Polar H7 Bluetooth Heart Rate Sensor & Fitness Tracker

I have been a Polar customer for over 4 years, and I'm not sure why. My first purchase was through Amazon in April 2013. The H7 is so buggy it's nearly worthless. I always detach the sensor from the strap when it's not in use, and they just bug out for no reason. On Tuesday, it worked completely fine. I did a 30 minute workout, and the battery was at about 75% when I completed my workout. Wednesday (yesterday), the app that I use (Fitdigits) could not locate the sensor. I changed the battery, even though it should've been fine. Still not working. I disconnected the sensor from the app and tried to reconnect. Nothing. So at this point, I know from experience what the problem is... In February 2015, (after I bought my third and last H7), I found a Polar forum where someone described some type of an electrical issue that these sensors experience and how to fix it. (Basically, you have to discharge it. Take the battery out, and take a piece of metal like a paperclip and touch a metal part under that battery. There's a video on Youtube. Search "Resetting an H7".) I've had to do this every few months or so (since 2015!), but it worked... except for this time. This time, no dice. I'm so angry and frustrated. I don't like working out without checking my zones and now I'm without a heartrate monitor. I'm done with Polar.

This is an amazing device. I had purchased a Fitbit a while ago because of the convenience of having the heart rate read off of the wrist. Don't make that mistake. The wrist based heart rate monitor is not accurate at higher heart rates and if god forbid you sweat when you exercise, the heart rate is extremely inaccurate and stops working at times. I found the Fitbit dangerous as it under reported my heart rate and I pushed myself way too hard attempting to hit a target heart rate. I tell you all of that to contrast it with this amazing and far more cost effectively piece of technology. I now workout with my IPhone in front of the treadmill and the experience of the Polar monitor is AMAZING compared to the FitBit Blaze. The Free Polar app shows your HR and a graph of your workout experience. It does far more than that but I have just scratched the surface and it does everything I wanted. It is everything I needed to maximize my treadmill workout.As an added and unexpected benefit, I did not expect my LifeSpan treadmill to pick up this heart rate monitor. I had assumed Bluetooth was a single device sync and I would only be using the phone. Both the phone and the treadmill picked up the HR at the same time.Thank you Polar!

I love the band, now that we got it to sync with my iPhone 5c via the Polar Beat app. I obtained the Polar beat app easily. I read all of the instructions I could find on-line including some u-tube videos. I was ready to go (so I thought). I wet the electrodes with a spray bottle of water, put on the strap (water dripping down me), and snapped on the sensor. Held my phone close, it searched for a while and then I got an exclamation point. No sensor found by the app. I tried this multiple times. Kept rewetting the strap. No luck. My husband got the battery out and tested it's charge. It was almost at full charge -- not the problem. I was ready to give up and call Polar when he unsnapped the sensor and put his two thumbs on the contact snaps on the back of the sensor, held them there, and within 20 seconds, my phone recognized the heart rate monitor. The initial pairing is the problem. Once that is done, you are good to go. I wore it off and on in the house to check what my heart was doing and never lost a signal. Wore it to the gym, it worked great and paired with the treadmill right away. All of the "tips" on the Polar website are worthless. My band was tight, in the correct position, and very wet. So glad my husband figured out it how to get my phone to recognize the monitor.

This works as intended - no issues! I use it with the Polar Fit app. I found the registration process slightly confusing, to get it to sync with something else I also had to sign up for a Polar Personal Trainer account.My only complaint is that this is obviously designed by a man for a man. I have a 32" band size (32D) and the measurements for the "regular" size vs the small each have 32 as the smallest/largest- meaning, it can either be tight or loose, with no room for error. This is one of the most common band sizes - why not have a little overlap, Polar?? I ended up going with the smaller option and at first it was slightly too tight, but it stretched out in a couple weeks so I'd definitely go smaller. The package I received had a sticker on it that said it was altered - so it seems the seller (not sure?) opens the packages and takes the bands in so I guess you could always do it yourself if you buy the wrong size. Also, inexplicably the pink band doesn't come in the smaller size.This does snap into HRM bras, which are hard to find - the only one I could find was an old Victoria's secret model purchased on e-bay, but it does the trick. I ordered one from Numetrix (the Adidas brand) which was AWFUL - avoid them.