In fairness DDave (he is a very frustrated closet Polar Fanboy) was possibly reacting to my tweet query yesterday which was that the update seemed only suitable for 25 or 50m pools, as per the FAQ:



It was only through the Polar forum ;) that I learned how to change the setting to 20m. Polar tweeted me this yesterday afternoon


and again this afternoon with above link to FAQ, helpful responses, but no instructions as to how. Long live the forum!! :)

---

_______________

#GottaRun
http://twitter.com/runningmatters_
http://www.feileacanmor.com

Agreed - right now we "officially" support Keo Power Bluetooth - though our Power implementation follows standard Bluetooth Smart specification for power data. The target is to improve compatibility for third party sensors and PM's in upcoming releases - this is two parts. 1) We have internal work to do - we'll absolutely try to adapt to the big players.. We want that compatibility. but 2) we're also having open dialog with some of these brands to improve their implementation to ensure things are close to being on spec.

I've struggled with the last few weeks trying to figure out a HR issue I'm having; I think I detailed it earlier in this thread but I didn't see a response. I emailed and spoke to tech support earlier soon after 1.1.17 came out and give them my information and it seemed good and was hoping to see a fix or possible response soon but I'm still having the same issue with 1.2.

Basically, with a non H7 HR monitor the watch doesn't seem to be displaying the actual data being sent by the HR monitor. I've tried it with 2 different Scosche RYTHYM+ units and a Mio Alpha. All three work perfectly when paired against an iPhone 5S, 6 Plus and laptop. All three exhibit the same issue when paired against the V800. I'll see my HR on the watch as I start ramping up activity but every 30s or so I'll see a pretty large spike, usually 5-8bpm and then the value will drop back down again. It looks like) 128, 129, 136, 130, 131...

I see the same thing on descending heart rates too, except now the spike is in the opposite direction) 140, 139, 131, 138, 137...

When I pair the Scosche units to the V800 and to an ANT+ device at the same time I don't see these spikes on the ANT+ device but I do on the V800. I also don't see a matching number between the V800 and ANT+ device; I would expect maybe a little lag between the two but they usually never sync up until I reach a steady state where my HR isn't fluctuating up or down anymore. With the Mio Alpha I see the same behavior watching the LCD display on the Mio itself compared to the value displayed on the V800.

Eventually when I reach a steady-state it mostly works but this still isn't optimal and it's also not very functional for intervals based on HR since I don't know where I'm actually at.

After 1.2 was released and I played around with it to see if I was having the same issue I spoke to tech support again and was told that only the H7 is compatible with the V800 which should be demonstrably false but my issue was escalated to a manager who was supposed to call me back. I've yet to hear anything on this front yet. I have seen that the older V800 units from the release seem to be suffering from battery expanding issues that cause charging/syncing issues and I've seen some complain about GPS lock issues stemming from it as well. I'm wondering if possibly this might be an issue with my unit since I bought it a few days after it went up for sale on Polar.com and maybe I need to get a replacement unit? Thanks!

profanum - can you forward me any correspondence you've had with CS? chris.zoller@polar.com..

I don't think this is a bug or anything, I've used the Alpha on many occasions with the V800 with nothing like this. May be something in your unit, we can help.

Hi Chris
do you have any feedback on my post about the changing of the time zone and loosing some data on the watch?

dominic

Chris, swam with the V800 this morning and it worked perfectly. Except of course for kick sets, but I don't think any watch works for that lol.

Didn't miss any lengths and I have the tap set to take laps, so it works quite well. Really happy with this feature.

As others have said, the Power issue is a HUGE one. While I ride Look Keo pedals, I am not willing to buy the power Keos as I already have a lot of dough invested in Zipp 808s with a Powertap and also a training wheel with PT. I also am pretty sold on the PT brand, as I tend to be conservative about newer power meter bands until they have had some first user issues hashed out.

I would say that if this watch were to allow proper integration with other BT powermeters (stages, Powertap with the cap), or more importantly work well with Viiiiva as a bridge that the watch would be complete for me. (Well, the OWS swim measures as well, but I know they are on the way).

Viiiiva seems like the most affordable option for those of us with ANT+ PMs... I am really hoping this can be done!

---

Founder of THE TRIATHLON COLLECTIVE (Closed Facebook Group). A SBR discussion group without the white noise/trolling!

I do not agree that "Polar is bad".

Actually the concern I'm sure all manufacturers have is paying for a forum and moderating it (takes people time) and watching the unhappy 2% lambaste the product. Happens in my world (medicine), where the unhappiest 2% write the strongest and most outrageous reviews of hospitals, docs, etc.

I'm pretty happy with the watch, as I've stated I have not liked the communication strategy of Polar, and still am curious why DCRainmaker had to be the one to release the update schedule, but for any product, there will always be deeply unhappy people no matter what. Go check out the Garmin forums as well ;-)

---

Founder of THE TRIATHLON COLLECTIVE (Closed Facebook Group). A SBR discussion group without the white noise/trolling!

