Polar has now added and made available Garmin’s ANT+ compatibility to their top-end H10 heart rate strap. The new feature pretty much does what it says on the tin and you can get it now via the Polar FLOW app. The same update will be available through Polar BEAT shortly.
If you never intend to use ANT+ then this firmware is still worth the update as there are supposed ‘performance improvements’ also contained. You would be wise to update on that basis and then, perhaps, turn off ANT+ which is on by default. ANT+ can be turned off in the Polar BEAT APP.
Here is the formal notice Polar.com.
The ‘new’ Polar OH1+ saw a similar move with the armband oHR sensor getting ANT+ along with the ‘+’ suffix.
Putting running dynamics and some detailed aspects of caching to one side, Polar probably has the best HRMs on sale right now and they will work with pretty much any recent device you have. You might see reviewers like me doing accuracy tests but there are others who have looked at the accuracy of the H10 for medical and sports-research purposes and reckon the H10 is THE MOST ACCURATE (I can’t reveal those sources as they don’t want to go public)
Also Read: Polar H9 Review
What would be the default source of heart rate one I start using the Garmin after the pairing up with H-10? Did you have any trouble with the source of heart rate changing on its own from one to another?
that’s a good question.
depends on the garmin but let’s assuem a recent one.
it SHOULD take the h9/h10. if you check the optical LEDs they should be off.
however if you lose signal (and you shouldn’t) then it could very well switch back and forth to the oHR/H10
if the battery is low (check in BEAT) that could cause this
might also depend on ant+ or ble pairing.
but, no, i’ve not had that problem with the h10 per se (I think i had it with a hrm-tri)