Polar Verity Sense

I’ve used several heart rate monitors over the years, and the Polar Verity Sense is easily my favorite. The biggest benefit for me is not having to wear a chest strap anymore. I find chest straps uncomfortable and restrictive, especially during longer sessions – they tend to feel tight and distracting after a while. Wearing the Verity Sense on my arm is a game-changer. It’s lightweight, barely noticeable, and stays in place securely throughout my runs and bike rides. The readings have been accurate and consistent across all my workouts. One downside is that the battery doesn’t last as long as a traditional chest strap HR monitor, but it’s rechargeable, which makes up for it. I’ve also tried using it under my swim goggles, but it puts too much pressure on my head, so I avoid it for swim sessions. This is actually my second time buying it – I liked it that much. If you want a reliable HRM without the hassle of a chest strap, this is a fantastic option. __ __ He probado varios monitores de frecuencia cardíaca y el Polar Verity Sense es, sin duda, mi favorito. Lo que más me gusta es no tener que usar la banda en el pecho, que con el tiempo se vuelve molesta y me genera una sensación de presión que me desespera un poco en entrenamientos largos. Llevar el sensor en el brazo es muchísimo más cómodo. Es ligero, apenas se nota y se mantiene bien sujeto durante sesiones de running y ciclismo. Las mediciones han sido precisas y constantes en todos mis entrenamientos. La única desventaja es que la batería no dura tanto como la de un sensor tradicional de pecho, pero como es recargable, se compensa bastante bien. Probé usarlo bajo las gafas de natación, pero me incomoda mucho en la cabeza, así que no lo uso para nadar. Esta es la segunda vez que lo compro, y eso dice mucho. Si buscas un sensor confiable y cómodo sin tener que llevar banda en el pecho, lo recomiendo totalmente.

The TL-DR is, i've only used this paired to my watch for almost 2 years with no issues, and I get good quality data. I haven't used it stand alone, or paired to the Flow App on my phone to record sessions. I have been happily using my verity sense HR band for almost 2 years now paired with my Polar (grit x pro) watch. I've also used it with my Polar Pacer Pro. In that time I've tracked just under 6,000 miles of running HR data and a lot of hours of strength training, mobility, and bike riding. I've had two bad readings in that time and both were my fault. Over all I'd say this is great value for money. The strap adjusts to my skinny runners arms, and it can get pretty long too for huge forearms. I'm a heavy user of this device and i'm a fitness professional who runs and works out every day. I came back to look at this device as I was thinking of getting another one for my wife, and a new strap for my sensor. I'm still on the original strap, and its holding up very well. If you are looking at the low star reviews, then I can see most are for people using the strap with their phone or some other cardio equipment. I've never tried that so I cant comment on that use case. I've compared the Verity Sense to my H10 and it's pretty close, I've also got a really good feel for my HR levels so I know its giving me good data, if it didn't then I'd not use it as wrong data is much worse than no data. I don't have much success with the optical HR data on the watches, as it tends to lock to my cadence from time to time. The Verity Sense is placed just below the elbow joint on my forearm and seems to work very well there. As usual with all optical HR sensors, there's a 15-30 second lag, so don't plan to use it for accurate readings while doing short intervals. That is where you need the H10 or other ECG device. Battery life is good. I get somewhere around 20-ish hours over a week of use. Now that Polar have the loop band I also use that for all day wear, and take it off when I'm using my Polar watch and Verity Sense combo, between the two I get HR (and lots of other data) readings 24/7 with no noticeable drops. Hope this helps with your choice.

I have a TRUE treadmill that uses a Polar heart rate monitor. I use the Polar Chest Strap for the treadmill and it works fine. Since I use a WAHOO brand arm heart monitor for everything else, I thought I would try the Polar Verity Sense for my True Treadmill. The Wahoo heart rate monitor is easy to use. You simply sync it to your devise and off it goes. Never had an issue for over 4 years. Not the case with this overly complicated piece of junk Verity Sense. The developer of this product should be fired. If the goal was to create on overly complicated, must sign up for the App, Agree to allow Polar to use your personal info, product then they succeed. With todays technology and ease of use this thing is a complete joke. You must sign up for the app to be able to us it. Well I did since I paid almost a hundred dollars for it. However, the thing did not work on my True Treadmill. The only product ( polar) that my treadmill is suppose to work with, would not work. Rather then take a sledge hammer to this piece of junk, ( I almost did) I sent it back. Thank god for Amazon. Return was even easier than using this trash. Look, it may monitor your heart rate real good if it works for you, but my advise is to check out the Wahoo arm Heart rate monitor. Compare them both and you will see that Wahoo is a much better product. Cost is about the same so no break there. But after four years of using the Wahoo arm heart rate monitor, I can say it monitors heart rate very accurately and is reliable.

