know here. And maybe let me know what you'd like covered.

I'm also going to be compiling a list of feedback/feature requests I got specifically from Slowtwitch. And report back here with any future updates.
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Re: Polar V800 - Ask me anything [Chris@Polar] [ In reply to ]
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any chance there will be a blue-tooth or wi-fi interface direct to a pc in the future for syncing wirelessly without an iphone?
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Re: Polar V800 - Ask me anything [Chris@Polar] [ In reply to ]
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First of all, I have been using the V800 from the day the pre-sale started here in Finland and overall have been really happy with the product!

There are some bugs that I have noticed like the Stride sensor automatic calibration not working correctly.
It clearly does not set the calibration factor automatically and I had to do the manual calibration. After that the readings
were spot on and much more accurate (with faster response) than the GPS readings. I guess you have got this same
feedback from other people as well already.

Could you Chris@Polar shed some light how the automatic calibration algorithm should work? Not the minor details but the overall idea.

- For example, should it set the corrected calibration factor only after you have had your run or does it continuously update it several times during a run?

- What about setting different calibration factors for different paces. Does it have some kind of internal "pace table" where it stores the calibration factors for different speeds and the interpolates between these data points? This is related to the fact that a single calibration factor does not represent accurately enough (in my experience) the whole range of paces one uses in training and the accuracy gets worse as you move slower or faster than the pace you originally calibrated the Stride sensor with.
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Re: Polar V800 - Ask me anything [Chris@Polar] [ In reply to ]
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Chris@Polar wrote:
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I am not able to get the V800 to register my heartrate reliably. I can get it to register initially but it loses it when I swim. This is true even though I have the belt so tight that almost all the elastic is stretched out. Any ideas?

I actually just confirmed you'll have a firmware update Friday to resolve this.

This didn't happen, did it. Good thing fw updates keep coming in general though.
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Re: Polar V800 - Ask me anything [acco] [ In reply to ]
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So the watch will never have the ability to change the fields on-the-fly, only through the website, or is that coming?
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Re: Polar V800 - Ask me anything [jef] [ In reply to ]
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Jef wrote:
Chris@Polar wrote:

Jef wrote:
So, same question ... bug (if so, when fixed) or faulty device ?
I would really appreciate help and solutions for those two issues.

Shoot me an email, we'd love to look at some of the data and figure out what's going on. chris.zoller@polar.com


I guess that this part of your reply to @Lokiwthor was in fact for my post. I will shoot you an email and share any data you would need to get those two issues fixed.

Many thanks,

Jef

Hi Chris,

I sent you an email last Friday pm (CET) with my details, but no news. I have got a few dynamic interval sessions planned in the coming days, for which I would really need those two issues on my V800 fixed. I cannot go without reliable reading on HRM or average lap pace, else I would need to fire up again my old Garmin 910XT. This one is kind of faltering now, like any other unit which I had from Garmin over the past years, but at least it is still able to perform on those very basics.

Ready to share any details that you would need. Could we get in touch ?

Many thanks,

Jef
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Re: Polar V800 - Ask me anything [Chris@Polar] [ In reply to ]
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Hi Chris,

I just completed my first half-Iron wearing my Polar v800 and it failed miserably. It tracked my swim as almost 80 miles! It also failed to pick up my heart rate from 99% of the swim with random blips every 10 minutes or so. CRX5 (set to "Other Sport") with R5 under my swim cap in a baggie performed much better in March during my Olympic tris.

While it provided speed and time on the bike, it failed to provide distance even though it accurately tracked my bike course (which I could see on the Flow web app later). On the run it provided pace and time and randomly started giving me distance around 3 miles into the half-marathon. Again, in Polar Flow on the web (I have an HTC Android phone so the Flow app is worthless to me) it tracked my actual run fine from the first step, but failed to share the distance with me for a few miles.

Overall opinion? Epic fail. When I attempted to get it to fix my gps position before the swim it got upset if I moved 1 foot in any direction. It never did reach 100% fix before my wave started. I assumed it would complete a fix while I was swimming, but that was a massive mistaken assumption. I never had that issue with the RCX5 and G5. Yes, if I had remembered the night before I could have put the v800 in the window of my hotel room and let it acquire the gps info for the are I was in, but seriously - 80 miles off my location! It didn't lock on until I was in T1.

