Polar Vantage – Clarifications, Tidbits, Updates

59 thoughts on “Polar Vantage – Clarifications, Tidbits, Updates”

1. i would doubt they will be included in FLOW
   scaling factor: i suspect i’m not going to get to the bottom of that. I got the impression that it wasn’t as improtant as it superficially seemed to me perhaps is more the realtive changes in the power levels over time??

2. Thanks for answering my questions on h7 and the size comparisons!

   1. i am here to serve

3. “Switching between different power sources for Muscle Load eg between STRYD and Polar will not work. However Polar indicate that there is a scaling factor that is applied based on your sporting history if you choose to use STRYD/RunScribe as your source of running power.”

   Not sure I understand any of this but what I would like to know is what happens if I forget to take my Stryd for a run or the battery is dead. Will the power field just be empty or will it get the power from the wrist? But that would mess up all the metrics? Hmm I’m to stupid to understand any of that 😉

   Also now that it’s dark during my runs I really appreciate the touching the H7 with the V800 to turn on the backlight (hearttouch?). Does the Vantage V have this or possibly permanent backlight or something?

   1. i think it would get power from the wrist in the scenario you describe and yes it would mess up your stats.
      better question might be: what would happen if stryd battery ran out half way through a run
      to which i don’t know.
      backlight: ok this was all messed up in the first version i had but now it seems alright. it works by a wrist turn or a button press (on for 10 secs)
      i suspect you want it permanently on…as would i. and i dont think there are plans to do that. until you and me moan a bit more about it 😉

      1. Can the tap function be changed? And can it be different for different sport profiles like the V800? I have the back light for running and change screen for cycling. For the cycling one I had to set it to extra hard touch as every time I went over a bump it changed!
         Is there no exercise menu now (hold down light button during exercise)? That is where the switch on back light permanently was.

      2. no.
         i guess nuances like that are for FW additions down the line

   2. Hey Will, I ask myself the same question since the announcment.

      I am afraid “muscle load” will not be really useful. First: it only works when using the power sources and only works in bike / run. Bike runs without power sensors won’t add muscle load?

      Second, imagine you have days you won’t do any sport, but you are walking all day (eg: City visits, street workers), your muscles will become tired, even so it would not indicate any muscle load.

      Also I believe strength training, football or tennis make muscles tired, even more than running / biking, but as far as I am informed Polar will not take in account for muscle load, this seems quite stupid for me…

      Finally I have no idea about the information we get from muscle load.

4. Many thanks for the info and updates, appreciated!
   Can the top data field ‘HR Zone Pointer’ be replaced by eg Pace / Elevation etc? (Also, would it be possible to only indicate say HR with the ‘Circle / Ring’ display, in essence using it as a fifth field?)
   Thanks

   1. no. i think not.

      1. Thanks!

5. Thanks for the updated info. Greatly appreciated. I have been using Stryd. At some point, I recall that I was able to define power zones for sport profile “Running” but it was actually linked to those for cycling. It seems that Polar has completely removed “Power Settings” for “Running” profile (which is a good idea as it messes up training load calculations for running as the zones are shared with cycling). Now that running and cycling will soon get their own independent power zones, can we expect the same feature (independent power settings for cycling and running profiles) to be available for V800 as well?

   1. thought i’d answered this question from somewhere else.
      look again at the images in the post
      the power section is dependent on SPORT and not WATCH.
      so it looks like it should work as you wnat NOW on the v800. test it and let me know

      1. I replicated the question here per your request to use the blog instead of FB. My question remains though. I do not see the “Power Settings” tab for “Running” profile. It exists in your snapshot. Are you using “https://flow.polar.com/settings/sports” or some other beta link that I do not know about?

      2. I have a V800 and Stryd, I can’t see power settings on the Flow site. Setting them and porting them to watch via the flow iPhone app though does work fine. (No zone lock available though.)

      3. I use a Stryd and V800, flow doesn’t show any power settings under the running profiles on the website, only pace and HR. You can add the power fields to be displayed on the watch though. I can only set the power zones in the flow app on my iPhone, but even that doesn’t allow you to enable zone locking. Otherwise, running power is already working fine on the V800. My guess is that the flow website is changing what it’s showing because you have a Vantage registered to the account. Hopefully Polar fix that, and allow editing of the power zones for V800 too.

6. If there exists a linear relationship between Stryd power and Vantage power (I doubt) then one can always modify body weight in Stryd settings to match the scale used by Vantage. Note that Stryd calculates power in the unit of W/kg natively and multiplies it by body weight to get power in W. So this trick would work as long as the relationship is linear. You would not need to depend on Polar to support a scaling factor.

