Introducing Polar Beat. The smartphone app that shows that you’re serious about training! If you use a Polar Heart Rate Monitor, you will love Polar’s smartphone app, Polar Beat. It puts the functions of your Heart Rate Monitor on your iPhone 4s or 5.
All you will need is:
The Polar H7 transmitter
iPhone 4s or 5
Why the iPhone 4s & 5? Because bluetooth 4 is required.
In the Polar Beat app, you will be able to see the history of your training sessions as well as your personal best training sessions.
In weekly summary, you will find current and previous training in the bigger picture.
It shows you:
How many training sessions you had for the week
How much total time you spent training
Distance of your Running or Cycling
How many total calories you burned for the week
What percentage of body fat your burned
How long you stayed in each sport zone
Target lets you set up how you will train for that workout session. There are 7 preset target training sessions to use. Once you have reached any of the target training sessions that you set, an audio alert will let you know that you have accomplished your goal! It won’t stop recording your information if you go beyond, but it will alert you to your accomplishment.
You will even be able to set your sport that you are training in for the day. This will tell the app what information you need recorded. If you are playing tennis, squash, badminton, strength training, you won’t need the GPS, so using these settings will keep the GPS from activating on your iPhone. In case the sport you are training in is not listed and you still don’t need the GPS, you can choose Other Indoor (No GPS). If you are cycling, running or training in any other sport that uses the GPS, Polar Beat will do the mapping for your training session as well as your heart rate graph that will show your heart rate for every leg of the run or ride.
If you are unsure on how to get started training with Polar Beat, Polar even has a video on how to get started and using the features of of Heart Rate Training.
Don’t forget to sign-up for Polar Personal Trainer. That is where you will be able to sync and view all of your training sessions on any Mac or PC.
Summary
Pros
I love the Polar Beat app. I use it with my iPhone5 with no issues in regards to connection to my transmitter or GPS.
It keeps a wealth of training information on your arm, belt or handlebars.
I wear straps when doing heavy lifting so I prefer this as opposed to my Polar watch. I can wear it on my arm band without worrying about it getting damaged.
I always have my iPhone with me, so even if I’m traveling and forget my transmitter and strap, I can still go for a run and have all of my GPS information recorded. All of the information is transferred over the air to my Polar Personal Trainer account.
Cons
You have to purchase the smart coaching part of the app for $4. It’s an in-app purchase. I did end up downloading it because I like all of my information when I train, I found it useful and worth the in-app purchase price of $4.
Here is a quick video that will explain the smart coaching: energy pointer feature.
Here is a quick video that will explain the smart coaching: training benefit feature.
Do you use a smartphone based GPS? What features do you enjoy about it the most?
Erick is a SKORA Ambassador and athlete with Rheumatoid Arthritis. You can see his inspirational story and progress here.