It was time to find a new HR monitor. My wife uses M400 and she is satisfied with it. Polar M430 GPS Running Watch
is its successor with optical heart rate measuring and some improvements. I read many reviews and M430 really looked promising. My wishes were: not expensive, GPS, Android and cloud support, optical HR measurement (I have enough problems with chest straps)…M430 has everything I want and it wasn’t expensive in January (189 EUR was my price in a local store). The only reservation was an awareness that optical HR measurement isn’t very accurate. Having that in mind, I have read this part very carefully on all reviews. The conclusion was that it isn’t perfect, but is usable and that M430 has one of the best results in a field trial.
All features are well described on many websites (includes Polar’s) and I won’t repeat what other reviewers have already said. Only my disappointments follow.
1. Software
The Android software works as it should. From my perspective, its main task is to synchronize data from M430 to the Polar Flow. Otherwise, Android PolarFlow is simple to use, user interface is nice and works fast.
With S625X I have used PolarPersonalTrainer. PolarPersonalTrainer will be closed down so all users must move to Polar Flow. Polar Flow looks modern, but PolarPersonalTrainer has more advanced functions and Polar could simply upgrade it with modern design and support for newer devices.
When I tried to transfer training data (10 years!) to Flow, I found out that this can’t be done! WTF!
I have asked Polar and get a classic corporative answer: “Thank you for contacting Polar customer care. Unfortunately, you can only transfer data from PPT to Flow when using one of the following Polar products: RCX3, RCX5, RC3 GPS, CS500, CS500+, RS300X, RS800CX, CS600X, FT80, FT60, FT40, and FT7. I apologize for the inconvenience.”
Crazily. I’m sure that all records (regardless of watch model) are stored in the same way in their database. They simply don’t allow users of S625X to export their own records.
I have tried many tricks and I can at least export data from PolarPersonalTrainer (but only 25 records at once!!!) in XML. And don’t expect that XML can be imported in Flow. It has to be a “political” decision, there simply isn’t any technical reason.
Then I found the second clumsiness in Flow. You can’t compare two (or more) training like you can in PolarPersonaTrainer. Isn’t that one of the most interest things you can do with your sports data?
2. Charging
Polar M400 uses the standard (waterproof) micro USB cable that is available almost everywhere. With M430 Polar has introduced a custom made port. If you have cable at home, you can’t charge your watch in a car or in the office. Forget it. If you run out of battery, your M430 will be useless until you get your cable. You can buy a Polar M430 Charging Cable
Not only that, the connector on cable doesn’t clip in very firmly.
As far as I know, Polar has problems with USB port corroding and charging on M400, so they had a reason to do that.
3. Battery
Many reviews glorify battery life on M430, but I’m not on their side. To be honest, the battery is not bad and it shows good results if I compare it to the competition. But for sure it can last longer. I expect to charge it every second (or third) day. If you have longer training, then expect to charge after every training. My friend also comments that he isn’t sure if his M430 has enough battery juice for longer activity (6-8 hours – like mountain day).
Luckily, M430 has some settings where you can lower energy consumption.
4. Optical Heart Rate
Now we came to the main problem on M430. Its main function is HR measuring, but here it fails as deep as it can. What is wrong? First 10 or 15 minutes (or even half an hour) it shows wrong HR.
I now that watch should be positioned as described in user manual. I tried with tightening more, tightening less, move watch higher or lower on the wrist, cover watch and skin (cold factor), wearing watch hours before training… But it simply doesn’t work ok at the beginning of training.
First minutes readings are far from real. It is winter in Slovenia, temperatures are near freezing point. It is understandable that on cold weather condition, the sensor performance (heart rate accuracy) could be effected as the blood flow is slower.
It is interesting that HR readings are real when I preparing for training. But after I start, numbers fall down to approximately 95-105 bpm. And stays in that zone for 10-15 minutes. It looks like my blood flow to hand almost stops when I start with training.
I asked Polar Support and here is their answer: “This is a common problem with OHR sensors. They need some time to adjust to your skin and you did everything right: moving the watch, covering it, etc. We recommend to put on the watch some time before your training. This allows your skin to get accustomed to the watch. When putting on the watch the blood flow will be hindered at first, but then the skin gets used to it and the blood flow will improve. But nonetheless it can happen, that the watch needs several minutes to calibrate itself to your pulse. This is not a bug, but an expected behaviour.
