Overall whichwearable rating 

The Polar Verity Sense is a very lightweight, comfortable and discrete new category of heart rate monitor which can be used for truly active sports from swimming, boxing to TRX. It allows you to focus on the exercise rather than staring constantly at your data on a screen.

I have used and enjoyed the product for over two months now.

It is available to buy at around £79.50 from the Polar website .

Heart health means good health

The heart rate monitor is a great way to stay fit and avoid injury. If you want to learn the basics of using one including how to calculate your maximum heart rate read this article. To get fit, exercise regularly and buy a decent heart rate monitor at around £70. You don’t need an expensive fitness watch or other ‘tech gear’. Recent research indicates that a short exercise regime at home including squats can be as good or better than going to the gym.

Short evolution of the heart rate monitor

The older chest monitors had a nice replaceable battery but their comfort was questionable. For men the art of putting them on felt like learning to put on a bra for the first time, everytime. They then moved onto being USB chargeable. Running watches developed HR sensors. Some reviews may have trashed the accuracy of watches heart rate monitors but now the optical sensors have become so good the old chest monitors are ready for the recycling bin.

Move up to multi-sports

I know what you are thinking, my watch does all of this why bother with another gadget?

Wait a second. What if you do more than running and cycling? What if you do weights, TRX, cross training, rugby, football? What about weight lifting, you know the serious stuff where you could kill yourself if drops onto your torso? What if you need to use your wrist to do sit-ups? Watches with HR sensors just don’t work in these scenarios. I have pinged the strap of my watch several times by doing sit-ups with it on.

Enter the Polar Verity sense heart rate monitor. This is a discrete monitor that slips onto your arm, wrist and even your head. It records your heart rate activity during sports where a watch just gets in the way. The small unit is charged by inserting it into a small USB plug that inserts into your computer.

Once charged you select one of three modes to switch the unit on and slip it onto your upper arm when exercising to use.

3 Recording Modes

Position 1, broadcast mode. Use the HR monitor with a Smartphone or computer App to send your heart rate to that App e.g. when cycling on the Zwift App you pair the App to the device so that you can read and record your heart rate on the App.

Position 2, record any sport mode. Use the HR monitor to record ANY activity. This can be used when you go running, cycling, dancing or walking. This is the MOST used setting for me as I run and bike so I was surprised you have to press twice to get to it. I would have preferred it to the first choice as it records your HR for any sport.

Position 3, swimming mode. The monitor is attached to a little plastic clip and this is attached to your swimming goggles. You can see it in my squash goggles below (See the Polar clip beside my ear) . Due to the pandemic I never tried the unit in water swimming but I think this is one of the best features of it.

Exercise over, now what?

Once you have done your exercise you need to remember to stop the device by pressing the button on the side of it. This was the one thing I forgot to do on numerous occasions as the monitor was so comfortable on my arm the last thing you want to do when you stop exercise is find a strap pull it off and then press a button. I think one improvement may be have some a vibration or audio tone to warn you that you have it on and need to stop it. Remember there is no display to prompt you to do anything like ‘end run’.

To look at how you’ve been exercising and your heart rate you find the device using the Polar Sync software on your smartphone. The charts below list the activity and my heart rate whilst doing a 5km run and a thirty minute spin on my bicycle indoors using Swift.

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Battery life

The battery life is great. I managed not to charge the unit after a week and a half with around 6 exercise sessions of thirty to forty minutes. Charging the unit takes around forty minutes using the plastic USB adaptor that comes with the device.

Where’s the beef, where’s the value?

So what is the point of this heart rate monitor? There are a few good points to this device.

1. The first is that not everyone wants to spend a lot on a watch or likes wearing a watch during exercise.
2. The second is that it can worn whilst swimming.
3. The third is that it can be used for sports where a watch is not suitable due to impact such as rugby, football and hockey.
4. The fourth is that if software was developed for multiple users a coach could look at the whole performance of the team and find out who is working well and who is slacking. This is a fantastic way to the performance of your team with metrics. This is where this technology is going, team health. I contacted Polar in the UK and they shared the link to their ‘team products’. You can manage your team and literally see who isn’t working hard by using the products here.
5. The fifth is a focus on recovery to fitness where you can focus on heart rate only. If you spend most of your exercise time in the RED area you probably aren’t fit whereas if you spend most of the time in the green and amber areas of max heart rate you probably are getting fitter.

Summary

If you want to drop the smartwatch, measure your heart fitness on a budget and/or do multiple sports try the Polar Verity Sense.