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Re: Polar V800 - Ask me anything [Chris@Polar] [ In reply to ]
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Looks like something working with data sync.

I recently noticed my workouts showing up on MapMyFitness. It synced them all the way back to day one with the V800. Then I turned on sync between MMF and MyFitnessPal (which I use for meal tracking) and the workout duration and calories show up.

It's a start, but here's what's still left out:
  • Everything is listed as a run, so no matter what sport profile you use, it defaults to run
  • No other information except for calories and duration (no GPS, HR, etc.)
  • Syncs every 24 hours automatically, so if you want to see your exercise calories in MyFitnessPal, you have force a sync with Polar from the MapMyFitness website (not the iPhone app)
  • No BMR update - which the UP24 did within MyFitnessPal, otherwise it estimates your BMR calories
  • Obviously, no direct sync to MFP, but you can use MMF as the "middleware"

But hey, if you're calorie tracking and that's the only metric you really want inside MyFitnessPal, then it works today. I'd still use the Flow app and website to analyze my workouts and do trending.




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Re: Polar V800 - Ask me anything [rooster_russ] [ In reply to ]
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For manual export of Flow data to TCX please check http://flowexport.callcenter.pl
It may not be perfect but seems to work for many people.
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Re: Polar V800 - Ask me anything [grzeg1] [ In reply to ]
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Just learned today for those with the Mio Link, if you wear on the same wrist as v800 and set it for other indoor, you can use it to measure hr during swim...i only had what looks like 1 drop out during the swim..not sure on accurracy as will test it later with the Polar strap to compare.
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Re: Polar V800 - Ask me anything [Chris@Polar] [ In reply to ]
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Hi,
I have just purchased a polar v800 and am having trouble using target training.
I have defined basic activities and created a phased target training session on polar flow and uploaded to the watch. In this instance I have Jogging, Cycling and Swimming as the basics with a target training session called Interval 15.
The target training session is set as a favourite.
When I select Interval 15 on the watch the next screen shows one of the basic activities, ie Jogging.
I continued and started recording but soon realised when I wasn't being prompted for the phases that I was in simple jogging mode.
I have deleted and recreated a target training session with no change to the behaviour.

As a new user it may be something I am doing wrong?

Thanks

James dawson
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Re: Polar V800 question/request [ In reply to ]
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Hi Chris and others here. Thanks very much for offering such direct interaction with V800 users. I'm primarily a trail runner and have had a sequence of Polar HRMs (625x, RS800) over the years. I just picked up a V800 (after a short 1-week flirtation with a Garmin 620 that I was unsatisfied with) and in the short time I've had it, it seems pretty great. My primary use is for tracking heart rate, pace/distance and elevation gain during trail runs. GPS-based systems have never worked well for me because I'm usually running in the forest. I have had very good results over the years with the foot pods associated with the 625x and the RS800 (good accuracy after calibration, even over highly variable trail terrain) and the barometric altimeter accuracy, so I'm optimistic about using the V800 and the Bluetooth Stride Sensor (plus taking advantage of all the benefits of the V800 over my previous devices, like GPS tracking for my road runs, seamless syncing with my computer and phone, much improved display, vastly better buttons, etc.).

I have a few questions that have come up in my use of the V800 to date:

1) Am I missing something or is it impossible to set a pace-based intensity target in a "Phased" training plan? This is not an unusual thing to do for, say, an interval session (e.g. warm up, then run X intervals at Y pace with some amount of recovery time between each, then cool down). It appears as though the only intensity target that is possible is a heart rate range... I could manually select a "Race Pace" training plan and sort of accomplish this, but then I'd have to constantly be starting and stopping things, manually timing the recovery break, etc. etc., which kind of defeats the purpose of being able to program a full workout into the watch. Since the pace guidance capability is clearly there in the watch (Race Pace) it seems like an easy addition to the options for the Phased training plans as well. Is this something that's on the radar for the V800 and/or Flow teams?

2) Because of my primary use case detailed above (trail running with variable GPS coverage) I strongly prefer to use the stride sensor for distance/pace information, which is thankfully exactly what the V800 does right now. I was also thrilled to see that even when the foot pod is being used for distance/pace, the GPS location information is still recorded - that is quite different than the Garmin 620 I experimented with, which would only use its foot pod for speed/distance if GPS was unavailable or disabled, in which case there was no recording of GPS location or elevation info. My request to Polar is that if you do change it so that GPS can be used for pace/distance even when a foot pod is present (as many others in this thread have requested), PLEASE MAKE IT A USER-SELECTABLE OPTION! Changing it to operate like the Garmin 620 does (where GPS is always preferred if present/active) would make the V800 useless for me.