I accept that M430 reacts a little slower, this is usual behavior for optical sensors. I checked the datasheet of the manufacturer of sensor and they say that sensor’s response time is 8 seconds. It is understandable and doesn’t lose HRs because it simply writes them a little later.
I prepared a simple video to show the problem:
Note: Old S625X was with me some months ago when I was on medical heart test. And it was very accurate.
Cold is definitely an important factor here. I tried with ski gloves on my hands and although problem still exists, M430 readings were at least a little better.
It is interesting that M430 has problems if my heart rate is high (or increasing). On the other hand, when my heart rate decreasing (for example when I turn downhill after ascent), it starts working ok. I even noticed that if my track on the ascent comes to gentle part, the HR readings on M430 starts to increase (opposite from real where HR starts to decrease).
Things are even worse. HR readings can be inaccurate from time to time even when the device is in “good area”.
5. Other annoyances
There are some minor annoyances. For example, buttons are a little soft and user don’t get good feedback. Another annoyance is three seconds long press for finish training. If I add a little delay from a soft button, then this long press is way too long for me.
Conclusion:
What can I say? Polar M430
What will I do? I don’t know yet. Maybe buying a chest strap is the cheapest solution. You can believe that I’m not very keen to buy an expensive strap because I already feel (at least partly) cheated from Polar. And then give them more money – hm, is this smart?
All in all, I am disappointed with M430, but otherwise (except upper issues), M430 can be a very interesting device. I’m also waiting for the higher temperature to see if readings will be more accurate.
UPDATE (24th February 2018): I have tried with borrowed Polar H7 (chest strap) and M430 works like a charm.
UPDATE (9th October 2018): Don’t miss to read part 2 of this topic. Did service help?
Also don’t miss a final article with useful tips: How to get more accurate heart rate readings?.
Coming from an M400 I bought the Suunto Spartan Trainer hoping the oHR will be OK. After lots of frustrations I switched back to a chest strap HRM.
It seems the wrist based oHR tech in general is quite useless for the person who is interested in accurate HR measurements.
I fully agree. Now I have a chest strap H7 and it works as it should.
It is nice to have a backup (oHR) when you forget a strap 🙂
Bought the M430 back in the summer…after using the rs400 and the protrainer for many years…overall do like the M430..
happen to be in California and use indoors..so little different useage
Battery…get about a week out of it…so shut down the gps (that saves a ton of battery)….but I do,wear it all the time so it is recording the continuous heart rate…and tracking sleep activity (which is interesting)
Heart rate….I too switched to a chest strap H7…but simultaneously wore the M430 without the strap and the rs400 with strap during several workouts….M430 was pretty good for steady runs …matched up pretty well with the rs400…just lags the chest strap results…..where the optical reader was challenged was anytime the heart rate was changing rapidly both up and down….just couldn’t keep up…so switched to chest strap and seems to be fine
Finally in terms of the polar flow….not thrilled with it either…2 things…has different functionalities between the mobile application and what is available off a pc (why?)….and the feature I miss the most from the old protrainer…was the ability to use “error correction” to fix heart rate spikes/anomalies that you just get time to time
So sorry for the long response…but just I would share….
Jh thanks for the comment.
I agree the chest strap is a must-have if you want to get accurate readings. I bought it now and it works. Cold is definitely an important factor here. Maybe also my problems with veins, who knows. As you can see in the video, it simply doesn't work when I start training. After some time, it starts to work ok.
Protrainer is super 🙂
Pozdravljen
par dni nazaj sem kupil M430 prej sem imel m400, s katero sem bil zelo zadovoljen, vendar je po 2 in pol letih baterija zelo oslabela. problem je bil tudi z usb-jem in tipka ok je bila slaba. zato sem se odločil za nakup nove. kupil sem pač m430. včeraj sem šel v hrib in sem opazil iste težave, s tem da po 30 minutah ni bilo bolje utrip se je zmanjšal na uri za kakih 20-30 in to v neenakomernih časovnih intervalih. če si merim utrip doma, zgleda vse uredu. pri novi urci sem opazil tudi, da ni menuja na uri kjer kaže nadmorsko višino in spremembe, kar mi je bilo pri m400 zelo všeč, ko vadbo prenesem na polar flow so ti podatki sicer vidni. prebiram navodila, pa nikjer ne najdem zapisov o tem. ali morda ti kaj veš o tej nastavitvi?.
lp Brane
Po eni strani bi rekel, da me veseli, da imaš enake težave 🙂 no, zgolj zato, da nisem edini.
