Customer Reviews

Polar M61 Heart Rate Monitor Watch

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I've used a Polar A1 basic heart monitor for several months, found it useful for losing weight and gaining fitness, but found myself wishing for something a bit better. Now that I also have the much fancier Polar M61, I'm seeing anew the virtues of simplicity (not to mention low cost.)

Compared to the A1, the M61 usefully adds a stopwatch and regular watch (with either visible along with the current heart rate), and a backlight. It also beeps at you if your heart rate goes above or below a specified target zone. I find all those added features very useful.

Sadly, it is also a far more complex watch to set up and operate than the A1, with many features that no longer seem as important as I once thought. Even so, it still lacks features I'd expected it to include, such as recording the highest and lowest heart rate reached during a session, and a way to record the drop in heart rate during the first minute after ending an exercise session.

I now know I'd have been about as happy with the Polar FS2 model, for half the price, but would still prefer the M61 over all other Polar heart monitors.

P.S. A great guide to effective use of a heart monitor is "Younger Next Year: A Guide to Living Like 50 Until You're 80 and Beyond" by Chris Cowley & Henry S. Lodge, M.D.

There is so much to like about this heart rate monitor I almost feel disappointed in myself for not liking it. The wearlink transmitter is comfortable (if a little odd in the fact that you have to wet the sensors down to use it), the own zones, the custom zone, and the accuracy are exactly what I expected and thought I needed in a heart rate monitor. As with another reviewer, I have lost weight (26 pounds in 14 weeks) while using this monitor to help regulate and target my workouts.

That said, there are quite a few quirks to this monitor, and things that it simply will not do, due to design issues and logic flaws.

There is no key lock. This means that while doing some work outs, the monitor will stop and reset itself. This is particularly annoying to discover after you've just done 30 minutes of basketball, martial arts, or even weight lifting, only to see the watch showing a minute and a half and asking you if you are sure you want to quit.

This monitor also only tracks one exercise session. Which means if you do a split work out (twenty minutes of high intensity cardio followed by twenty minutes of resistance training) you have to manually note your data at the end of each session, and adjust your target heart rates. If you fail to do so, the data (time, time in zone, average heart rate, calories burned, etc, other than total calories burned) is lost. Given its lack of keylock, its entirely possible for you to lose a session just by bumping your wrist against something and having the monitor start again.

The user manual (and this seems to be a common complaint with Polar products) is overly complex and not very user friendly to the point that I nearly found it incomprehensible.

I can't think of anything that I don't like about the watch. It does what I was looking for; telling me what my HR is while exercising and giving me an average HR per workout session. You can manually set a range that you want your HR to be in between or it can automatically come up with one for you (it will alert you if you go above or fall below these limits). The transmitter fits comfortably and is easy to put on and take off. Well worth the investment.

I have owned a Polar M62 (same as this except the colour) Heart Rate monitor for about two years now. I use it together with their web-based training diary / planner tool to plan and record my exercise sessions. It didn't take long to master the unit but I am still learning new ways to use it to improve my exercise sessions.

Here are some of the things I like about it:
* It has settings for two people so I can share it with my wife.
* The OwnIndex estimates my oxygen uptake capacity in just 10 minutes and is perfect for tracking my fitness level.
* The OwnZone feature senses my current form and suggests HR-limits accordingly letting me take it easy on bad days and challenging me on good ones.
* The InZone timer controlls my exercise - I won't quit until I have done enough at the right level of exertion.

Here are some things I do not like:
* It does not have interval timers which would be useful for running and stretching
* As a watch it is not that good i.e. lacks many features found even in cheap wrist watches (it does have an alarm though)
* It is supposed to work when swimming but I find that it seldom does

Fínally a tip: The OwnZone low and high corresponds to easy and moderate training intensities. If you plan to include high intensity training in your work-out you can set that manually before starting. After that you can switch between the three zones by pressing and holding the up and down buttons for a few seconds. So you can do intervals but you have to time them manually.

I have owned a Polar M62 (same as this except the colour) Heart Rate monitor for about two years now. I use it together with their web-based training diary / planner tool to plan and record my exercise sessions. It didn't take long to master the unit but I am still learning new ways to use it to improve my exercise sessions.

Here are some of the things I like about it:
* It has settings for two people so I can share it with my wife.
* The OwnIndex estimates my oxygen uptake capacity in just 10 minutes and is perfect for tracking my fitness level.
* The OwnZone feature senses my current form and suggests HR-limits accordingly letting me take it easy on bad days and challenging me on good ones.
* The InZone timer controlls my exercise - I won't quit until I have done enough at the right level of exertion.