So far the v800 continues to be an elegant looking piece of jewelry with great potential and lousy existing functionality. I'd return it in a heart beat if I could and go back to my RCX5 until something better comes out or Polar gets its sh&t together with the v800. Without even a basic version of the Flow app for Android available I'm in even worse shape then those who bought this thing and own an iPhone.

I recommend everyone either avoid the v800 until Polar gets the bugs out or find a shop that will let you test drive one for a while. If all these great posts from others are to be believed (and I have no reason to think they are lying) then I may simply have an incredibly buggy unit - which points to a major issue with Polar's QA. Any way you slice it, the v800 (in my opinion) is not ready for prime time. Polar is using us as beta testers.
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Re: Polar V800 - Ask me anything [Lokiwthor] [ In reply to ]
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That sounds like a rough time! I'm sorry to hear it..

Lokiwthor wrote:
It didn't lock on until I was in T1.
< this was the problem.

This is the first time I'm seeing anything like this at all. This is most definitely an isolated issue - and in no way represents how the V800 actually performs in practice. We've done a lot of real world testing with great success, hell Andy Potts won IMCDA with it on Sunday =0)

To avoid anything like this from ever happening, start the unit while setting up transition, lock onto satellites, use it during your warm up..etc. Don't wait till your wave start to acquire a GPS signal.
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Re: Polar V800 - Ask me anything [Chris@Polar] [ In reply to ]
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And how do you account for the complete failure of the unit to pick up my heart rate in the water? It showed my heart rate before I started my swim. While I'm happy for the winner of IMCDA, his experience isn't mine.....
In Reply To:
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Re: Polar V800 - Ask me anything [Lokiwthor] [ In reply to ]
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Lokiwthor wrote:
And how do you account for the complete failure of the unit to pick up my heart rate in the water? It showed my heart rate before I started my swim. While I'm happy for the winner of IMCDA, his experience isn't mine.....
In Reply To:

Sounds like the HR strap connected via bluetooth instead of whatever the polar protocol is. I don't think there's a way to force one or the other, and I also don't know if it connects to both at the same time.


--Chris
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Re: Polar V800 - Ask me anything [Lokiwthor] [ In reply to ]
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I reported the same issue with the HRM in water.... I've never been able to get mine to work reliably. Chris previously said that there was a firmware fix that was due last Friday to fix it. It didn't make it on Friday and hasn't shown up yet. Hopefully soon... and effective.
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Re: Polar V800 - Ask me anything [mecrtp] [ In reply to ]
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Yes sorry, the next firmware update should solve the issue. Above poster mentioned the Bluetooth lock, that's what the firmware will fix.
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Re: Polar V800 - Ask me anything [Chris@Polar] [ In reply to ]
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Just did my first open water swim using a wetsuit with the V800 on Monday. The distance reading was showing about 70 % more distance than I actually covered but that was to be expected.
The most disappointing thing was that the HR did not work. It just flat lined for several minutes at a time during the swim. How is this possible when the HR has worked just fine in the pool and
I have never had this problem. Now it seems that all the data (HR and distance) will be totally useless from the swim portion of my next ironman distance race in August unless Polar does
something to solve this fast. Lastly, yes the HR strap was tight enough and it had water on it.

Is it the wetsuit that prevents the V800 from getting the HR signal?
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Re: Polar V800 - Ask me anything [Chris@Polar] [ In reply to ]
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Hi Chris,

The following two issues masde me cancel my pre-order and are still making it impossible for me to buy the V800 (despite wanting it).

1/ Export of data (to trainingpeaks).
2/ Footpod: Smaller Polar footpod or 100% compatibility with Adidas BTLE footpod.

Is there a plan/timeline for these two issues?