3) The automatic calibration of the altimeter and stride sensor is very opaque right now. Neither the manual or any of the FAQs I've been able to find provide any useful information on how these two functions work, and there certainly is a lot of confusion and mixed results being reported. I think a lot of this confusion and use issues might be alleviated by publishing more detail on how these processes work. Some specific things that it would help to know:
  • What is the watch doing when it says "altitude calibrating" (which seems to take quite a while sometimes) when I start an activity? Is it waiting for a GPS lock of a certain minimum vertical resolution to use as a barometric altimeter calibration?
  • While I'm waiting for altitude calibration to complete, is the watch recording my elevation gain?
  • For the stride sensor, how does it perform auto calibration exactly? Does it look at GPS data and compare that to stride sensor readings to come up with a calibration factor? If so, then it would be critical to perform the initial auto calibration runs in a location with excellent GPS coverage (i.e. not in the forest where most of my runs occur).
  • Does auto calibration of the stride sensor occur over some initial period of use of the V800 or a new sensor (first X miles run, or first Y minutes run, ???) or is the V800 constantly "auto calibrating" and consequently making adjustments that could affect the comparability of different runs?
  • What happens if you manually calibrate the stride sensor and then (intentionally or otherwise) put it back on auto calibrate? Does it start with a baseline of the previous manually entered value or start "from scratch" with a 1.00 calibration factor? Does auto-calibration "reset" any time you switch from manual to automatic?
  • Is the calibration factor (manually set or auto-generated) specific to each exercise type? I can test this one pretty easily but haven't had a chance to yet. If it is specific to each exercise type, that would be an easy way to work around the issues some in this thread have reported with having to change their calibration factor when switching shoes (something I've never had to do BTW, at least with previous Polar foot pods) - you could set up a different "exercise type" that correlated to each shoe.

Those are the main questions/requests that I have. My apologies if any have already been answered; I read through all 11 pages of this thread but there's a lot there to digest.

Overall I really do think this is a great device - the polish of the watch user interface and the clarity of the screen alone show a lot of attention to detail in the design process that I think the other sports watch manufacturers are clueless about. I am eager/hopeful for the improvements and enhancements to functionality that will come with firmware updates. Thanks again for your participation in this forum.

-John

P.S. One more to add after today's run: as others have noted, the Ascent for an activity (at least running activities, don't know about others) as reported in the Polar Flow web site does not match what the V800 or the iOS Polar Flow app report - the web site shows more than 3x what the watch and the mobile app show. I suspect that the web site is incorrectly interpreting the units (i.e. my watch says I had 600 feet of ascent, the web site reports it as 2001 feet, which may have been a result of incorrectly converting 600 *meters* to feet...). Descent has the same issue.
Last edited by: jbarnhardt: Jul 29, 14 22:28
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Re: Polar V800 question/request [jbarnhardt] [ In reply to ]
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To jbarnhardts questions:

1) You have understood it right. Polar does not allow you to have any other targets than the intensity zones.

3) About the automatic Stride sensor calibration. I asked about this few pages ago but have not got any answers. Polar is not giving any information about it and at this point it seems that they are completely silent about it. My advice at this point to all: DO NOT USE IT.
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Re: Polar V800 question/request [FlyingFinn] [ In reply to ]
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FlyingFinn wrote:
To jbarnhardts questions:

1) You have understood it right. Polar does not allow you to have any other targets than the intensity zones.

Surely, it's a matter of time, before they change that. Even Polar must recognize, that some athletes use pace as a target, rather than heart rate.

It was possible with the Polar Personal Trainer site and my old RC3 GPS.
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Re: Polar V800 question/request [tfunch] [ In reply to ]
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I surely hope Polar adds more functionality to the phased target feature. At its present form it is almost useless. It strikes me odd that many of the features that already worked with for example RCX5 are now downgraded and really badly executed. If I would be in the developement team of V800 and/or Flow I would certainly not piss fart these features to the market if I had some already functional ideas about how to develop something.
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Re: Polar V800 question/request [FlyingFinn] [ In reply to ]
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FlyingFinn wrote:
I surely hope Polar adds more functionality to the phased target feature. At its present form it is almost useless. It strikes me odd that many of the features that already worked with for example RCX5 are now downgraded and really badly executed. If I would be in the developement team of V800 and/or Flow I would certainly not piss fart these features to the market if I had some already functional ideas about how to develop something.

