The smartwatch and fitness wearables industry is still up and running despite the fact that nothing really new has been released lately by any of the OEMs still active in the market. Polar, which they say has been in the wearable sports and fitness technology industry for 40 years has now released a new mid-range GPS fitness watch called Polar Ignite. Targeting athletes and fitness enthusiasts, the wearable has features like sleep analysis and personalized and adaptive training guidance for several different sports and activities.
Aside from the usual things that a fitness tracker brings, Polar Ignite has a few more extra tricks up its sleeves or more appropriately, wrist. It has an optical heart rate monitor called Precision Prime, trademarked by Polar, which is the only technology that integrates three sensor types, making it one of the more accurate and reliable trackers for “continuity’s heart rate measurement and 24/7 activity tracking”.
Polar’s Sleep Plus, which was validated as one of the more accurate sleep monitor features in the market, has now been improved with Sleep Plus Stages. Aside from offering information about how long (or short) you sleep and what quality sleep you have, it also now tells you how you cycled through light, deep, and REM sleep stages. It condenses all that information and gives you a Sleep Score which should be able to tell you how well or not well you slept and then help you develop better sleeping habits.
Bringing it another notch higher is a feature called Nightly Recharge which interprets your Sleep Score and then combines it with daily recovery information from your body, then give you personalized tips so you can adjust your lifestyle to become better rested. You also have FitSpark, a personalized daily training guide for athletes depending on their training history, fitness level, and the Nightly Recharge measurement.
Polar Ignite has a lot of other new features across multiple sports and other things like Serene (breathing exercises), Running Index, Running Program, Swim Metrics, etc. The wearable is now available in their online store and the black and silver version with thermoplastic polyutherane wristband costs
€199.90/£174.50 while the white & silver and yellow & black with a soft silicon wristband costs $229.95/€229.90/£199.50.
