Not a bad HRM for the money

I purchased the Polar F1 Heart Rate Monitor about 3 years about for running. I was initially very disappointed in the only feature it seemed to come with, the start button. You really have to apply force to get it to start. After about 6 month, the button loosened up and became easier to use. I knew when I bought it there was supposed to be an average HR feature but I couldn’t ever active it. After the button loosened up that feature began to work. To activate it you have to hold down the button for 3-5 seconds after the workout and it will give you total time and average HR. For running the watch was perfect. When I started to bike though there were problems.

Cycling:
When I have my hands on my handlebars, the watch only periodically picks up my HR and often it shows something ridiculously low unless I hold it near my body for a few seconds. When I’m on the stationary bike I just attach the watch to the handlebars as close to my body as I can. This gives me the ability to at least get an average after the ride is over, even if I can’t read it while riding.

HR Pickup:
After using the Garmin Edge 305 I realized the pickup problem with the Polar is pretty specific to Polar. The contact pads need to be damp to get a good reading. Since I usually work up a sweat when wearing it, this hasn’t been a problem. If you want to get a reading while you’re warming up though, you need to put some water on the contact pads before you put them on. Some heart rate monitor gel is available for this purpose, but a little water works just as well.

Cross Talk:
Picking up someone else’s heart rate monitor with your watch is supposedly a pretty common problem. That’s why some of the more expensive units tout encoded signals. I haven’t had any trouble though. I haven’t used this unit in a marathon but I have used it at the gym where the person next to me had a Polar HRM also. Neither of us saw a problem. This may be a problem when you get the watch closer to their monitor than to your own (like in a race situation).

Over all this is a good unit for running. When you’re getting involved in other sports though, you’ll probably have to look at nicer units.