They actually did make the phased target better on a very important point. Within Personal Trainer it was only possible to do 5 phases i believe.
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Re: Polar V800 question/request [tfunch] [ In reply to ]
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That is true and actually it was limited to 4 phases.
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Re: Polar V800 - Ask me anything [Chris@Polar] [ In reply to ]
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Hey Chris,
I really like my V800, but it is a little frustrating to be left completely out of the loop in terms of progress on the updates and missing features.
It's like ordering a bike in the shop and getting no info (after the original estimate) on when it will arrive. Except in this case we already paid for it!

Of specific interest to me is the support for power meters. I have my A-race coming up end of September and would like to know if I should start looking for alternatives to read out my Stages PM.
Detail question: When Power meter support arrives, will it include cadence from the power meter?

regards,
Flo

if you can read this
YOU'RE DRAFTING!
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Re: Polar V800 question/request [jbarnhardt] [ In reply to ]
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FYI I queried Polar customer support directly about the ability to set pace-based intensity targets in phased training plans, and they responded that the "feature will be available sometime during September." So it sounds like it is indeed on the roadmap for the near future. Still hoping to get more info here about how altimeter and stride sensor "auto calibration" work. Thanks,

-John
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Re: Polar V800 - Ask me anything [flogazo] [ In reply to ]
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flogazo wrote:
Detail question: When Power meter support arrives, will it include cadence from the power meter?

regards,
Flo

I'm also interested in this data too. At the moment I'm running a BT speed/cadence sensor but would love to ditch that and get the power/speed/cadence from my BT enabled Powertap instead.

Overall I'm really pleased with the watch though, it's been a great training device so far and use wise It's much better than my 910xt was and Ambit 2s. Just eagerly awaiting the addition of power and the swimming metrics.
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Re: Polar V800 - Ask me anything [Chris@Polar] [ In reply to ]
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There are now a few tools available for the V800 that enable export of data. The first is a downloader that will let you select which sessions to download from the watch over USB. It's completely separate from FlowSync, so it works on Linux, Windows and OS X. It has the option to include output to the Bipolar directory and use the Bipolar naming conventions. This allows Bipolar to convert the downloaded data to TCX that is then applaudable to your favorite site. I've been using the combo for the past week and have uploaded the last 20 or so runs of mine to Sporttracks and Strava without an issue and keeping all the HR, Cadence, Altitude data.

The downloader is at: https://github.com/...m429/v800_downloader
and Paul Colby's Bipolar is at: https://github.com/pcolby/bipolar

Both currently have packages for OS X and Windows. The downloader also has a 64 bit Linux version available and I believe Bipolar will have Linux support so Linux as a platform will soon have full data access to the V800 along with Windows and OS X.
The links contain the source code for looking through if anyone wants to further extend stuff or to implement some custom stuff.

Disclaimer: I'm the developer of the v800_downloader but am happy that we now have access to our watch data in a platform agnostic format.
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Re: Polar V800 - Ask me anything [mecrtp] [ In reply to ]
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OK - I figured out what caused my V800 not to record my HR while swimming. My H7 was defective (Chris, can you do anything for me on this?) I was trying to use an H7 that I purchased 18 months ago (yes I tried a fresh battery) and it didn't work under water. I bought a new one on Amazon and it worked while swimming. I am not 100% sure but I think that it also works more reliably out of the water as well.

Now that I've seen it work - its pretty cool. I have an almost perfect HR plot of my workout. It was also great to use the HR in my workout to "time" my repeats. Now I just need to wait for the rest of the swimming features.

Mark
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Re: Polar V800 - Ask me anything [Chris@Polar] [ In reply to ]
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Does the V800 have a vibrate clock alarm function?
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Re: Polar V800 - Ask me anything [Captain Jack] [ In reply to ]
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Captain Jack wrote:
Does the V800 have a vibrate clock alarm function?

Yep
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Re: Polar V800 - Ask me anything [Chris@Polar] [ In reply to ]
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If you mean vibrate only, then no. It's vibrate, beep and flashing light, all together.
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Re: Polar V800 - Ask me anything [acco] [ In reply to ]
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acco wrote:
If you mean vibrate only, then no. It's vibrate, beep and flashing light, all together.

I meant vibrate only (ie should wake me up, but not the rest of the house).