Swam yesterday with the new swim features...worked perfectly! Had yardage spot on, knew all four strokes, etc. Well done, worth the wait for this update. Looking forward to OWS update and maybe taking the plunge for power. Keep those updates coming.

tried the swim as well. amazing how it knows. it's magic.
I think Arthur C. Clarke said something about that lol

Damn, Chris was pretty good. Still wearing two HR straps to get my Polar HR files together with my 910xt/Edge 500 data. Not a good development. Still looking for Polar to right the ship, but with Nokia down the tube, maybe the Nordic countries are waving the white flag???

---

3x IMFL now retired

Hello Chris. I tried swimming metrics yesterday. They didn´t work well. The watch measured 1875 meters which is impossible since I started and finished on the same side of the pool which is 25 meters. The other thing is I counted 2300 meters not 1875 m. I know I didn´t miss counted since I know very well my times in the pool. I really want them to work and hope they get better. Will try them again next week.
here is the session, in which you can see laps and how different they were. They read 175m, 175m, then 150m and finally 125 meters and I know I did 200 meters in each one of those. https://flow.polar.com/...ng/analysis/35454226

is it possible to display live swim info on your watch? I dont see any swim related options under "training views"
would be nice to have the option to display total strokes, lap count, last lap pace etc...

---

-------------------------------------------------------------
MSc Exercise Physiology and Sport Sciences.
Specialising in Cardiovascular development and Muscle mechanics.

I think he meant the user posts that are "very, very bad"

---

if you can read this
YOU'RE DRAFTING!

Training views are definitely there. Have you enabled 'Pool swimm.' as a sports profile?

That was the issue that had me scratching my head for the first couple of hours.

---

_______________

#GottaRun
http://twitter.com/runningmatters_
http://www.feileacanmor.com

Yep, Go into Sport Profiles, add "Pool Swim" edit the displays to your liking. Still some fine tuning to be done, but overall we've done a ton of beta testing - very happy with the accuracy and data..

On the power meter side - we couldn't agree more. But like I noted, right now the implementation of the Bluetooth Smart power profile across the board needs work. It's important to us that it works so we'll bend and work collaboratively as much as possible (we are). But some work is needed here.

I'll be addressing a point above about activity tracking across time zones after an internal discussion I'm having a bit later today hopefully.

Hi Chris,

I am a brand new member of this forum (first post) and I registered just to be able to ask some questions that either you or other member could answer as I am trying to evaluate the V800.

I am trying to decide between the 920xt, Ambit3 and V800 and one of the more attractive features of the V800 to me is all the heart-rate related functionality. Specifically, I am very interested in recording the raw heart-rate signal and as I understand it, the V800 definitely has a way to record R-R values even during sleep (meaning outside of any specific sport mode). This is great but can I also record the "raw" signal, meaning the 1/1024 of a second samples *before* the R-R values are extracted? I am a researcher and I need to be able to run my own models that extract R-R on top of other "features" and run machine learning algorithms to automatically detect specific heart-states during training. Please let me know if that is already possible or if it's planned to be supported in the future.

Last thing. Even if the V800 doesn't support raw hr signal extraction, can I just get this info out of the H7 band itself and record it on a PC for example with some custom software?
Thanks!

I have taken the V8oo swimming a couple of times. Still confused on how to set a distance alert for repeat sets. I see the alert set in percentage of miles (.2) but do not get a vibration at all. Am I missing something? Is there no yardage/meter option? Thanks for the help.

Just be sure that all of your training views have at least two metrics displayed. If a training view has a single metric, the watch crashes (as in needs a reset) as soon as you start the activity. In particular, I was trying to use just two training views:

1: Heart rate, ZonePointer, Duration
2: Distance

In that configuration, the watch crashes with the error message: "Something went wrong. Press OK to reset the V800."

If, however, I configure the training views as:

1: Heart rate, ZonePointer, Duration
2: Speed/pace, Distance

the watch appears to work. I’m only testing it on dry land for now, though. I’ll try again in the pool tomorrow.

Took the watch for a pool swim last night. I set the watch to a 25 yard pool.

I swam 400 yard freestyle, it only thought I swam 225 yards. Why is this? What do I have to do to make the watch get the correct yard? I do not do flip turns. I do open turn.

On my breaststroke it counted the yards semi correct. It actually counted 26 yards at one point. How is this possible when I have the length set to 25 yards.

Please explain what the watch is looking for to determine the yardage correctly.

Thanks

The distance is measured by the lap distance (you program) - the accelerator is monitoring change and direction and wall push to indicate the lap. We haven't had many (if any) other cases of it not working, I'd suggest contacting one of our customer care teams, troubleshooting and paying attention to possibly something you're doing in the turn process that could cause it. Could be something so simple like a stronger push off..

If I do a stronger push, my goggles will fall off...

How should I do the turn in the pool? I don't do flip turn. Maybe something in the turn, but I would think the push off would trigger the watch to understand I just swam 25 yards.

How did it count 26 yards at one point?

I can't comment on the 26 - that's just not normal..

It could be something in the turn, or push off. Exactly what, I don't know. But we did so many tests with people doing various turns, swims, push off strength.etc.. with great results.

Maybe just do a few more swims and pay attention to those variables.... I bet it's easily overcome.

You guys should have used me as a test subject :)

Mine does it too. I also noticed strokes/length is way off - instead of 28-30 it's showing 22-24 and sometimes even 14.
I noticed that sometimes it's not catching my tap like if the accelerometer was faulty.