Customer Reviews

Polar F11 Women's Heart Rate Monitor Watch (Blue Glow, New Design)

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

 

 

I bought this expensive HRM because I loved the idea of the device creating a individualized workout program for me. Unfortunately, I couldn't even get past the test phase (where you lie down for 5 minutes and the HRM measures your resting heart rate) because of a benign arrhythmia that I have. So if you have any kind of arrhythmia, I would not recommend this device. Plus I found the instruction manual (more like a textbook) confusing.

I have owned my unit for 2 years now and have loved it. If you want to do the work outs that come with it after you put in your stats, you can do that, it is very helpful and keeps you on task & motivated. If you don't want to do those, you can silence the beeping and do whatever workout you choose and it still records your stats. I think some people who are saying it was giving strange readings or none at all don't realize that you have to moisten the sensory pads BEFORE you put it on and some times have to move it to the right spot on your lower chest area. It is extremely easy to adjust the chest strapm, I am not sure what that review was about. I had one time where it kept giving me a strange heart beat reading, I simply took off the strap, ran it under the faucet again, and restarted my workout on the watch and didn't have another problem. Sending it in to get the battery replaced is a pain, but you can take it to a local jeweler if you don't care about the waterproofing of the watch. The one feature I wish this watch had was a GPS unit to track your distance. Other than that, I wear this watch/strap for my daily work outs of running, lifting, riding and everything in between and love it.

I recently bought the Polar F11 heart rate monitor at the suggestion of my trainer. I have been working out consistently for several years but it's just been within the last 6 months that I've really gotten serious about getting into shape. My trainer told me that a heart rate monitor would be a great way to track my progress and make sure I'm working out at the proper level.

After doing some research it was no secret that Polar is absolutely the best of the best. Hands down they receive the best ratings, are very user friendly, and seem to have a lot of repeat customers or customers that come based on recommendations. It was a little difficult for me to choose a model, and I asked several of my workout buddies which they preferred. After looking at all of the different monitors, I went with the F11 model for the following reasons:

Fitness test and program: There is a fitness test that tests your heart rate for 5 minutes and then gives you a number. Based on that number you can choose to create a program that will maintain, advance, or maximize your fitness level. Based on what you want to do (I chose maximize) it creates a program for you. Mine says to work out 5 days a week (you can change this) and tells me to do a total of 3 normal length sessions, 1 long, and 1 short. It gives times and target calories for all of these. If you reach 80% of your goal you are given a picture of a trophy that is displayed on the main screen of your watch. For me this was very motivating, as I wanted to keep that trophy on my screen! It was a reminder that I worked hard and it made me want to keep working hard.

Storage: It stores all of my daily sessions for about 12 days and probably about the same amount of weekly sessions (I've only had mine for 6 weeks so its not full). Within each day or week you can see how long you exercised total, how many calories you burned, how long your heart rate was at each zone (light, moderate, or hard) and how many sessions you had (each week). It's great to be able to track your progress over time and see your progression.

As a bonus, it syncs with all of the treadmills, ellipticals, stair climbers, and bikes at my gym (they aren't a Polar model). I think that any cardio machine that has a place for you to put your hands and measure your heart rate will sync up with this heart rate monitor. It was really nice to be able to see my heart rate vary as I was exercising without having to always look down at the watch.


The strap was very comfortable, I didn't even feel it when I was exercising.

The watch was pretty user friendly, but it took me some time to get the hang of everything. This was my first heart rate monitor purchase and I would absolutely recommend this to anybody. It's a great deal for the price you'll pay, not too expensive but with a lot more features than a basic model. You don't have to be a super jock to get a lot of use out of this, it's been very motivating for me to use in every day use. I got it primarily to be able to workout outdoors in the summer and skip the gym a little more often and it's been great for that. I wear it when I go hiking, running, at the gym, and even walking the dogs. I don't forsee ever using a different model as these are very high quality and very useful for my workouts. I would absolutely recommend this model!

I bought this hrm a month ago and have lost 9lbs. I purchased just to see how many calories I was burning during my work outs. I found with the calorie counter it motivates me to work harder and longer than before. The only thing I would change is I wish it would be able to track distance. At first I couldn't get the watch to upload to the website. After a few days I realized that if you were signed in to the website the upload works. Otherwise I got nothing. Awesome HRM! The chest strap is adjustable and fairly comfortable too!

