ZDNET Highlights
- The Polar Loop is available in three colors for $199.99.
- The band is very comfortable, the heart rate readings are accurate and the sleep tracking is useful
- The app doesn’t align well with this type of wearable, there are no alarms, and there can be a slight delay in automatic tracking.
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It seems that in the world of 24/7 activity tracking, what’s old is new again, as we’re seeing a resurgence in the availability of fitness bands that have no display and offer a distraction-free approach to measuring key health and wellness metrics. Polar has long set the standard for optical heart rate monitoring, and it brings its latest heart rate technology into one simple tracker with new polar loop,
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Smart rings have dominated the distraction-free fitness arena for the past few years, and we now have major fitness brands offering alternatives to the Whoop Band but without the subscription fee. Amazfit’s recent Helio strap is very popular, and a new band from Garmin focuses on measuring your sleep in a more comfortable form than a smartwatch.
works with polar watch
Like the Amazfit Helio strap, the Polar Loop works in conjunction with your Polar smartwatch, so if you have focused activities where you want to capture your location via GPS, measure details like laps, or connect to other sensors like a bike cadence sensor, you can use your Polar watch for advanced activity tracking.
I’ve been running, walking, working in the yard, sleeping, working out, and more along the Polar Loop for a few weeks now. September was a crazy month for me dealing with a lot of family matters, so wearing the Polar Loop and focusing on life instead of my wrist was a breath of fresh air.
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A small module measuring 27 mm x 42 mm x 9 mm in thickness attaches to a very comfortable fabric band with a total weight of only 29 grams. Polar includes both a small and a medium/large band in the box with a loop charger. The Polar Loop has a Bluetooth radio to connect to your smartphone and lasts up to a week between charges.
closely matches other watches
The Polar Loop Generation 3.5 relies on an optical heart rate sensor and accelerometer to collect key metrics while you wear it. Unfortunately, this is a generation older than the sensor we see on the latest Polar watches. The metrics captured by the Polar Loop include your heart rate, step count, sleep details, training load pro, and inactivity.
Polar Loop has no GPS, but if you start a training session on your phone and take your phone while completing an outdoor activity, the GPS location tracking will sync with data collected by Polar Loop after you complete your activity.
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Given that I wanted to let the Polar Loop track my life with minimal interference, I let the Loop automatically detect my activities and track metrics without manually starting or stopping the session on the Loop or my phone.
Most of the time, Polar Loop showed my activity as Other Indoor or Other Outdoor. I was able to easily convert these to running, indoor rowing, walking, and other more accurate activity descriptions.
The Polar Loop’s results pretty much match other smartwatches when it comes to heart rate and calories burned. The times were slightly off from actual, activities like indoor rowing appeared shorter than actual because the loop was not picking up speed when I started rowing slowly during the warm-up phase, and the time spent running seemed longer because I usually walk a bit after the run to cool down and get back home.
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I spent several days at my mother-in-law’s house doing yard work, moving furniture, and working hard to stay active, so many of these periods of activity with a heart rate over 100 bpm were automatically captured by Polar Loop as were other indoor activities. I had to turn off my automatic Strava sync because it was depleting my Strava account, but it was nice to capture activities like this that weren’t typical fitness workouts and still contributed to my health and well-being.
refreshing
Polar has excellent Series of articles in Polar Journal The focus is on the new Polar Loop, and I highly recommend reading them. I particularly related to the Running by Feel article which brought me back to my teenage years of running when I would go out and run without any type of watch or device to track my performance. This was also in the early ’80s when there weren’t a lot of options, and it was still thrilling to get out and run.
When I wasn’t testing the Loop against other devices, it was refreshing to run with the Loop and my running shoes. I didn’t wear headphones and listen to music that I find motivating, but instead I enjoyed the beauty of the world around me and listened to the sound of my body to guide me with my running pace.
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The smart rings function similarly to the Polar Loop, and one element of the rings that I find useful is the assessment of key health metrics that have indicated when I’m starting to get sick. The Polar Loop provides good signals when it comes to sleep status and training load, but I don’t see much in the way of guidance when it comes to overall well-being, so I don’t think it’s ready to completely replace the smart ring.
The Polar Flow app and website focus a lot more on training guidance, and Loop is more about health and wellness, but I understand there are major updates in the works to the app, so this should be a welcome update for Loop owners.
There’s no alarm feature on the Polar Loop, so while you can accurately track your sleep with it, you’ll need another device to serve as an alarm. There is also no skin temperature sensor, so some of the health metrics found on the Amazfit Helio strap and smartwatch are not available.
ZDNET’s shopping advice
polar loop is a wearable device that provides optimal sleep tracking with a subtle, comfortable wristband and automatically captures key metrics while you work out. Heart rate sensor performance is accurate, and the band lasts up to a week between charges. It’s quite affordable at $200, and no subscription is required to enjoy all of Polar Loop’s tracking features.
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