Activity Trackers: Polar FT7 Heart Rate Monitor Review

Heart rate monitors have been growing in popularity lately because they are being recognized as valuable tools that can really help maximize your workouts. This is due to their ability to let us know valuable workout statistics like many calories were burned, how much fat was burned, etc. This information enables us to customize our own exercise regimen so that we are more likely to keep going to reach our fitness goals. To help you find the perfect tool for you, we have put together this Polar FT7 Heart Rate Monitor Review to help you decide if it is the right one for you.

What is A Heart Rate Monitor?

A heart rate monitor is a device that is worn during workouts that measures your heart rate. It is an excellent tool for athletes to help them find their exercise sweet spot; that point where the body is being pushed hard, but not enough to cause injury or fatigue.

These tools are also good for beginners to help them find the right intensity of their workouts. It also helps to provide an objective view of how hard you are really working at the gym.

Heart rate monitors are relatively easy to use; especially if you know your target heart rate. Once you know this number, all you have to do is check the monitor to see if you should pick up your pace or slow down. In addition, it is also excellent for making sure that you don’t go overboard on easy days.

One of the best heart rate monitors on the market is the  Polar FT7, a great way to have fun and fitness monitored in the correct manner.

Polar FT7 Heart Rate Monitor Review

The Polar FT7 is an innovative and stylishly designed heart rate fitness watch that goes beyond the pale of just being a regular heart rate monitor; it is a training computer as well. In addition, it is water resistant and can be used when doing laps at the swimming pool. However, it is important to note, that this watch should not be used when you are diving.

Color Choices

The Polar FT7 comes in a variety of awesome color choices that you can pick from to suit your lifestyle or mood. Color choices include:

• Black/Red
• Red and Orange
• Black / Silver
• Blue and Lilac

With all of these color choices, you can’t go wrong; there’s something to match any outfit. But the Polar FT7 is more than just a snazzy color scheme, its features are quite functional and will help your with your fitness training.

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Polar FT7 Heart Rate Monitor

For those who want to know if they're improving fitness or burning fat

Made by: Polar, Available: In stock

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Special Features

The Polar FT7 has so many features that it can seem overwhelming. Therefore, to make things easier, we have narrowed down the most important points to give you a general overview. By doing this, the goal is to provide you with a thorough review without overkill.

• Body measurement – this measures both your average and max heart rates. In addition, you can set target zones for your own personal training regimen based on beats per minute, max heart rate percentage, and heart rate reserve percentage
• Measure Your Hear Rates : this measures both your average and your max heart rates
• Polar energy pointer : this fascinating feature tells you if you are using your training time to burn fat or calories. It can be used to help you decrease, increase, and/or adjust your fat burning and aerobic activity
• Polar OwnCal : this feature counts the calories that you have lost during each session and cumulatively in other of sessions as well.
• Polar OwnCode : This a special code transmission exclusively from Polar. It locks in a specialized code so that your heart (and only yours) can be transmitted to your training computer.
• Training diary : allows you to track your progress by session, day, week, and month
• Training load : this is a software program designed for Polar that helps you figure out if you are training more than you need to or if you need to step up your game some. This features helps you adjust your degree of intensity and will let you know if you need to lengthen or shorten your sessions.
• Training programs : offers you optional training programs for everything from outdoors spots to running to general fitness tricks and tips
• Record keeping : this allows you to store up to 99 training files and your weekly history
  Graphical target indicator: helps you to see graphically where your training falls into your zone.

This fitness watch comes with a ton of innovative features that are geared to help you succeed.

Comparison

There are tons of heart rate monitors available and with new models coming out every year; some come with chest straps while others look more like wrist watches. However, to keep things simple, this comparison is going to stay within the FT product series:

The FT7 has more features than the FT4; especially when it comes to intuitive calculation that take your personal body and fitness metrics into consideration.

The FT4 and FT7 have many similarities that include the ability to display both your maximum and average heart rates during training periods, training percentage zone indicates, maximum heart rate indicate, PolarOwnCal, Polar OwnCode.

The FT4 only lets you track your last training session, but the FT7 lets you track up to 99.

Both of these watches are popular heart rate monitors and both offer important data and excellent quality for an affordable price. But if you are looking for simple tracking from week to week, and you can store your data somewhere else, then the FT4 is for you. But if you want more flexibility, intuitive tracking, and some more advanced options, the FT7 is the heart rate monitor that you should choose.