I bought this HRM for my wife this past Christmas and it has never worked right. The HRM would loose signal all the time and throw off her workouts and calorie count. We sent it back to Polar for warranty service and they claimed it was fixed and sent it back to us. About 2 weeks later the same issue of the HRM loosing signal was back. My wife takes very good care of the HRM and followed all of the instructions from Polar to the letter including the daily cleanings. So we are planning to send it back again and see what happens. If this unit can not be fixed this time the right way we will never by a Polar product ever again. I am looking into alternatives right now since I have little faith that Polar will stand behind their inferior low quality product. Some the other people suggested the Garmin 305. That is where I am headed next. What a heart wrenching this it is to see the gift that I gave to my wife for Christmas, the one thing that she really wanted and uses everyday be such a disappointment. Save your money and get a different unit.

I've used heart rate monitors for about 10 years. When the battery ran out on my old Polar, I bought this one based on reviews. I have three major complaints.
First, the monitor always displays a heart rate that is 2 bpm slower than every piece of fitness equipment I use, which includes three different elliptical trainers, Keiser spin cycles and a treadmill. This does not inspire confidence.

Second, Polar seems to lack an adequate data base for boomers and especially women over 55. How else can anyone explain my rating as an elite athlete (score of 57) after 3 workouts? Of course the reason is that I have a low resting heart rate. That doesn't mean I'm fit. It just means I'm outside the norm.

Third, this unit lacks enough flexibility to modify the standard settings and still get appropriate advice and calculations. The fitness calculator doesn't disclose the resting heart rate. There is no way to adjust maximum heart rate based on actually testing. My target zones based on the Karvonen formula are very different. In short, this unit disappointed me, and I won't keep it.

Bought 1 mens, 1 womens. Wife says the fancier artsy lines around the display on hers makes the button labels hard to read. Looks nice though, and you know what the buttons do anyway after 5 minutes. Both work well. I expected them to work while swimming, but they don't. They survive the water ok, but as soon as the chest strap is immersed the monitor stops reading the heartbeat. Maybe a different setup (strap?) is required.
There's no description of how to set up coded transmissions, and we did have problems at first with the two F11's picking up each others signals. Apparently if you only have one on for a while though, it will go into coded mode on it's own, and take care of multiple transmitter issues, or at least ours did. Would be nice if there was a section in the manual that described it better. Good product overall. Quite happy with them.

This is my first HRM, and I love it. Just having it on motivates me to push myself harder because it tracks my progress throughout the week. At the end of the week, I get a summary of the total number of workouts, the total calories burned, the total time working out, and the time spent in each heart rate zone. There are only a few buttons on it, so it is pretty easy to figure out, although it does take a little time playing around with it to figure out all the bells and whistles, but the basic functioning is very straightforward. This model links up to the Polar website, which is less exciting than I thought it would be. I thought it would help me track my workouts better than it does. Oververall, I am very pleased.

I bought this watch to help track calories burned during my workouts. It has a soniclink to send the workouts and data to the polor web site. Making it easy for me to track the calories burned, amount of time exercising and the min/max for my heart rate.

I give this a four star and not a five because the back light does not display the information very well in low light. But I other than that, I love this watch!!!

I purchased this product from HeartratemonitorsUSA through their own website. I performed the fitness test only to be given a ridiculously high, off-the-charts value higher than the fitness level of the fittest 20 year old man according to their chart. I am a 39 year old overweight woman with mobility issues. After performing the test many times and getting similar values (66, 73, 68, etc.) I called Polar to find out if I was doing something wrong with the test. The tech walked me through resetting all the settings and told me to input my settings all over again and try the test again, and if it still had the problem to see about getting it replaced. Sure enough, I got the same value again. I then called HRM USA to find out about getting it replaced. Seems they will only replace it if you call within 3 days of placing the order. I didn't even RECEIVE it from UPS until 6 days after placing the order. They told me I'd have to go through Polar.

Call back to Polar, and they will treat it like a warranty repair. Basically as if I'd had it for several months and it had an issue after a while. Now I'm really nervous because some of these other reviews talk of getting their monitors back after several weeks. So much for the money I spent.