Product Review: POLAR FT60 Heart Rate Monitor

 

The first generation of the FT60 was a decent to good heart-rate monitor. It has a lot of functions that the less expensive polar monitors do not (at least at the time the first version of this came out), such as a Bluetooth connection, workout tracking capabilities, and the ability to track weight with the polar balance scale. It does require the use of the chest strap which, in the era of Fitbit, Apple Watch, and similar devices that have even more functionality than this, is definitely a drawback. Especially since it can sometimes be a pain to pair with the chest strap. There are a few big drawbacks to it, however.

First, the menus can be a pain to navigate and require pushing the buttons over and over to get to what you want.

Second, the watch strap is very flimsy. I went through three of them in a short period of time. Basically, the unit popped out of the watch strap (which you have to do to charge it). The strap was made of cheap silicon, and eventually at least one of the holes for the buttons would tear, and once one did the one next to it would soon follow, and then you had to replace the strap. Luckily you can find replacement straps for a reasonable price, but the quality control (again at least on the first version) was not great.

Third, the charger was totally proprietary. When you take the unit out of the watch strap, the bottom of it protrudes and that plugs into the charging cable. So, if you misplace the cable you are screwed as you cannot just plug a micro-USB cable into it. There were also times when it would not charge and you had to drain the battery all the way down until it shut itself off in order for it to start charging again.

Lastly, it was a total pain to pair with the Polar App on an Android phone. When I first had the watch I had an Andriod phone and this rarely ever paired with the phone through the app to get the workout information into the app on the first try. Once I switch to an iPhone it paired with the Polar App just fine, but for whatever reason, I constantly had to close the app, unpair the watch from my phone, re-pair the watch with my phone, then open the Polar App again to get it to work.

So, when everything worked the way it was supposed to, I really liked this. But, when things went off the rails, it was a pain. Hopefully, the newer models fixed some of the issues I experienced, but I would definitely avoid getting the first-generation model of this.