Jaz sem poskusil res vse, kar mi je padlo na pamet. Zelo resno sem preizkušal, pa mi (načeloma na začetku) ne deluje pravilno in konec.
Dokler se jaz ne "zaženem", je merjenje v redu. Takrat pa enostavno pade. Kupil sem (praktično nerabljen) pas in z njim ni bilo težav. Tako, da … ok, načeloma sem zadovoljen z uro (z izjemo tega optičnega merjenja). Očitno gre za kakšne posebnosti na koži/telesu, ki pri nekaterih onemogočajo pravilno merjenje. Imam še dve stvari, ki jih moram poskusiti s pomočjo ur pri znancih (enkrat bom vzel Suunto z optičnim merjenjem, drugič pa prav M430). Da bo vse skupaj čim bolj relevantno.
Če prav razumem drugi del vprašanja, potem poglej na spletni strani flow.polar.com. Klikni na svoje ime (desno zgoraj), izberi "Sport profiles", potem pa pri posameznem profilu "Edit". Sedaj imaš na voljo tudi "Training views", kar je verjetno to, kar želiš.
I noticed the same problem with the heart rate but in my case the showed heart rate goes through the roof. Even when running a slow tempo my heart rate is in the 180's where it should be 130 or so…It's pretty annoying and totally not reliable… Tried everything to get better results, but I think the optical sensor is very sensitive to temperature and wind and those conditions you just can't change… bummer 🙁
After publishing this review, I have tried many tricks, but nothing helped. It is interesting that even if my route is up and down, then HR readings are often not reliable. It works quite ok if I go on long ascent (after first 10-20 minutes of course).
On the other hand, it works ok with strap. So I suggest a strap 🙂
I’ve also been experiencing the same problem – my Polar M430 used to be extremely accurate with its heart rate readings, but now it’s saying my HR isn’t getting over 160bpm during an intense soccer training. I live in Australia and the weather is still warm so the temperature isn’t affecting its accuracy. So either in the space of a week I’ve become so fit, it’s taking a lot more to get my HR up, or there’s a fault in the HR sensor.
I’ve also had problems with my buttons getting “stuck” – permanently pressed down – has anyone else had this issue?
Interesting. I can confirm that temperature isn't an issue. Here in Slovenia is now warm enough (winter is over :-)) that I can say it isn't problem.
Thank you for a good review. My experience is the same as you. I commute on my bike 25 km each way every day and I use exactly 1 h., but avg HR can vary as much as 30 bpm. Today it took 37 minutes before the M430 adjusted to actual HR (a very steep and sudden increase in the HR graph from around 105 to 140). For activities like football and hockey with large variations in HR its totally useless.
I agree with you. Unbeliavable (or not, to be honest :-)) how HR can swing.
M430 is intended as a running watch so it responds quite slow to the change of a heart rate. It behaves as it is described in a review. When your heart rate changes watch just responds with a lag of approx 30s. For running at a constant speed it is quite ok I guess as the result is +-5 beats from the strap. For a sudden change in a heart rate strap is needed. I got an impression that during winter and cold less than -10C results were a little bit lower than usual i am thinking something aroud 10 beats per minute but when the temperature is above -5C it is quite OK.
I agree with lag. It exists (for me maybe approx 10 seconds), but this is not a big deal.
The main problem exist because first 10-40 (yes, to 40 minutes!!), M430 doesn't work properly if I use it on skin. It simply shows very low HR and then suddenly starts with a jump 🙂
Hi. Have any of you experienced the HR feedback stopping mid run? This has happened twice now once in a 6km run near the end and then on a 15km run at about an hour in. Nothing I did got it to refresh, took it off, dried my wrist and the sensor. Wrt my wrist and the sensor, loosened and tightened the strap 🙁 the other issue was GPS on medium accuracy added 4.5km onto a 46km race. I was testing it as I have a 90km race coming up and need the longer battery life but the accuracy was so bad I couldn't trust anything on the watch during the run. Looking on the route after the run I was barely on the road according to the watch and yet my running friends had not issues with other brand watches or the M430 on high accuracy. Surely the expected behaviour is not to be that inaccurate otherwise why offer the option?
Hello,
I have similar pb here in Hong Kong with temperatures over 30. Just walking on flat ground, and the HR is going to the roof top…sometimes over 200 and more, instead of about 95-100. It only happens on training mode, otherwise it is quite good. The funny part, comparing to you, I used it this winter in France, Alps with minus Temp, doing lost of winter activities, and except during one training and for a very short period, the watch was working very fine..???
