Polar F55 Heart Rate Monitor Watch (Ice Aluminum)

by Polar

Product Features

• Heart rate monitor designed to help you hit training and fitness goals
• Polar Body Workout feature provides basic guidance for muscular strength training
• WearLink Coded transmitter made from a soft, fabric material, eliminates interference from other heart rate monitors
• Keeps U Fit Workout Program gives you personal exercise guidance
• Large easy-to-read, backlit display with split screen; water resistant to 30 meters

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

Because cardiovascular exercise, strength training, and relaxation are essential to maximum well being, the Polar F55 heart rate monitor gives you a complete exercise session by adding new features like BodyWorkout and OwnRelax. This powerful wrist monitor provides a highly accurate gauge for getting the most from your exercise sessions. The Polar Keeps U Fit Workout Program gives you personal guidance--how often, how hard, and how long you need to exercise to reach your personal fitness goals.

The Polar Body Workout feature provides basic guidance for muscular strength training, with recommendations for strength training movements, count of sets, repetitions, and weights. It can be edited according to your development. The OwnRelax feature helps to track and improve overall well being with a 5-minute relaxation session based on heart rate and heart rate variability.

The OwnCal feature shows your energy expenditure during one exercise session as well as your accumulated kilocalories during several exercise sessions. It also allows you to set daily and weekly exercise goals in terms of calorie expenditure. The OwnZone feature guides you through an appropriate warm-up routine and automatically determines a safe and effective exercise heart rate. The Fitness Bullets feature shows a bullet on the monitor's display for every 10 minutes spent exercising/training in your target heart rate zone. Other features include:

• Displays heart rate, exercise time and average heart rate
• Manual and automatic heart rate limit settings
• Large easy-to-read display with backlighting and split screen
• Water resistant to 30 meters (100 feet)

Manufacturer's Warranty
The original purchaser of this heart rate monitor is backed by a limited warranty that states that this product that the product will be free from defects in material or workmanship for two years from the date of purchase.

About Polar
The first EKG accurate wireless heart rate monitor was invented by Polar back in 1977 as a training tool for the Finnish National Cross Country Ski Team. The concept of "intensity training" by heart rate swept the athletic world in the eighties. By the 1990s, individuals were looking to heart rate monitors not only for performance training needs, but also for achieving everyday fitness goals. Today, the same concept of heart rate training is being used by world-class athletes as well as everyday people trying to lose weight. Polar is the leading brand among consumers, coaches, and personal trainers worldwide and the company is committed to not only producing the best products, but also being the leading educator on the benefits of heart rate based exercise.

Product Description

The Polar« F55 heart rate monitor gives you a complete exercise session by adding new features like Body Workout and OwnRelax. Body Workout, a muscular strength-training guide that can be adjusted according to your progress, provides basic guidance for strength training. The new OwnRelax feature checks the body's state of relaxation, and helps you "listen" to your body, an essential component of fitness.

Product Details

• Item Weight: 4 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B000HAPWME
• Item model number: 90029873
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #138,453 in Sports & Outdoors (See Top 100 in Sports & Outdoors)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

63 of 63 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great HRM, lousy website, January 5, 2007

By 

Alan Charbonneau - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Polar F55 Heart Rate Monitor Watch (Ice Aluminum) (Sports)

I 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.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Renewed motivation!, February 25, 2009

By 

J. Seis "gadget girl" (San Francisco) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Polar F55 Heart Rate Monitor Watch (Ice Aluminum) (Sports)

Since a knee injury has kept me from running, I've been doing cardio workouts at the gym 7 days/week for the past 6 months. I got this as a reward to myself after completing the 6 months. At that point, I was so bored with my workouts, I wasn't sure how long I could continue.

But this thing has definitely put the motivation back into my workouts! The fact that the heart rate displays on the gym equipment as I work out is just the beginning (but it's very helpful!). It calculates your VO2 max and as you workout, it keeps track of calories burned. You can program in different workouts for the week (short at a high heartrate, long at a moderate heart rate, etc.) and set goals for yourself - mileage, calories burned, number of workouts/week, etc. If you reach your goals at the end of the week, the F55 displays a trophy on the screen.

But the reason I chose the F55 over the other models was because of the ability to upload the data to the Polar website. I concur with the others that this process is far from perfect, but I can always get it to work within 5 minutes. And being able to view every workout I've ever done with the Polar is the BEST! I can also use the website to program in weights workouts, but I haven't used that feature yet.

For uploading to the website, I highly recommend buying the cheaper irdA usb plug from Amazon.com, rather than the one that Polar sells for twice the price. I have the Cables Unlimited USB1510 USB Acc, USB To Irda Adapter, and it works just as well.

One thing that it took me awhile to figure out was that you need to have the black rectangle at the top of the F55's lcd display facing and right next to the irdA while you're uploading. You may need to restart once or twice, but it literally only takes a few seconds. It's not a big deal at all, and it is SOOOOOOOO worth it! Think of all the typing you're saving yourself!

A couple of other minor points...
- be prepared to spend an hour or two setting the F55 up with your statistics. It's not difficult, but it requires some reading (not bad at all) and patience.
- I tend to work out at an average heart rate much higher than the default range, and it beeps as soon as I get over the range. It is possible to turn off the beeps (I have), but I haven't taken the time to figure out how to change the default range yet
- I lost the data from my first workout because I pressed the button for "Exercise", which displayed my heart rate as I worked out, but I needed to press that button again to "Start" the workout.
- I would only recommend this to someone who is motivated to figure out how to use it. It's not difficult at all, but it takes a bit of patience, as any new technology does. It was easier to get this thing going than it was my iPod.

And speaking of iPod, a note to Polar:
If you want to surpass the coolness factor of the F55, how about getting all the same information to display on my iPod as I work out? Or some other mp3 player? I'm not picky. An mp3 player (with enough storage) that has all the functionality of the F55 would be a must buy!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great monitor, January 20, 2009

By 

Nathan A. Price (San Antonio, TX) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Polar F55 Heart Rate Monitor Watch (Ice Aluminum) (Sports)

Like many of the other higher end Polar monitors, it comes with the new transmitter belt with the changeable battery. It comes with the M-XXL size belt, which should fit pretty much everyone. I'm a bigger guy and it fits me just fine, my girlfriend is petite and it fits her fine too. You do have to wet the underside of the belt where the sensors are in order to get good consistent readings. To me this is no big deal.

This monitor does a lot, including calculating your OwnZone (heart rate zone), OwnIndex (fitness level index) and OwnRelax (relaxation level index). It keeps track of calories, time in your target heart rate zone, time in individual intensity zones (light, medium and hard), total exercise time and more.

The body workout program is extremely basic and pretty useless if you lift weights often and work out different parts of your body on different days. The body workout program options are limited and you can't save more than one program at a time. It would be a lot more useful if you could save more than one program and switch between the different ones on different workout days. This is probably available on more expensive units.

For the cardio, having only one program is fine. I use this program the most and it serves as a weekly guide for overall calories and exercise time along with targets in individual intensity zones. I upload everything to the Polar website using the following optional IR adapter that I bought on here: Cables Unlimited USB1510 USB Acc, USB To Irda Adapter. It was a whole lot cheaper than the one Polar offers and it works just fine. Their website is pretty good and keeps track of all your progress over time.

After using it for a couple of weeks I find it very helpful in maintaining a good heart rate when I'm exercising. The belt is comfortable and doesn't bother me any. The light on the watch works great at night. The watch itself is comfortable and seems to be made out of very durable plastic, especially the band. Overall, I highly recommend it to anyone who is serious about monitoring their exercise routine.