Here are some things I do not like:
* It does not have interval timers which would be useful for running and stretching
* As a watch it is not that good i.e. lacks many features found even in cheap wrist watches (it does have an alarm though)
* It is supposed to work when swimming but I find that it seldom does

Fínally a tip: The OwnZone low and high corresponds to easy and moderate training intensities. If you plan to include high intensity training in your work-out you can set that manually before starting. After that you can switch between the three zones by pressing and holding the up and down buttons for a few seconds. So you can do intervals but you have to time them manually.

Sorry, but the pun just burst out of me.
I have this watch on a handlebar mount resting on my Trek 2200zr road bike. I would turn around and ride back home if I forgot it. It is so much part of my exercise now. It works wonderfully, keeping track of my heart rate and warning me when i go under or over my target zone. It will define your zone for you or you can imput your own numbers if you choose. Just imput your age, height, weight and level of activity and it will recommend the lower and higher end of your heart rate during exercise. I did that and eventually tweaked the upper number to give me more latitude when working my way up a steep hill. It registers the time spent in the zone and keeps track of your ride time. The belt around my chest is very comfortable and works perfectly. When I ride off, I push the main button and it measures my heart rate. I push it again and it keeps track of my whole ride and what i am doing during the ride.
when I arrive back home, I push the same button and it asks me if i want to quit. I push the top scroll button to quit(there are two more buttons on the side for scrolling)and it goes back to wrist watch mode, but all my info is filed away. A push of the scroll button again and FILE appears. A push of the main button allows me to scroll through my ride info: time exercising, time in the zone, average heart rate during the exercise, calories burned and percent of fat burned. For $77, this is an incredible buy. I am very very happy with this product.
Sometimes Ill wear it to the workplace as a watch and when a friend asks me about my ride, I scroll through the details. Everyone wants to borrow it.
There are two mounts available for it. I have then both, one for my mountain bike and one for my road bike. Can't go wrong with either.

Almost three years ago I started attending spinning classes. My health has improved fantastically since then, and I thought I would never need one of these monitors. About two months ago, a friend of the family had a fatal heart attack while jogging, and this was more then enough to send me flying to the computer, to check at Amazon.com what they had for monitoring the heart while exercizing. I am very glad I did, because I got a fantastic monitor that does what I expected, and much more. And the price, wow!! Costs almost the same now (with the 50% desc)as other good monitors that will not do even half of its funtions. ...And my spinning trainer suggested a Polar monitor, so there!

The best part is that, besides heart monitoring, calories, heart rate limits just for me any time I wish, and many other great funtions (work out in the dark, if you wish, because it has a light!), now I feel that I am doing my training right, and the time flies while I keep watch trying to stay in the heart rate zone for burning the most of the fat calories (yes, it tells you the % of these calories that where burned at the end of the exercise). I feel better, and I am starting to look even better too!!!

I've had this watch for over a year now, and use it all the time. The only problem is that the transmitter always loses contact with the watch, for no apparent reason, the heart rate will just drop to zero. This is very frustrating when you are trying to monitor the rate constantly.

I have owned a Polar M62 (same as this except the colour) Heart Rate monitor for about two years now. I use it together with their web-based training diary / planner tool to plan and record my exercise sessions. It didn't take long to master the unit but I am still learning new ways to use it to improve my exercise sessions.

Here are some of the things I like about it:
* It has settings for two people so I can share it with my wife.
* The OwnIndex estimates my oxygen uptake capacity in just 10 minutes and is perfect for tracking my fitness level.
* The OwnZone feature senses my current form and suggests HR-limits accordingly letting me take it easy on bad days and challenging me on good ones.
* The InZone timer controlls my exercise - I won't quit until I have done enough at the right level of exertion.

Here are some things I do not like:
* It does not have interval timers which would be useful for running and stretching
* As a watch it is not that good i.e. lacks many features found even in cheap wrist watches (it does have an alarm though)
* It is supposed to work when swimming but I find that it seldom does

Fínally a tip: The OwnZone low and high corresponds to easy and moderate training intensities. If you plan to include high intensity training in your work-out you can set that manually before starting. After that you can switch between the three zones by pressing and holding the up and down buttons for a few seconds. So you can do intervals but you have to time them manually.

I was very hesitant about buying this product based on some reviews I read on Amazon and another website. However, I though that it's usually the people who trouble that complain the most and the price was so discounted that I took the chance. I was very pleasantly surprised. Most of the issues raised before appeared to be due to not READING THE INSTRUCTIONS! Especially the one about getting the belt wet in order to get the heart rate to register. If you are a man and have hair you have to "wet" the belt electrodes. Basic engineering principle of impedence match. If the connection is not good between the skin and the "lead" then you don't get signal. Wet it with water and works perfectly. I do have a minor complaint about the product - the monitor belt is barely long enough to fit around my 44 inch chest.