Polar changed the mechanism, but then still the same pb, means this watch is totally useless in training mode. I gave up asking Polar to do something.
For training, I use the V800 + strap, all good and M430 for continious HR tracking and sleeping mode checking.
Was nice to find your comments, I am not alone… 😉
Cheers.
Yes, I have had both problems (unreliable HR, position on medium frequency of recording) with my M430.
In a recent 6 km run at fairly steady pace (HR should be 125-140), first 2.5 km HR reported was 115-120 then it switched to 170-185 for the remainder. My max HR is mid 170's (70 yr old).Temp was about +12C. Makes this watch useless for training.
Even worse. was the distance reported on 2 calibrated routes, with medium recording frequency of 30 sec. The watch reported distances of 5 to 10% more than true. Looking at the maps showing the apparent path indicated deviations off a straight line route of as much as 150m. On more recent runs I used high frequency (1 sec) and the apparent path was right on. This makes no sense, unless there is a bug in the software. Also makes the watch useless for a planned 9 hr run in Sept.
I'm not spiteful, but it is nice to see that there are many people with the same problem.
Interesting to see how the same product performs so differently on different people. My M430 works just great in HR recording. After reading this discussion I analyzed a series of reps with sharp pace increases. HR followed in max 5-6 seconds. Thus I am not sure that HR lag is intrinsically an issue for M430 as suggested. More, readings are immediately valid in my case (<<30s). Anyway, even if in principle the M430 may be great for some individuals, it is clear that it needed to be tested on more human types before launch. Uhm… I just recalled that they actually had some big problems with very dark skin, solved by a firmware update.
I don't have dark skin 🙂 and as I can see on web problems with dark skin is quite an old story?
My observation shows, that fat skin can be a problem. If my wife uses M430, it works as it should.
I bought the M430 yesterday and tried it first time today, indoor on a treadmill. All I can say is that EVERYTHING is wrong with this watch. I cannot believe the level of inaccuracy, and the Polar Flow app is completely useless and full of useless junk. I won't even bother writing what's wrong here, TOO MUCH, and I don't understand how anyone seriously and professionaly can praise this product..
@Kaiserslautern:
Sorry to hear that. And yes, M430 has some serious limitations.
I wish I read this before I bought my M430… 🙂 for years I was happy RS800 user, had to get new watch. Between Garmin 320 and Polar M430 I chose Polar, based on previous good experience. I bough it at the end of 2017 and at the beginning of 2018 it was sent for repair because of stucked in button, it wasn't possible to stop the workout.
Charging every second day, or even daily.
Can't stop planned workout immediately – it takes some 8-11 secs…
Can't plan workouts as I need. I used to set exact heart rates, not zones. Time by time 5 zones are not enough. And I don't like "to change zones" according the task.
GPS reading – well, it shows that I'm running on a path. But – when foot pod was used, my pace was more even. Now it is constantly vibrating that I'm going too fast or too slow even I don't change the pace (in case of short zone, like 4:00-4:05). As the watch is vibrating a lot, the battery gets empty very fast.
I don't like it is switching off vibration notification, GPS and HR (optical) itself. Once I got a notification that battery will go about 1 h, it was ok to finish the workout. But when there were 2 km to the end (about 11 min) it switched GPS off.
Pace zones. They work ok for slow paces, large zones. F.ex., 6:30 – 5:20. But they are really strange for faster, shorter zones. I had set zone 4:00-3:55 in an app. In the watch it was 4:00-3:56. Another time I set zone 3:40-3:34 (when I really need 3:40-3:35), as Polar is making it slower itself. On the watch it was converted to 3:40-3:36… Absolutely unpredictable.
Sorry to hear that, but I know your pain.
Nice post!
Garmin is my best-chosen sports watch. This watch is amazing for many good reasons. I found many health-related good things on this watch. Click here to read Garmin Forerunner 735XT Review.
Zanima me, ce je mozno podatke transportirati direktno v PPP, brez clouda. Sam imam S720/725, navajen sam na PPP, cloud se mi zdi povsem brezpotrebna komplikacija.
Misliš na Polar Personal Trainer?
Nisem povsem prepričan. Mogoče šele, ko enkrat sinhroniziraš podatke iz ure v Polar Flow (oblak). Takrat lahko izvoziš trening in ga (verjetno) lahko uvoziš v PPT.
Seveda to nima posebnega smisla, razen če Polar Flow nima katere od funkcij, ki jih uporabljaš.
