I just came across the Polar G3 GPS sensor on sale online for about $64, which seems like a good deal to get for my RS800SD. The few reviews on Amazon are mixed, and so I thought I’d ask the question to the ST community here. If you own this unit, what have your experiences been with it? Specifically, how fast does it acquire satellites, and do you use it to calibrate the foodpod? I had been planning to get either the Garmin Forerunner 610 or the 910XT over the next few months. But if the G3 works well, I could just save myself a few hundred bucks. Thoughts?
I have one but it mostly sits at home as I have the footpod that I find less hassle.
Seemed Ok when I did use it, but it needed batteries each month or so with a fair amount of use, and I may have been doing something wrong, but it didn’t seem to record the first time you’d connected it. So if for example you ran without it one day, or cycled without, and cancelled the GPS, then the next time even after turning GPS back on then it seemed to work well but not record. This is with an RS800(and 2 letters that I can’t remember at this time) watch.
For the footpod then it was consistent and that’s all that matters. I think it was fairly accurate too, but the consistency means I run at the pace I want to on training relative to my other sessions, then know in a race what that pace is. Seemed to read slightly higher on marked courses, but that’s probably right (don’t run the shortest route when weaving around other people).
I had one and hated it. I ended up putting on ebay and getting a Garmin. Battery life, didn’t work well in areas that had tree cover, took forever to get a sat fix…
$64 is a VERY GOOD price if it is new. The signal is strong enough to clip it on your Fuelbelt or waist, no need for the armband. All GPS’s have some sort of + or - accuracy, so knowing that you could run 1 mile, turn off the G3, and run 1 mile mile to calibrate the S3. It is possible.