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Body measurement features Average and maximum heart rate of training Heart rate - bpm / % - Heart rate is the measurement of the work your heart does. Heart rate can be expressed as the number of beats per minute or as percentage of your maximum heart rate. Heart rate can also be expressed as a...

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I have owned my FT7 for approximately 18 months. It worked great for about 13 months then started to become erratic. I had the same problems as some of the early reviewers in terms of high readings and constant Check Transmitter messages. I changed the batteries in both the watch and the transmitter. Seemed to work for a month or so then once again reverted to erratic readings. Now it just won't read at all. I use an elliptical machine in the gym that has a Polar monitor in it. It can't decipher the transmissions from the transmitter either. It was able to give readings when the watch couldn't until recently.I always rinsed the belt after use, washed it at least every two weeks. I would classify this as a watch that provides more features at the expense of quality to target a price point. I also don't like the customer service. Having to mail it back, authorize a $75 charge upfront, pay for shipping etc. is enough to turn me away from Polar. If you are looking for a product that will probably only work until the warranty is up, this is the one you want.Update: This might be a bit premature but I was reading a lot of reviews on HR monitors (trying to find a replacement for the FT7) and the lack of reliability over time was a common complaint when using chest strap models. One reviewer mentioned a call to customer service that informed him that the contacts on the transmitters can corrode causing erratic readings. I took my Wearlink transmitter and with some fine sandpaper cleaned the round connectors on the transmitter and also rolled up a tiny piece and cleaned inside the connectors on the strap. I couldn't see any corrosion on either part before or after sanding them. However, I hooked up the transmitter and tested it.Read more ›

February 2, 2012

I still own a Polar M21. I loved it, still do as a matter of fact, even though I've had it since the late 90s. It displays what I want to see on one screen. I put my wrist near the transmitter if it's dark and it lights right up so I can see the screen. No button pushing. I did get tired of having to ship it back to Polar for battery replacements (I do not have an authorized service center nearby), so when the wrist strap broke in two, I decided it was time to buy a new one.I have had the FT7 for almost two years now. The watch is bulky and uncomfortable. The chest strap is larger and protrudes more due to the detachable transmitter. To this day, I push buttons in hopes it will do what I want, but it never does. It did have an adorable little birthday cake on the screen on my birthday, which I missed the first year because I was on vacation. A few months ago, I was constantly getting "Check heart rate transmitter!" messages, which had happened all along but eventually I'd get the darn thing to register...which is not to say that it maintained throughout a workout. I'd often get so frustrated trying to get it to work again that it derails me mid-workout. Now, nothing I was doing would get my heart rate to register. I decided to replace the battery, even though there were no indications it was dying. Still nothing. Then I discovered this model also has a second battery in the chest strap! Ah ha! (So how did the old one work? Why does this one need a battery now?) I replaced it, for another $6. Still the thing wouldn't work. I discovered that I had been a Very Bad Heart Rate Monitor Owner after re-reading the instructions. I had never once washed the strap. So I did, and it finally worked. I was very happy, I finally conquered it.Read more ›

October 11, 2011

I bought my Polar FT7 one and a half years ago. For the first year it worked 'as advertised.' After some practice, I got used to its display and selection quirks, and faithfully followed the use and cleaning regimen provided by the owner's manual. The manual needs work to be more complete, but is easily available online. I did notice the recorded calories burned during my workouts NEVER matched those given by my other chest monitor, which came with my Landice treadmill (to be explained.) After 13 months, the watch started malfunctioning, giving error messages that it was not receiving signals from the chest monitor, either at the start of workouts, or irratically throughout workouts. A fresh battery did not fix the issue, and customer service did little to help except to say 'send it in.' I do not appreciate relatively expensive products that malfunction 'immediately' after the warranty period, and this was the second unit that died after barely past warranty (the one given with my Landice treadmill also died after 16 months.) That's $200.00 worth of heart rate monitors for barely 1.5 years of use. It's not from abuse that these units are dying so soon - perhaps design issues? My other large complaint with this Polar product concerns customer service. When trying to determine the difference in calories burned between the units, the Polar customer service representative I emailed and called was in the top five WORST examples of customer serivce I have ever dealt with. She was adamant about not giving me any details to explain what the difference was caused by, citing that all their calculations and formulas were 'proprietary.' I didn't ask for the equations, I merely asked for qualitative reasons for the difference.Read more ›

January 26, 2011