   1. You can’t calculate power based on GPS only, without taking body weight into account. So Polar must be using body weight too.
      Also, since Polar’s GPS-based power can’t take into account vertical and lateral motion, which Stryd does, it must be different from Stryd’s power.

      1. I am referring to the body weight setting stored on Stryd, not the value Polar keeps. Polar will take only the power value in Watts from Stryd; body weight setting is not broadcasted by Stryd so there is no way Polar will know body weights are different on two devices.

      2. @ScudB But don´t you think Polar will use the barometer and gyrometer from the wrist and crunch the numbers to try and account for vertical and lateral motion?

      3. polar say: “Polar running power is based on speed, how fast speed is changing, and current altitude gradient (based on barometer)”
         it must be different to stryd and it will be different. we will see as more results come out how much different.

   2. ha !! good thinking. (I’m not going to try it tho 😉 )

      I have done my first 4x power comparison just now and will try to get results up later (not seen myself yet…complicated to do, hope all data was good)

7. Many thanks for this and all other articles on the V/M.

   Apart form the running/cycling focused features, do you know how strength, weights and Cross fit will be taken into account when calculating Muscle load, Training and Recovery? This is important to know, especially as the marketing videos show such exercises.

   Thanks in advance

   1. i have seen a presentation slide which shows the inputs (there are many) but it is confidential

      1. Thanks. If strength and weights are captured (and reflected) meaningfully in load and recovery algorithms, they have a winner. Do try to post something on this once the embargo has been lifted please.

      2. yes IIRC they are specifically covered in muscle load

      3. That’s good to know. If you look at the official Polar video on training load and recovery pro (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X71-QDfQWYk), at 01:00 you see a rope climb, while the “muscle load” caption lights up. Seems to suggest that muscle load will capture more things than running and biking, in this case strenght/crossfit.

         Assuming it does so properly and feeds the training load and recovery algorithms meaningfully (instead of just using sport profiles), Polar has a winner on their hands.

      4. yes it specifically has extra metrics for team sports and strength-type workouts rather than pure endurance metrics.

      5. Extra metrics that are different to the existing sport profiles on, say, the M430 and V800? Only a few weeks to see how it will work in practice, but it is intriguing, especially since they have a top crossfit athlete pitching for the Vantage V.

   2. On their site it specifically states “Muscle Load is calculated from your power data, so you only get a Muscle Load value for your running workouts (and cycling sessions if you’re using a cycling power meter).” under the Training load feature description. I guess any expansion of Muscle Load to CrossFit, weight training, etc, won’t be there at launch, if ever. Kind of a bummer.

      1. More Precisely on Muscle Load: “It requires the direct measurement of power (e.g. through power pedals in cycling) *OR* estimation of power based on biomechanical formulas.”

         IIRC they will use RPE inputs for weights and possibly team sports too. There is the std Bannister TRIMP formula which will be used but, again IIRC, there is also a lesser-known variant on TRIMP (RPE-TRIMP) and I’m assuming they will be using that (or similar).

8. Any idea if phased training will be supported from the beginning? Have you seen/heard from Polar anything about Interval timers on the unit?

   1. quote from polar, “What is yet to be implemented … Phased and Free targets”

      1. Which basically means that most probably phased training from flow will be followed if i read that correctly. No information about interval timers (which are properly mapped to laps whereas phases are not)?

      2. that would be my guess

9. Regarding this

   “HR data appears to be broadcast for the Vantage (image below). I’m not 100% sure if this is only from the Precision Prime as the source or if the Vantage rebroadcasts H10 data. I would imagine it is rebroadcasting oHR data although, in any case, I haven’t got it to work”

   I have asked specifically about HR rebroadcast and the answer I got from Polar Product Manager is it won’t work with 3rd party.

   “Yes, it’s possible to use it with our apps for team sports like Polar Team or Polar Club, but it’s not open to other apps/devices.”

10. Is training load synchronized between different Polar devices? I own one device (V800) so can not check. If one owns a Vantage V and a V650 (bike computer) for example, is it possible to see the contribution to training load from a bike session recorded using only the V650 on Vantage V?

    1. i got the “Yes” when asking that in relation to TL with polar products.
       but there may well be nuances. so my answer would be ‘hopefully yes’

11. Good to hear navigation hasn’t been definitely dropped. For whatever it’s worth, I’m in the market for a new watch and either Vantage model sounds like it would be exactly what I’d like IF AND ONLY IF it supported route navigation.