/T

#######
My Blog
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Re: Polar V800 - Ask me anything [FlyingFinn] [ In reply to ]
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FlyingFinn wrote:
Just did my first open water swim using a wetsuit with the V800 on Monday. The distance reading was showing about 70 % more distance than I actually covered but that was to be expected.
The most disappointing thing was that the HR did not work. It just flat lined for several minutes at a time during the swim. How is this possible when the HR has worked just fine in the pool and
I have never had this problem. Now it seems that all the data (HR and distance) will be totally useless from the swim portion of my next ironman distance race in August unless Polar does
something to solve this fast. Lastly, yes the HR strap was tight enough and it had water on it.

Is it the wetsuit that prevents the V800 from getting the HR signal?

I think there are issues currently with 5kHz reception when using the V800 with the H7, at least that has been my experience. Simultaneous RCX5 use has no issues, so it is not the H7 itself. I have not used the V800 swimming but this is based on many runs with V800 paired to the 5kHz HRM data rather than bluetooth, and I get many HR drops and plateaus with this setup. I haven't tried pairing to a Polar H2 HRM, but may try that next to see if the problem is unique to the H7, or perhaps Chris already knows.
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Re: Polar V800 - Ask me anything [ In reply to ]
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I have used it once in ow swimming. Bad accuracy and too long distance, but HR worked most of the time. It also showed 1300 meters ascent! I hade the V800 on my wrist.

But I had the impression that swimming wasn't implemented yet? I had to change the profile to use gps.

I bought a Loop to complement the V800, it tracks a lot of "steps" during swimming. I'll try the Loop with the H7 strap on saturday's ow swim and see if hr behaves better.
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Re: Polar V800 - Ask me anything [Oskar] [ In reply to ]
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I've had my v800 for a few weeks now. All my swims have been indoor pool swims until yesterday (so no GPS). On all the indoor swims it tracked the HR without any issues, no spikes, no drops, etc... Yesterday I did a swim in an outdoor pool and turned on the GPS to see how it would do. It was "fairly" accurate seeing that I swam 1100m and it showed I swam 1200m, no where near the accuracy of previous 910xt or Ambit 2S but since firmware updates are supposed to fix it in the future I'm not all bent about it. The thing that bothered me was that over the course of the swim it only tracked my HR for 1:20 total on the swim so the HR data from that session is junk. I'm doing an open water session tonight and plan on using GPS and HR so i'll have some more experience with it but the swimming aspect seems buggy at best for the time being.
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Re: Polar V800 - Ask me anything [skullyrush] [ In reply to ]
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I think there are issues currently with 5kHz reception when using the V800 with the H7, at least that has been my experience.

There's a known issue with 5kHz reception when using the GPS.

The GPS isn't yet optimized for use while OWS - there will without a doubt be GPS accuracy issues swimming outdoors at the moment. We've been open about the promise here - OWS mode and indoor swim metrics planned for October.

So two things here:
  • I'd recommend not having GPS on while swimming outdoors - it won't be accurate, and it'll interfere with HR readings
  • If you choose to have the GPS on, understanding the accuracy is questioned - The previous mentioned firmware should solve the problem with HR signal

Hope this is clear ;0)
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Re: Polar V800 - Ask me anything [Chris@Polar] [ In reply to ]
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Chris any update on the release of the v650?
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Re: Polar V800 - Ask me anything [Chris@Polar] [ In reply to ]
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Chris@Polar wrote:
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I think there are issues currently with 5kHz reception when using the V800 with the H7, at least that has been my experience.


There's a known issue with 5kHz reception when using the GPS.

The GPS isn't yet optimized for use while OWS - there will without a doubt be GPS accuracy issues swimming outdoors at the moment. We've been open about the promise here - OWS mode and indoor swim metrics planned for October.

So two things here:
  • I'd recommend not having GPS on while swimming outdoors - it won't be accurate, and it'll interfere with HR readings
  • If you choose to have the GPS on, understanding the accuracy is questioned - The previous mentioned firmware should solve the problem with HR signal

Hope this is clear ;0)

Awesome, Chris. Look forward to that update!
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Re: Polar V800 - Ask me anything [HomerJSimpson] [ In reply to ]
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HomerJSimpson wrote:
Chris any update on the release of the v650?

Yeah, August.
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