Hi, congratulations for the review and all comments which I found quite interesting and accurate!
I also use M430 and have the kinds of problem described in the review:
I'm running in France in a hot and often wet place ( temperatures between -5° -> 40° ).
While I wear very large t-shirts for my run and temperatures are > 10 ° : m430 is accurate (except the lag).
But when the temperature goes down suddenly or when it's cold and I wear skinny tshirts, I got problems. I systematically lose hearth rate after warm up, when I start to accelerate, th m430 hr slowly goes down minutes after minutes, instead of raising up.
It's a bit frustrating in a training since the watch starts vibrating continuously.
When i'm not in training mode, it seems to work ok.
So I guess, the HR sensor doesn't like when I my veins suddenly retracts, or when I wear skinny t-shirts which may also influence my blood flow …
Thank you.
I agree with you. Whey I start to go to higher HR, then the problems begin.
It has been very well established that OHR sensors aren't very good. Not sure why you're surprised this watch is any diffrrent. Or did you not do resreach on OHR sensors before buying?
I knew that OHR isn't perfect. But I bought the watch even though 🙂
Same problem here. The HR reading was accurate for more than a year and now it's not for the first 5-10 minutes of training. I'm pretty sure it's related to the latest firmware. Let see if they release a new one…
Neuporaben kos opreme za tekača, ki ne teče samo enakomerne teke in to od pozne pomladi do zgodnje jeseni. Imel 2 M430 do zdaj, pa pri obeh isti problemi: pri teku v hrib najvišji puls ca 130 ( namesto pričakovanih recimo 170) in pri teku navzdol 160!!!! Ko da meri kadenco. Kot že prej objavljeno, Polar trdi, da je vse to normalno oz. da ni nič narobe. ni druge izbire kot prsni trak, kljub odrgninam.
I have a resting HR of about 45. If I start monitoring with M430 it seems to assume I am at 90. In order to get a correct reading I need to walk around and get above about 60, at which point it reads correctly then will settle down to 45 as I sit and relax.
( I have the same problem with Samsung S5 optical device which refuses to read anything under 50)
I have had a healthy diagnosis from a cardiologist.
Peter, se strinam …
Pozdravljeni. Tudi jaz sem kupila M430. Na začetku se mi je zdelo vse super. Zdaj sem pa pri kolesarjenju opazila, da pulz kaže povsem napačno. Recimo kolesarim po ravnem, kaže, da imam pulz 68 ali pa gonim v hrib na polno, pulz nekje okrog 100, namesto 160+. Ali pa en del vzpona s kolesom kaže dokaj ok, potem rahel spust, spet vzpon in pulz tam okrog 100, namesto 150+. Prej teh težav nisem opazila (uro sem imela prej vedno skrito pod rokavom). V mirujočem stanju pa je videt, da je pulz ok. Pri kolesarjenju pa čisto adijo. Je pa hladno te dni. Pri smučanju pa nisem opazila, da bi bilo kaj narobe, ampak itak sem imela uro skrito pod rokavom.
A je kdo vrnil uro v popravilo ali pa uveljavlal stvarno napako? Vidim pa, da vas ima dosti tako težavo kot jaz. A sploh komu ta ura ok deluje?
@Kolesarka – jaz sem jo dal na servis. Menjali so mi ploščo vendar posebne razlike ni bilo. Če uporabljam pas, je vse v redu. Merjenje utripa na zapestju pa je močno zgrešeno. Še najbližje je, če se držim tistih nasvetov, ki sem jih napisal v enem od prispevkov. Pa vseeno to ni to. Poskusil sem vzpostaviti kontakt s Polarjem, pa me ne jebejo.
I have no issues at all with my M430. Sometimes it can take about 3 mins to get an HR lock, else its good
Nice to hear.
Maybe more details – you are probably not fat? Skinny?
I got my M430 a couple of weeks on Amazon prime sale. Too good to pass up at 90 GBP even if I had doubts about optical sensors. Well, so far I've been pleasantly surprised to see how well it works. I wear the watch all the time (not just running) and the 24 hour HR monitoring seems to work well too. GPS is more accurate than my phone even running with some tree cover to one side. I had a TickrX chest strap before and that thing would never give proper HR readings for the first 10 minutes until I was nice and sweaty.
First problem was today: I just went for a walk and halfway through, M430 decided HR should be blank for the rest of the activity. After I was done walking, I stopped the activity recording and tried checking HR directly from the menu. HR was back, so it almost seems like a software bug.
