Polar S625X Intro What is it? What do you get? How do you use it? Lets go for a run! History: So how far and how fast did I go? Other advanced features Software How well does it work? Strenths and weaknesses Summary

The Polar S625X is Polar's entry into the increasingly competitive pace and distance monitor market. Polar, which has long deserved its command of the Heart Rate Monitor business, has not had a pace and distance monitor till now. With this device, Polar steps into this market with a top notch, although somewhat expensive, tool. This is a long review, so if you want you can go straight to How well does it work or to the summary.  [top]

The Polar S625X is a top of the line Heart Rate Monitor (HRM). Let's get that out of the way. You won't find a better HRM anywhere. It is, after all, a Polar. But in addition to the HRM, you also get a foot pod that you lace into your shoe. This pod contains an accelerometer, which estimates the distance of each step. This differs from a pedometer, which simply counts your steps. Because the foot pod actually estimates the distance of each step, it is pretty accurate even without calibration. Our tests show that the Polar S625X's accuracy was within 90-95% before calibration at a variety of paces, on a variety of shoes, over a variety of terrain. (The more varied the terrain or pace the less accurate the S625X was.) With calibration, accuracy was generally within 98%, but again, diverse terrain and pacing will throw that off.

A description of the S625X would not be complete without a description of the Wearlink® chest strap, or heart rate transmitter. The Wearlink® is without a doubt, the lightest, most comfortable, most flexible, heart rate monitor transmitter on the market. The electrodes are not embedded in plastic or rubber as with most transmitters, but are part of a flexible mesh cloth. Anybody who owns a Polar HRM will want to consider upgrading their transmitter to Wearlink®.   [top]

The Polar S625X box contains the following items:

1. Receiver watch (weight = 53 g)
2. Wearlink® transmitter chest strap (weight = 64 g)
3. S625X foot pod (weight = 74 g with battery)
4. AAA battery
5. Polar Precision Performance Software CD
6. S625X Manual
7. Software Manual
8. Various warranty and registration cards.

The receiver watch is quite a bit heavier than a normal watch, but only slightly heavier than other HRM receivers.

You do not get an infrared device for your PC with your S625X, so if your PC doesn't already have one and you want to use the Polar software, you will need to spend and about $40 to buy one.   [top]

If you have used a Polar HRM before, you will have no trouble figuring out how to use your Polar S625X. If you want, you can take the thing right out of the box, moisten the Wearlink transmitter and strap it on, put the battery in the foot pod and the foot pod on your shoe, turn on the foot pod, push the big red button twice (once to get an initial HR reading and a second time to start the stopwatch) and start running.

But to get the most out of your investment, you will want to configure your S625X first. This includes entering basic user information (weight, height, date of birth, gender, activity level, max HR, and VO2 max), exercise settings (HR limits, a variety of interval exercise sets, recording rates, and autolap functions), monitor settings (sound and measurement units), and watch settings (time of day and date). You need not set all these variables at once. Start with the basic user information and set the interval and other settings at a later date.

The automatic calibration process is fairly straightforward. Visit Polar's calibration manual if you wish to see the instructions. Try to run a least 1km during calibration, since the farther you run during calibration, the more accurate the calibration will be. After you calibrate your S625X, write down the calibration factor for future reference.

The calibration factor is defined as the ratio of the actual distance traveled to the uncalibrated distance measured multiplied by 1000. For example, if you actually ran 1.0 K but the uncalibrated S625X thinks you ran 0.950 K then the calibration factor equals ((1.000/0.950) x 1000) or 1052. You should also mark on your shoe exactly where the food pod was located when you calibrated the S625X. If you wear the foot pod low down my your toe one day, move it high up on the shoe the next day, you will get different mileage readings, even if you ran the exact same course on both days.

You can also calibrate the S625X manually, and this is a good idea if you are not getting the results you want using the automatic calibration method. This is best done on the surface on which you normally run. Find a stretch of road, if you train on the road, that is accurately measured. Don't rely on your car odometer or a treadmill; neither is usually all that accurate. Certified race courses can be used, but remember the distance you run will probably be greater than the measured distance. That is because the path used to measure a certified course cuts all corners, whereas that is not always possible for the people actually running in the race. Even certified courses that are precisely measured may have imprecisely placed mile markers. If you have a bicycle with well calibrated cyclocomputer, then you can use the distance measured by it to calibrate your foot pod. Once you have an accurately measured place to calibrate your S625X, run that distance and make note of the distance recorded by the S625X. Your calibration factor would be

((Actual distance)/(Measured distance)) x 1000 = Calibration factor

or if you have previously calibrated your S625X, the your calibration factor would be

((Actual distance)/(Measured distance)) x (Prior calibration factor) = Calibration factor

A note to those requiring near perfect precision: the calibration factor will vary between running surfaces, so if you run on concrete some days and on a dirt or gravel road other days, even if it isn't loose, you may want to record calibration factors for both surfaces. If you alter your stride at different speeds, your calibration factor may also vary depending on how fast you are running, so if you insist on minimizing error, record calibration factors for faster paced and slower paced runs.

A note to vast majority not requiring perfection: calibrate your S625X on the surface and at the speed you run most of your miles.

If you train in more than one pair of shoes, you may need to calibrate the S625X for each pair of shoes. Make note of the calibration factor and manually reset the calibration each time you change shoes. Manually entering a calibration factor into the Polar S625X takes 15-20 seconds, so this is easily done as long as you have made a mark on your shoe, positioned the foot pod appropriately, and have written down the calibration factor.

Your calibration factor may also be different from one foot to another. This can be both frustrating and useful. It is frustrating because now you have one more thing you need to adjust if you want to wear the foot pod on different feet on different days. Why would you want to switch the foot pod from foot to foot? You would because the foot pod weighs 74 grams. That isn't a lot, but it happens to be about the difference between a pair of light weight trainers and medium weight trainers.

By comparing the calibration factor when you have the foot pod on one foot to that of having the foot pod on the other foot, you will see if there is an imbalance in leg strength. Such an imbalance is not uncommon. If one leg is much stronger than the other, you could be prone to injuries. The difference in the calibration factor from one foot to the other could also be due to a difference in your stride pattern and not necessarily due to differences in the length of your stride. If you run with your left foot facing forward, but the right turns out, then the S625X will think you are running faster and farther when you have the foot pod on the left foot than it will when you have the foot pod on the right foot.

The Polar S625X has four buttons on the side (two on the left and two on the right). Of course there is also the big red button in the face of the receiver below the display that Polar users have come to know and love. This red button is well situated and easy to press, even when you are wearing mittens. Push this button once to get a HR reading and a second time when you start running. Pushing it again will record a split. You push the stop button, on the lower left side of the receiver, when you stop your run.

The S625X does have an auto lap feature, so you can get it to automatically record a lap at an interval you define. Unfortunately, the auto lap and manual lap functions do not work together. If you set the S625X to trigger a lap every mile, and go for a 1.25 mile warm up, at the end of which you manually trigger a lap, the S625X will continue to record laps at mile intervals from when you started your run, not from when you last pushed the lap button. Polar should rewrite the firmware so the the autolap and manual lap triggers work together.

The S625X does not have an auto-pause feature. It would be nice if the user could set an option that would cause the S625X to pause when going below a certain speed or when stopping altogether. The Garmin GPS units have this feature and generally it works well.

The upper left button turns on the back light. This back light never seemed sufficient when running in the dark. If you have eyes like a cat, you will probably not have a problem.

The two right buttons control what is displayed while running. They act as forward and back buttons when setting options or reviewing the running history.   [top]

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