I think a fitbit or jawbone does this?
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Re: Polar V800 - Ask me anything [Chris@Polar] [ In reply to ]
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Chris - this has been brought up in the past, but there's something wrong with the altitude measurements when uploading to Polar Flow website from the watch. My rides and runs are consistently showing what I think is proper gain on my watch, but when uploading to Polar Flow website, the website converts the watch numbers to meters. Yesterdays ride showed 1660 ft (gain) but when uploading it showed 5445 ft (gain). My run on Thursday shows 380 ft (gain) but when uploaded the website shows 1296 ft (gain). Looks to me like the website thinks the watch is recording in meters and is converting those meters to feet on the Polar Flow website.

Any progress on when the programmers can address this? Along those lines, when I share my "public" workout with my coach (via copying the link) he sees everything in meters when it's been recorded in feet. He shouldn't have to log into Polar to view it properly, in my opinion.

Still loving my watch and VERY anxious to get my hands on the V650.

Ed - Chattanooga, TN
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Re: Polar V800 - Ask me anything [trigeekrusk] [ In reply to ]
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+1000 to the issues with elevation reporting on the Polar Flow web site. This seems like one that should be very straightforward to fix as it's perfectly repeatable. I've also noticed that while the elevation gain/loss reported in the Polar Flow iOS app is correct, if I view the elevation profile graph in that app, it sometimes shows that the entire run was performed at a single elevation (flat line), even though it reports the correct total elevation gain and loss (500+ feet each in the case of my most recent run). The Polar Flow web site, on the other hand, shows incorrect total elevation gain and loss (exactly as described in the preceding post - it appears to be confusing feet with meters) but the graph of the elevation profile is accurate. At an absolute minimum this bug should be formally acknowledged and better yet fixed ASAP.

The other major outstanding item to me is some clarity from Polar on stride sensor calibration. The auto-calibration is definitely broken; I performed numerous attempted auto-calibrations during straightforward, flat, consistent runs in areas with perfect GPS coverage (the map track is perfect) and the calibration factors that were derived are way off - the most recent one I got was something like 0.843. Before each attempted auto-calibration session I manually reset the calibration factor back to 1.00 as I believe was suggested earlier in this thread. When I finally did a full manual calibration at the track over multiple sessions, I came up with a calibration factor of 0.956 - very, very different than what auto-calibration had determined! BTW the 0.956 is what I'm using now in all conditions (including deep forested trail runs) and with this correct factor, the stride sensor is very, very accurate - within 1% of the wheel-measured distance on a 5-mile twisty-turny, lots of up and down, rocky, rooty trail run. This is a great device but the user experience is very hampered at the moment by an auto-calibration feature that simply doesn't work, and no documentation or notices from Polar noting this issue or how to best work around it.

Chris, please ask your colleagues to post some info on this stuff so that those of us attempting to report issues back know what is on the roadmap to fix and what needs to be brought to Polar's attention. I love this watch, I just wish I didn't have to do so much experimentation and spend so much time testing to get some of these features to work. Thanks,

-John
Last edited by: jbarnhardt: Aug 11, 14 16:59
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Re: Polar V800 - Ask me anything [Chris@Polar] [ In reply to ]
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Hi Chris,

just some feedback before I start with my feature request list :-)
First of all I have my V800 for almost two month now and I really like the look and usability so your initial intention to create a device which I wear 24x7 is met :-) However I am also a bit annoyed because I was expecting a more "ready" product. With ready I mean to be on the same stage like the competition (Garmin and Suunto) which is not the case at the moment. I gave already several feedbacks to the adress customercare@polar.com where the answer in a acceptable time but the message is always "...thanks for your feedback we will forward to the product team..." with no further information. Thats frustrating and to be honest I was not sure if I will stay with the V800 and change to the competition. Now by coincidence I found this forum here and obviously I get more information about the product here than on the official Polar site. This highly valuable information from this thread needs to be on the Polar pages as well! Or at least a link to the other forums.
After reading through the thread I feel more convident again with the V800 and look forward to the next updates.

Regards
Martin


feature requests
- manual route planner
I want to create routes directly in the map on the polar flow web app

- language of flow app
I want to set the language manually on the web interface with no dependency of the Windows OS language set

- adding friends with search function
currently i just can follow someone if he shares a training session, I see those in the explore tab BUT I want to search for user names and add them with no dependency on shared trainings.

