Review on Polar Heart Rate Monitor Black by Christopher Jones

If you're looking for a device that's just a heart rate monitor with no frills, there aren't many options. I chose this Polar model because I found it easy to use and relatively attractive. Setup is unintuitive and the little manual that came with the monitor is useless, but the user manual on the website is easy enough to use. The monitor, monitor strap and chest strap are well designed, better than average. The monitor works well as a digital watch if you don't wear a chest strap. The operational problem is that the pairing between the chest strap and the monitor sometimes takes quite a long time to get heart rate readings, often 20 seconds or more. The time varies from tens of seconds to several times. Once reading starts, it will usually continue until you stop it. The rest of the problems belong to the future; The chest strap, unlike virtually all competing vendors, doesn't have a user-replaceable battery, so you can't just buy a battery and replace it. I have to buy a new chest strap or send the old one back to the company, certainly for a lot more than the cost of a new battery. The battery in the monitor is theoretically user-replaceable, but removing the back panel requires a Torx 5 screwdriver, as opposed to the small Phillips head screws used on all competing devices. I can buy a Torx5 at a hardware store or Walmart for a few bucks, but that's an extra expense if you don't want to pay your local Polar dealer to replace the battery. I had one of Polar's first heart rate monitors when they came out over 20 years ago, but I've since bought competitor devices, mostly because I didn't like having to change the battery. I don't know why I assumed Polar's corporate policy had improved over this period. In my opinion they are not a consumer friendly company. As expected, the battery of the watch was empty after three years. I threw away both the watch and the bracelet. A strap that works with most free workout apps for my smartphone is available for around $30 and has a user-replaceable battery.