POLAR Unite Waterproof Fitness Watch Includes Wrist-Based Heart Rate and Sleep Tracking

I bought my first polar watch back in 2012. I like the weight/calorie/step feature and the various training modes. I do not connect to internet because I do my own program and this works well for me. I just want the basics to help me control my weight. Nothing else needed. Read more

The only thing about this piece of crap that is marginally decent is the heart rate monitoring and even that has issues. The pairing to a phone, the syncing to the Polar App, the app itself, the way the band connects, the useless extras like Sleep Tracking and the useless but intrusive “blog” are all rubbish. I bought this in March 2022 and have been persevering with it for the past 10 months. I am fed up, sick and tired of dealing with it. The GPS feature is worse than useless. About 60% of the time, it fails to connect at all. The vast majority of the remaining times, it will lose connection during the ride resulting in erroneous distance and route information. I always ride with Strava and it, plus my analog cycle computer, always match. If the feature does not work. Fix it or eliminate it! The pairing the watch to a phone is an exercise in frustration. Syncing the phone to the polar app is usually an ok exercise but not always. Again frustrating. Fitbit has a way better mechanism for attaching the band. This is a poor mechanism. There is too many useless features like the Sleep Tracking stuff. I know if I had a good sleep. Further, it is not accurate. I will wake up rested and feel I had a great sleep and this POC will advise that my sleep was poor. Finally, I wanted a watch that would show my heart rate when I was in the middle of exercising. This POC claims to do so but does not. The screen goes black after a few seconds. When I am in the middle of climbing or sprinting, I can’t be flicking my wrist to see if this POC will bother to show my current heart rate. My old Polar FT7 constantly showed the current heart rate. The reason I bought this POC was I had had such good results with the FT7 and the even older one I had before that. Never again. I will buy an Apple, Fitbit, Garmin or anything else before I will buy another Polar POC. Read more

The media could not be loaded. I shopped around quite a bit for a replacement for my Amazon Halo which was my first fitness tracker. A lot of trackers have extra features that have nothing to do with fitness so I don’t need them. I was looking for accurate data and this seems to do really well. The battery only lasts about 3 days but that’s not a big deal for me. It only takes about 30 minutes to charge so I can just do it while I shower. I only wish I had spent more and gotten the Ignite with the built-in GPS. I didn’t think I would want that feature until last night during my team’s dragonboat practice. I needed to have my phone on me to connect to its GPS and I don’t like having my phone on the boat for fear of it getting wet. It tracked every moment, and I could go back and see the time, speed, heart rate and distance of every part of the practice on the map. Way freaking cool!! Oh whatever complaints people had about screen delays, they must have worked that out because I haven’t had that problem. Read more

Got this watch instead of another chest strap monitor. I wish it could integrate with the Polar Beat app I’ve been use it for the last few years. Also wish the treadmill could get a signal from it like the chest strap version. Took a few days to get used to it but I’ve really come to like this watch. I use it to monitor more workouts that I didn’t used to bother getting the H9 out for. The down side is the battery life is pretty poor. Once or twice the screen was stuck blank and had to reboot the watch. The app likes to be fussy about connecting to sync data. A couple of times it didn’t have good skin contact and was reading the heart rate wrong, but that was more me learning to use the band correctly. Biggest complaint is the charger. Rather anything else but this flimsy charger. Which tonight decided to melt. I’m hoping the replacement charger gets here before battery level becomes critical. Really do like this watch and would buy another if it gets broken. BTW it comes with two watch bands which are easy to change out. I was afraid it would be a one size fits all kind of deal, which never fits my wrists, pleasantly surprised by how easy it was to swap the band over to the larger size. Read more

I recently bought the FitBit Charge 4 for my wife and I as soon as it was released a few months ago. It was so sporadic with the GPS and was more of a entertainment device than actually helping me improve my health and wellness. She enjoyed the simplicity of it but even the steps were so off that it wasn't worth keeping. I was researching the Unite and Ignite but ultimately decided on the Unite since it was cheaper and when I do run outside I always have my phone on me for connected GPS.. The fitness metrics and heart rate are extremely accurate and the recommendations on my daily workouts with the FitSpark feature are worth their weight in gold. This is probably the lightest watch I have ever worn and I haven't taken it off since I got it. It is pretty stylish with a full color touch screen which has already been mistaken for an Apple Watch by a few people. The charging port is pretty unique as it clips right back into the watch and then you plug it in via USB. I also purchased a separate wrist band for this (as they are interchangeable) for when I am going out rather than having a sweaty band on me. I am pretty happy with this so far - my treadmill workouts have been pretty accurate and the HR is spot on. Read more