- sharing trainings with friends outside of polar flow
I would like to send training results to friends without a polar flow account

- PRODUCT ROADMAP
I would like to know what you are planning next, which fixes and new features will be included, approx timeline
--> a voting platform where V800 users can vote for a feature so that you as product team see the demand

- facebook integration (low prio)
posting results on facebook

- import data from other platforms like runtastic.com

- Windows Phone 8 Application!!!

- Windows 8 Bluetooth Connection
to sync data like with an IPad/IPhone over Bluetooth


- better report for the sleeping phase
currently there is just the chart with all activities but I would like to have an easy view how much sleep I had and also be able to see if the sleep was "deep" without much movement or interrupted through a lot of moving

- step counter (low prio)
I think it would be an interesting metric too how many steps we make per day so if this is easy to implement, please.

- will you create additional accessories like powermeters, glassess from 4i,...

- smaller wrist bands (high prio)
I would like to buy a V800 for my girlfriend but the standard wrist band is to long. This is easy to solve and brings more customers :-)
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Re: Polar V800 - Ask me anything [Spillicus] [ In reply to ]
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Spillicus wrote:
I've been using just my iphone for my exercise tracking and bought the wahoo blue sc and HRM when I started cycling, and also a wahoo RFLKT. I'm running my first tri this weekend, so while the iphone works great for the bike part, and ok for the run, it obviously doesn't track swimming at all and fiddling with an app during transition is a waste of time obviously. So the V800 is a product I might be interested in if I decide to stick with this.

I definitely prefer having a bike computer or something mounted for the ride and it doesn't look like the V800 has any kind of quick release mount or anything like that. Strapping it to the handlebars also falls in the time wasting category. Is it feasible from a technical standpoint to use something like the RFLKT over BTLE as a sort of second display the polar could send data to? I realize this probably doesn't work now and wouldn't be on the list or priorities, but is it possible?
^
^
^
This is a very good idea, and will no doubt appeal to all the triathletes on here. Or perhaps you have a similar device of your own planned? ;)
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Re: Polar V800 - Ask me anything [jwshale] [ In reply to ]
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jwshale wrote:
Spillicus wrote:
I've been using just my iphone for my exercise tracking and bought the wahoo blue sc and HRM when I started cycling, and also a wahoo RFLKT. I'm running my first tri this weekend, so while the iphone works great for the bike part, and ok for the run, it obviously doesn't track swimming at all and fiddling with an app during transition is a waste of time obviously. So the V800 is a product I might be interested in if I decide to stick with this.

I definitely prefer having a bike computer or something mounted for the ride and it doesn't look like the V800 has any kind of quick release mount or anything like that. Strapping it to the handlebars also falls in the time wasting category. Is it feasible from a technical standpoint to use something like the RFLKT over BTLE as a sort of second display the polar could send data to? I realize this probably doesn't work now and wouldn't be on the list or priorities, but is it possible?

^
^
^
This is a very good idea, and will no doubt appeal to all the triathletes on here. Or perhaps you have a similar device of your own planned? ;)

Presumably, that's exactly how Polar plans to use the rebroadcasting of sensor data. Except instead of using a RFLKT, you'd need a V650.
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Re: Polar V800 - Ask me anything [sathomasga] [ In reply to ]
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sathomasga wrote:
jwshale wrote:
Spillicus wrote:
I've been using just my iphone for my exercise tracking and bought the wahoo blue sc and HRM when I started cycling, and also a wahoo RFLKT. I'm running my first tri this weekend, so while the iphone works great for the bike part, and ok for the run, it obviously doesn't track swimming at all and fiddling with an app during transition is a waste of time obviously. So the V800 is a product I might be interested in if I decide to stick with this.

I definitely prefer having a bike computer or something mounted for the ride and it doesn't look like the V800 has any kind of quick release mount or anything like that. Strapping it to the handlebars also falls in the time wasting category. Is it feasible from a technical standpoint to use something like the RFLKT over BTLE as a sort of second display the polar could send data to? I realize this probably doesn't work now and wouldn't be on the list or priorities, but is it possible?

^
^
^
This is a very good idea, and will no doubt appeal to all the triathletes on here. Or perhaps you have a similar device of your own planned? ;)


Presumably, that's exactly how Polar plans to use the rebroadcasting of sensor data. Except instead of using a RFLKT, you'd need a V650.

I guess... although a V650 is overkill surely - you then have a redundant GPS (and the rest) in the V650. I was thinking of a more lightweight device (like the RFLKT) that doesn't do anything except display info - the V801 or something!
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