Anonymous, thank you for your report.
In last months I always use a chest strap. It worked fine until some weeks ago when it started to have many inaccurate readings. I will test the strap, maybe it is too old for Polar (one year :-)).
New response to old discussion, Re: HR Straps and Polar Personal Trainer (about to be shut down permanently, and why it won't transfer)…
Wife has the M430… overall she's been pleased with it (had the M400 before with H7) and doesn't want to wear an HR strap. (I have a v800, so no worries there, always works great with H7 and H10 straps!)
Regarding HR strap and "not working right now"… their H7 straps, I've had 2 variants (the different clips)… they seem to "dry out" over time, requiring either adding conductive gel over time, and/or eventually just stopping working. The sensor is fine though, signal just isn't getting to it.
– Solution – a new strap (strap only, no sensor, runs $20 I think), will remedy that greatly. Use the newer H10 strap (same snap sensor connections as the older straps use, and/or get the H10 combo, it's a much better sensor overall, supports all 3 Polar/common standards (analog signal, BTLE, and now ANT+ as well), and the new strap is FAR superior to the H7 strap (wider surface area (reaches further around the body) for better contact and readings, and so far seems very reliable.
I've had the H10 sensor/strap combo for a few years now, and have zero dropouts and only the rare spike, still on the original (and it's been in lakewater, poolwater, runs, cycling, crossfit, etc.) CrossFit is brutal on keeping contact with all the various twisting and flexing motions of the chest/torso, but I have virtually no issues (other than knocking the sensor loose with a barbell once, and of course it contacts the floor on push-ups/burpees.) It works great across all sports I've done (the H7 strap had issues with CF in particular, more so as it aged).
Regarding Polar Personal Trainer exports to Flow. The original article comment is absolutely correct, Polar COULD HAVE allowed all the old data to transfer, with very little effort. I did the field matching, and estimated dev time, and storage space, to accommodate this, and it would have been very tiny in terms of resources.
To start with:
– Yes, there ARE legit reasons it won't transfer from a data perspective. I’ve analyzed the data and solutions.
Long story short, in the old system/devices, they did things "differently" which can't be mapped to the "Flow-cosystem" way of doing things. For instance, many older watches only had "3, user-customized or dynamic HR zones". But Flow uses 5 zones now. There is no way to map/know what "old zone out of the 3 you had back then" matches to the "new zones out of the 5".
Simple fix? Tell the user "your HR/Power/Pace/whatever zone data will not transfer to flow, but your simple HR, duration, and distances will transfer over, please export your data file for retaining the non-compatible information after we transfer what we can over).
Basically they have 3 choices, they can either
1. Transfer nothing (their actual choice) or;
2. Transfer the basics that can easily transfer that are universal, and drop the non-transferable items (seems to me like this would have been the "better" choice) or;
3. Build all the data fields from PPT, into Flow's database system, and then display only the matching fields for those appropriate devices that generated them (The "RIGHT" choice).
The coding would have been relatively trivial. Done properly and well-normalized, it would have actually made for a more extensible platform AND not caused users to have to export their data into "now-what?" land.
But that wasn't the choice they made, obviously (caused me to have roughly 6 years of non-transferable data).
They chose to "design something new" for Flow, and when the old stuff couldn't match exactly because of the new architecture changes, said "oh well" instead of "so how do we accommodate our users needs."
ChrisTexan, thank you for your interesting comment.
I can confirm that buying (and using) a new H10 strap is a solution "to go". It simply works without hassle.
Your detailed opinion about old data from PPT is correct. I work with databases and understand how it can be done. I simply can't understand why Polar decided to loose so many user's data without even try to convert them.
OK, a little late to the party but still.
Latest PPT patch (5.42.006) supports exporting data to flow.
File -> Transfer to Polar Flow…
It is pretty slow, it took about 30 min to transfer 11 years of my data. But it is all there.
@Zgemba:
Tnx, I will check it.
I usually shave my wrist under the watch before using M430 to measure optically the heart rate. In my understanding the optical sensor gets lost by body hair.
Body hair can be a part of the problem for some people.
Ok guys.I had the same problem especially during cold days but I solved it by doing exactly the opposite from what polar recommends.I stopped overtighten the strap !.I tightened it so much as it didn't move in my wrist but not more.A bit on the loose side.Obviously overtighten it stopped the blood flow…And the heart rate readings are back in place
Interesting to read. But it didn't work for me 🙂