After getting frustrated with the most recent scosche arm band and its inconsistent readings, due to overly sensitive placement issues, I looked for other options, and found this Polar device. Overall I'm pleased. The ant+ connection has been solid, never dropping. And the placement is far less finicky than the scosche was, and has been consistent with the readings. It's not an issue for me, but the Bluetooth connection dropped about 5 min in, so I switched to ant+ and haven't had an issue since.

I've been using a Polar H10 chest strap to record my runs for a couple of years now, but don't really like wearing a chest strap for workouts. Both the Verity Sense Optical Arm Band and the H10 chest strap are vastly more accurate than just using the optical sensor on the Polar watch I pair them with (I suspect this would be true for just about any watch-based sensor but I can't claim to have tried other brands). I'm pleased with the VS arm band's comfort relative to the chest strap; and the fact that it is nearly as accurate is enough for me to switch to the arm band for most of my workouts. I tested them both simultaneously on a couple of workouts after I bought the arm band and was pleased with the results for normal runs and even my typical interval training. I posted the comparison charts I made when I wore both. The H10 responds more quickly. The optical arm band lags the H10 (real HR?) by about 10 seconds, but it was just as accurate in aggregate - unless you need feedback that is nearly instant. Also, I find the arm band a bit less finicky too. The chest strap will "lose the signal" for me on occasion and I'll have to reposition it. In 4 months this hasn't happened with the VS arm band more than once or twice. It does occasionally go slightly off (+/- 10 bpm error) like it did at the end of the sprint interval workout chart I posted, but even this I find rare - certainly less often than with the H10 . You can see the H10 didn't respond for part of the first stride I did near the end of the long run workout as well as for over a minute during the warm up phase at the beginning of the sprint interval workout. During the sprint interval workout, the arm band did miss the peaks. These were nearly all-out sprints though. For anything less than an all-out sprint with arms pumping hard I find the arm band does not miss the heart rate peak. I'm happy to use it for my more regular interval workouts where I'm not going all out. The battery has been great. It lasts for at least a couple weeks worth of workouts (that's maybe 10 workouts x 50 minutes on average) and I probably charge it before I need to more often than not.

This armband and the H10 chest strap have made me a big fan of Polar products (and a hater of Garmin). Both of these have built in memory so you can wear it all day, collect HR data, and not be tethered to your phone (download later). Getting into memory mode is a simple button push with a mode confirmation LED, then good to go. The only down side is you will need to recharge it regularly as the sensor light technology burns a fair amount of power. The H10 technology is low power and is good for about 400 hours on a CR2025 battery. The apps, Polar Beat and Polar Flow, are both quite good and free.

Disappointed – Wouldn’t Recommend I really wanted to like this heart rate monitor, but it didn’t even last six months. After about four months, it started having trouble picking up my heart rate, and then it just stopped charging completely. Now it’s in the trash. The app is also just okay if you’re just using it for workouts, but it’s not great for tracking your overall activity. There are over a hundred activity types to choose from, but somehow they left out elliptical—which is kind of ridiculous. It also didn’t connect well to my phone. If I turned on the monitor before opening the app, it usually wouldn’t connect. I had to open the app first, then turn on the device, which was annoying. I’d waste the first few minutes of every workout just trying to get it to work. Between the short lifespan, the frustrating app, and the connection issues, I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone.

This is the second one I’ve owned in 4 years. I train 5-6 days a week, and use this HR monitor every workout, works reliably for the first two years, but then starts to become less and less accurate. After the two year mark it begins to mis read my HR by at least 10bpm and at times will drop to below 100bpm mid workout while I’m in the 150-160bpm range. I use it in the same spot on my arm every single time. Would recommend for amateur athletes or semi-pro athletes, but the inaccuracy and limited lifetime makes it impractical for the professional users. This will be my last time using it since the optical HR monitor technology from other companies has improved significantly over the last three years. Also, technical support from Polar is non-existent.