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 Polar F55 Heart Rate Monitor By: Polar Average Rating: 4.5 Total Reviews: 5 More Information Fantastic Device  On: 2008-05-28I bought two - one for myself (Ice Aluminum) and for my husband (Bronze Rock). Previously we had (still have) a much simpler Omron model. We havent had them long, but they are really quite simple to use if you spend 10 mins looking at the manual. The same buttons are used for a majority of the functions. I love that you can customize the display - sometimes I look at my (HR - Calories - Time in HR Zone) and others I like to watch the (HR on the scale - HR - Time). You can pretty much change them around to suit your preference. For anyone who is making fitness a priority in his/her life and is on the fence about purchasing a basic vs. feature-rich HR monitor, I wholeheartedly endorse the fancy one. It is so much fun and it challenges you to do better. We both love using these HR monitors and although they havent made us healthier, they have sure been a stepping stone along the way. Havent used the website yet. Were techies but we just havent had the time. Im looking forward to it. Favorite Feature: Exercise summary. This tells you how long you exercised, your max HR and your average HR. For some reason looking at this after a workout gives me a great sense of accomplishment! FYI size/fit - Ive got a 34 chest and the chest strap fits fine on me. The wrist unit is large but not cumbersome. I chose that so I could see the display clearly. My husband has a 46 chest and it fits fine - but the wrist unit is on its last notch. He says its still comfortable though. (He does have a large bone structure so this would not occur in 99% of consumers). Motivates and help calorie counters like me. Keeps me Honest.  On: 2008-01-14I owned this HRM for a year. This is great for those who count calories. The time spent on cardio machine w/HRMs have a general idea what is burn. The Polar HRM is personalized to your Heart Rate so it shows the actual calories burnt for you. It kept me honest of the calories I should eat. Of course, I love it when I use the Polar HRM during weights. Without the Polar HRM, I wouldnt have stay motivated to doing weights. Knowing the calories burnt during reps helped. Also, I like the Workout Diary. Keeps track of the workout and sends you a message once a week if you have reached your workout goal. PROs: Calorie Counter. Workout Diary. CONs: Not meant to be used in a swimming pool. Keeps you honest and motivated On: 2007-01-25I bought the F55 to be a motivator in my weight loss and fitness program. It records the duration , time and intensity of your workout. It makes sure you did all five workouts for the week and burned the needed calories for your target. OwnIndex feature gives you an indication of your progress. I use the an UBS IR to record my progress and send my results to the Polar personal trainer web site to keep a log of my afforts. I knew Polar made a fine product and this HR monitor is no exception. It is a very important part of my fitness program. AMAZING On: 2007-01-22This is by far the best heart rate monitor I have ever had; and Ive had a few. It was a bit confusing figuring out how to change the ying-yang icon, but thats just for personalization and doesnt effect how amazing all the features are. Its seriously like having your own personal trainer attached to you. Its easy to transfer stuff from the PC to the monitor and vise versa. I would highly recommend this heart rate monitor to every woman out there looking for that extra push; accuracy, etc. Ive had several people come up to me and say, "thats a really cool watch" because its not overly bulky and its a very attractive color (and red is not one of my favorites for the record). Great HRM, lousy website On: 2007-01-06I love the F55. It allows me to schedule resistance exercise along with cardiovascular exercise, can test my fitness level and let me know if I need to ramp up or ease up on my workouts. It is a great HRM. But I absolutely HATE the website to which the data gets downloaded. The software that Polar sells for their very high end HRMs not only is not included with the F55, it cannot be used with the F55. You cannot download the F55 data to use in other programs like Ultra Coach either. I am ok with the idea of paying extra for the Polar software or even for having to buy a third-party program. In fact, I was able to use Ultra Coach with my old Polar S410 HRM. The S410 had a sonic interface to Ultra Coach and it was hideous. Most of the time the connection would not be made and if, on your fourth or fifth try, you accidentally hit the wrong button, you would lose all of your data. The F55 has an infra red interface that is much better. You can create a custom resistance exercise workout, like, for example, bench press x 2 sets, curls x 1 set, etc. You create this on the website and upload it to your F55. When you are in the gym, you simply press a button when you begin the set and press it again at the end. When you have finished the number of sets for that exercise, it moves on to the next one. But the website is cumbersome and slow. The marketing material mentions that you can use their website, but they do not go out of their way to mention that there is no other possibility. For a $200 HRM and a $60 infrared interface, I at least want the ability to download the HRM files as text or csv files and read them in Excel or, as I mentioned, import them to Ultra Coach, PC Coach, or some other software. I could have spent $360 to get another HRM complete with the Polar software, but that would have been a cycling or running monitor with no resitance training workouts programmed in. The F55 is what I wanted even if I had an unlimited budge. Oh well, to sum up a long-winded rant: LOVE the HRM and HATE the website. |