POLAR IGNITE - Advanced Waterproof Fitness Watch (Includes Polar Precision Heart Rate Integrated GPS and Sleep Plus Tracking)

I LOVE this watch! It has a sleek design that's beautiful, comfortable, and easy to wear 24/7. I have really small wrists so I was extremely pleased with the different options in sizing so I wouldn't have any extra band flapping around (like most fitness watches!)Everything about this watch is great. The touch screen is extremely responsive and easy to navigate, without prior instruction even. I prefer that it only has one "button" on the outside, this means it doesn't easily get bumped during activity (problems I've had with previous fitness watches) and you have more control via the screen.As a runner, I love the format during activity it's simple and gives me all the information I need, without being overly distracting. The stats it gives you after your workout is more expansive than I anticiapted - even including altitude, cadence, etc! The heart rate monitor is very accurate. And the sleep analysis is an extra added bonus.

I have opted for Polar products for more than 15 years. I finally ditched the bulk of my M400 (which I LOVED) for the improved Polar Ignite. The Ignite is smaller and to say the least, offers SO much more than just activity tracking. The built-in HR monitor is absolutely accurate at least when I compare it to my other Polar HR monitors (Oh1 and H10). The ability to track swimming is pretty awesome and the sleep and ANS recharging data are phenomenal. I have yet to make use of the Serene mode but look forward to stopping long enough to try it. Honestly, you cannot beat what this watch offers for the price. The only thing I miss from my original Polar from 15 years ago is the birthday cake pop up every year on my birthday. That always made me smile. Polar, I am your customer for life.

I have been a Fitbit user for a few years and it just suddenly died on me so I was in the market for a new fitness watch. I like to take gym fitness classes, I teach yoga, and also do martial arts. After looking at 7 different watches I narrowed it down to the Polar Ignite and the Garmin Vivoactive 4s. I bought both and this is my own review.Polar has a $190 price tag, 4-5 day battery life, GPS, VERY accurate heart rate monitoring (that’s what they are known for), in my experience the sleep monitoring was more accurate than the Garmin, but not as user friendly as the Fitbit. The polar has a very bright and clear screen, but like the Fitbit you have to flip the wrist to see it light up. In contrast, the screen is actually harder to see than the Garmin when out in the sun, (say on a run). Polar will give you suggestions for recovery that go with what you did to workout and I thought that was neat. It also has a nightly recharge score (like Garmin’s “body battery”). Cons: it is slow to wake, like the Fitbit, it would occasionally disconnect from my phone, it does not have music downloadable to the watch so you have to have your phone nearby, and the texts that come through are too big so you only see a portion of it. It also does not have menstrual tracking which I found handy on the Fitbit.I ended up returning the Polar and keeping the Garmin vivoactive 4s and here’s why. Garmin may have a higher price tag ($230), and a duller screen. See picture. But many good qualities that after a few weeks of trial made me choose it. It says the battery life is 7 days, but I got 4-5 days. Has GPS (on par with Polar). Has music you can download to the watch so you don’t have to take your phone with you! I did not have any music when using the Fitbit so I didn’t know this was something I would like so much, but it’s awesome. The watch face is 40mm as compared to the Polar’s 43mm. I like a smaller watch. The heart rate was pretty much the same as polar, or within 5bpm. If you look at the picture I have of a run I did you can see how Fitbit did NOT accurately detect when I went from walking to running and the other 2 watches did. Another plus is that the screen is always on. Also not something I had with Fitbit so I didn’t know what I was missing. When doing an activity and you want to quickly know what your heart rate is, Garmin is hands down the best option. The screen will light up more if you touch it, but you can always see the time and anything else you want on your display (I have time, heart rate, date, weather, messages, battery, and steps all on my watch face). Garmin will track your sleep, but it isn’t as detailed or accurate as the Fitbit or polar, but it does have something cool called Pulse Ox that measures your blood oxygen levels (like those clips with a red light they put on your finger at the doctor’s office). This is good to detect any problems you may have while sleeping or even during the day. Garmin does have menstrual tracking and also Garmin Pay. A con would be that Garmin does not add naps into your sleep for the day. It will only track one sleep for the day, not multiple.Now if you have been a Fitbit user like I had and switched to one of these watches, the apps are very confusing. Fitbit has by far the most user friendly app. But with a little time, either app will become familiar to you as well.I am not a runner, never have been, but I have turned into a runner because of the Garmin watch. It has a coach setting where you can plug in a goal and it will coach you to get to that goal. I am very competitive so I make sure I am going to get to that goal (a 5k run). It is very satisfying to see your runs displayed on the app and to rate them on how you felt that day.In conclusion, depending on what you are looking for you might choose a different watch than me, but I love my Garmin Vivoactive 4s now.

Overall great tracker. Battery life is so so but I haven’t had other watches for comparison purposes.

I bought the watch as a gift to someone else but they suggested I wore it a few days to figure it out and see if it indeed a good choice because I do own a Garming Vivoactive 3 thus I can draw some parallels to that product.The first negative experience was the watch does not sync automatically. You have to hold the button to sync it. Not a big deal, but felt annoying actually. When it comes to connecting to the phone, the Polar Flow interface is (in my opinion) far inferior to say Garmin Connect. Polar Flow is gratuitously flashy but hard to get any sense of what is happening. The information is sparse, and no page feels to me like one that decently summarizes my day.One advantage of the Polar Ignite is that it has more pre-built activities - I get pretty much the same numbers with Garmin's general Cardio as with Bodycombat on the Polar. Still it is nice that the activity is already named accordingly.The Ignite's watch face is much brighter, and very colorful and pretty (this is one reason I picked it actually) but is only on when activated, the Vivoactive is always on albeit not nearly as strong on contrast. Over long term I found the Polar watch face a bit distracting and less friendly. Anyone can see a mile away what your watch face shows. The Vivoactive 3 watch face ended up feeling more friendly, and informative, especially since you can customize the Vivoactive 3 watch face but not the Polar.The second day with the Polar Ignite I ran into serious technical problems, and I decided to return the watch. After syncing the interface went wonky, the view is constantly wiggling (as if someone were trying to swipe), even when the watch is laying flat on the table. To make it stop I have to reboot the watch.While the watch itself could be replaced, I really did not like the Polar Flow interface at all. Felt wrong to have someone stuck looking at that.Edit: for gifting I replaced the Polar Ignite with a Garmin Vivomove HR