The POLAR IGNITE is the new Fitness Watch from Polar and it’s just announced today. I’m working on a ‘First Run’ post now. In the meantime here are some images and info from the press release and a few of mine that I’ve already managed to change the strap on.
It’s a nice-looking sports watch based on a one-button plus touchscreen format. It looks like a decent piece of kit that also utilises Polar’s impressive-looking PRECISION PRIME heart rate tracking technology. Perhaps even more interesting is that there are some totally new features appearing in the Polar IGNITE that are not (yet) available for the higher-end Vantage models.
Here are the new features
- Sleep Plus Stages – accelerometer and Resting-HRV derived sleep stages which, when combined with other measurements give sleep insights
- Nightly Recharge – Uses overnight HRV to combine SLEEP SCORE and DAILY RECOVERY stats to give more insights into recovery. This then refines the guidance for your next workout.
- FitSpark – personalized training guide that gives daily, adaptable guidance for you to use with cardio, strength training, and performance workouts.
- Serene – guided breathing exercises
Don’t forget, you will also get these: Polar’s Running Index, personalised/adpative5k-to-marathon training program, continuous HR and calories; along with Polar’s excellently-focussed “FLOW” health, fitness & sports platform.
Polar Ignite is available today for £200/$230 in white, yellow, and black wristband options. Silicon accessory bands are $24.95/€24.90/£21.50 each and available in black, white and yellow in size medium/large and in black and white in size small.
Pre-order: at Wiggle (UK/EU) and Power Meter City (USA)
Thoughts?
It’s great that Polar are innovating and continuing to add new products and features.
This is a release that is clearly aimed at the ‘fitness and health’ athletes rather than competitive runners or triathletes per se. My perspective is that this is the physical format typical of a SMART fitness watch like a Vivoactive 3 with music, apps and smarts; or like an Apple Watch or indeed even Polar’s own M600 (WearOS) – yet IGNITE comes without the wide range of ‘advanced smarts’ that those watches have. So IGNITE really NEEDS to do all the fitness/sport/recovery stuff well to stand out and succeed. I’ll hold fire on a detailed opinion on that but, suffice to say, my partner is looking greedily over my shoulder right now.
So that’s my only initial reservation…will lack of SMARTS limit demand? Sure, Polar could have re-vamped the M600 but such a project would have NEVER ended up with a watch like the IGNITE that has an eminently usable 4-day battery. Put more positively…IGNITE looks good!
Like just about every new product, the price is probably a tad on the high side of where it will settle but it’s ‘about right‘.
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Really cool, looking forward to the review!
Sleep Plus Stages/Nightly Recharge: It sounds like this is just a matter of the right algorithm and could be done with any existing new-ish Polar or Garmin smartwatch. I wonder if Garmin already does something like that in their sleep tracking or if their algorithm is a much more basic sleep tracking, and this one from Polar would be something really new.
Perhaps Firstbeat is working on this as well?
Yawn… Yes it’s extremely cool what they’re offering in a sub $200 watch, but all this recovery/sleep stuff doesn’t hold much appeal for me. I was supposed to do a 40 minute interval run this morning, but I didn’t. I did a 1hr, very hard interval ride yesterday morning on the trainer, and a post work 1.5hr mountain bike ride last night. I woke up at 5am for my run, did a quick assessment, and decided I would be better off with another hour of sleep. Adjusting a training schedule is not rocket science. I have a plan I follow, courtesy of Trainerroad, but I have the sense to be flexible and adjust things based on rides/events/races I want to do (as well as life/family events).
I also find it annoying that this watch supports running, cycling, and outdoor swimming, but doesn’t have a multisport mode. In the same vein, it has btle support for cadence and speed, but not power. Give me a break with these artificial software limitations. Why not offer these things as software unlock upgrades at least? Velocomp did this with upgrades for pairing their powerpod/Newton with powerstroke analysis and (phone connected) GPS capabilities. If Polar said the watch is $200, if you want to opt in for multisport mode you can purchase an unlock code for $49.99, and if you want to pair a powermeter that’s an additional $49.99, my guess is they would open up their market and sell a lot more devices. Some people would buy the base, but many would also purchase the upgrades, which would increase Polar’s average price per sale without affecting their hardware manufacturing costs. I think it would probably be smart for all of these companies to do something similar. Garmin could sell one Fenix watch (with a few different variants small size, extra large, titanium, etc.) with a base feature set that is upgradeable, and eliminate the need to manufacture the 245, 645, vivoactive, instinct, 945, 735, etc..
Has Polar officially abandoned the idea of WearOS? Developing on WearOS would give Polar a huge advantage in smart features, app extensibility, and full featured maps with turn by turn navigation WITHOUT having to develop any of that in-house. Show me a WearOS triathlon watch that gets 12-15(minimum) hours of GPS run time already and take my money.
” doesn’t have a multisport mode. ” unfortunately they have to differentiate the products.
” software unlock upgrades at least”. I know dcr wants that too but i can’t see it happening much myself. I can only see it happening via paid-for APPS and polar are not close to there (I assume).
“Has Polar officially abandoned the idea of WearOS” – IDK. I guess so. Problem is the battery…read theapplewatchtriathlete.com, there are compromises.