    At the moment I’m testing a Suunto Spartan Trainer which may be heading back to the seller in a day or two because the display is so wretchedly dim and hard to read (I like it in most other respects). Currently I’m on the fence about where to look next if I do send it back. Choices seem to be either another Suunto (Sport WHR Baro, probably, *IF* it has a more easily readable display) or sitting tight and waiting for developments in Vantage-world. To that end I’d dearly love to have a rough timeline on when route navigation might appear. I’d really like to ditch my current watch by the end of the year at the latest.

12. Thanks a ton for the write up! Do you have any information about Recovery Pro?

    Is it already available on beta devices? Is it just a souped up orthostatic test of shorter duration to make it more palatable daily? Do they take other inputs into accounts like night time heart rate recovery, restful sleep, anything? Are there any plans to perform HRV analysis using Polar’s new sensors, or they concede these aren’t accurate enough?

    1. as per the other comment above i have seen more info.
       yes it is on beta devices
       the orthostatic test is as it was…maybe a bit shorter (1-2 mins)
       yes they take other stuff into account
       HRV won’t work off the oHR hence requirement for the H10 if you want the cover stuff with the V version

       1. I think in the past you reviewed WHOOP. How Polar’s Recovery Pro compares to that?

          A bit of a context: one thing that bugs me about WHOOP is its strain/recovery is cardiovascular only and is on a 24 hour cycle. I’m not sure what to make of it in the context of pure strength/strength endurance workouts or if you want cumulative training load and recovery that would take into account load from previous days. Wondering how Polar resolves this, if at all.

          At the end, I can live without a barometer and power from the wrist. Most certainly, without a touch screen. Recovery Pro is the only big feature that sets V apart from M.

       2. Why don’t you just use Elite HRV or ithlete…much cheaper.
          I use EMFIT
          I would choose the Polar in answer to your question !!

       3. I do use HTV4Training, as a second signal… 🙂 But having to do it consistently every morning is hard and not always possible, especially when one travels. There are other reasons I ended up sticking with WHOOP. Oh, well…

          Thanks a lot for the response. Will wait on my pre-order of V then and see for myself how final firmware/software compare, come November.

          But all this promotional fluff and no substance from Polar as well as no clear road map for cut features like navigation and timers — dear, dear! — do make my feet colder by the day.

       4. there IS promotional fluff but there is meat too.
          i hear what you say about waking hrv and the inconvenience of it. that’s why i use emfit

       5. if you are sure that any device consistently gives garbage advice then you know wht to do with it.

          i used to mentally triangulate: my training load/tsb stats; bioforce waking hrv (same as elite); and what garmin said 10 minutes into the run/bike. then took into account how i felt. sometimes i suspect i was looking as widely as possible for an excuse not to try as hard as i could.

          but if i was following a proper plan then that triangulation was much easier. eg if i had a hard day coming up i wouldn’t drink a bottle of wine the night before.

          not sure if that response helped

       6. Will the H7 work for the Recovery Pro?
          I know that you have already answered affirmatively above for the orthostatic test, but this is a different functionality so I still wonder…

       7. I believe “yes” is the answer

13. Can the display be inverted to give a light background with black numbers? Although the display does look clear.

    1. no

14. In case you already own an H7, there’s no point in buying an H10 with the watch, right?

    1. right (edit: other than caching or simultaneous pariing to 2 devices)

15. Hi, Regarding Power, Iam wondering, if i run in the beach as I almost did, my effort is a lot higher, the vantage V wil be capable to catch this information by gps and be capable to calculate a more accurate value for Power ?

    1. Even Stryd cannot catch terrain dependent power differences. There is no way for Vantage to detect this from your wrist. You can potentially modify your weight on watch temporarily to take this into account but by how much would be the next question.

       1. Many Thanks for you re answer, to be totally sure, I have to increase my weight correct?, I will try when i have my vantage V, already ordered.

    2. hi
       hmmm. yes. good point.

       1. yes your effort will be higher
       2. no gps wont be able to change the power level

       so i don’t know to what extent the arm/wrist movements will auto adjust the power. I would guess that they do to some degree ….but……

       1. Many Thanks for your answer, in my comments i made a mistake, I should say : as I always did, because I like to run in sand ( to be stronger).
          My point with the gps, is to detect the coordinates, so the terrain type and knowing that internally perform and algorithms to calculate the power. I was dreaming i Think.

16. I’m cycling with a wahoo elemnt bolt and getting HR data from a h7 strap. Can the vantage replace the strap and broadcast HR to the wahoo? My power meter is ant+ so I cannot capture all exercise data in the vantage.

    1. vantage cannot rebroadcast in that scenario (i think it can in special team sports scenarios that are irrelevant to us)
       an H10 would broadcast to wahoo and to vantage (not h7 afaik)
       so your solution is to get an h10

Comments are closed.