Polar S150

Price Paid:  $80.00 at Performance Bicycle

Favorite Ride:
Mt Lemmon

Bike Setup:
Schwinn Peleton 2007. 58.5 cm. Its my first all carbon fiber frame, and I love it.

Summary:
Firstly I agree with previous reviews regarding the heart rate monitor function. If all you want is a heart rate monitor, then it serves its purpose, as far as a bicycle computer goes, if falls short in many areas.

Strengths:
The heart rate monitor works well, and of course during this function you can wear it on your wrist which makes it useful for other sports, crosstraining etc.

Weaknesses:
Too many to mention ! The installation was frustrating, I have a carbon fiber Schwinn Peleton, and the installation was a nightmare. The speed sensor didnt fit the front forks at all, and I had to use additional rubber and jerry rig the bracket. Suprise! The speed sensor kept failing, (a common fault with this product). If thats not frustrating enough, the screen is almost impossible to read with polarized eyewear, you have to tilt your glasses up or down to read the display, otherwise it looks totally black ! If your in early dawn or twilight, there's no backlight either. The buttons are cumbersome to use, they have very poor responsiveness, you usually have to push them several times. Trying to adjust my glasses, reaching down to adjust the speed sensor, pressing the buttons multiple times, all the while using a rather eloquent splattering of profane language served to raise my heart rate far beyond what I beleived to be possible, but it really wasnt what I had in mind. I get out of the hospital next Tuesday.

Similar Products Used:
I might go straight to the top and try the CS600, after this experience,.....I can hardly wait.

Price Paid:  $100.00 at Nashbar (I think)

Favorite Ride:
Mt. Greylock Century

Summary:
The S150 works quite well as a heart rate monitor. I bought this monitor mostly because it would track multiple heart rate zones.

As other reviewers have noted, to keep the heart rate alarms working properly you have to manually change the target zone during your ride. However, it will track the time in the target zone, and time above and below the target zone. So I did not find it necessary to manually change zones. (Though I did find it necessary to stop the thing from beeping at me!)

The cycling features I found to be cumbersome. Within the first year owning the unit, I had to get a new speed sensor from Polar. They were good about replacing, but that was a pain. As other reviewers have noted, the connects between the sensor and watch are a bit flaky. I also had the watch crash on me once, requiring a reset, losing all of my data.

I have since decided to go back to my CatEye Mity for cycle functions, but I still use the S150 for heart rate.

I recommend you either stick with a straight heart rate monitor and bike computer, or spend the extra money to get a higher end Polar.

Price Paid:  $80.00 at Performance

Favorite Ride:
Rist Canyon - Fort Collins

Summary:
What a disapointment. I swapped out my Sports Instrument for a Polar thinking it was an upgrade? For one - not intuitive to use as already mentioned. The kicker for me was on a 3 hour ride the HRM started a non-stop beep and froze up. Didn't matter what buttons you pushed it wouldn't stop. Two hours of beeping later and I made it home. I was only able to stop the beeping by reseting the watch and thus losing all my odometer miles etc. that I'd logged. And then to think Polar would take care of it? What a crock. Took three days just to talk to anyone - then it's the routine of ship it to us and we'll take a look at it while you sit on your thumb for two weeks. No thanks Polar.

Strengths:
None that I found. You can find much better for the money in my opinion.
Thanks to Performance for taking the POS back.

Weaknesses:
Doesn't work!
Customer Service from Polar is non-existent.

Price Paid:  $80.00 at BikeNashbar

Favorite Ride:
Pescadero Loop

Summary:
I bought the Polar S150 because it was the most heavily discounted HRM+bike computer out there. I thoroughly enjoyed the HRM especially being able to record my avg HR for the various sections of my ride. The S150 offers the possibilty for creating a tailored work by letting you specify three HR zones and the duration of time you want to spend in each zone. The watch will beep when the time for each zone runs out, letting you know you should move your HR into the next zone. You also need to press a button to indicate that you in fact switched to the next zone. Though this might be a cute feature for workouts on a trainer, my rides were far too unstructured for this to be of any use. I would have prefered for the HRM to simply record how much time I spent in each zone, rather than for me to manually have to switch between them by pressing buttons during my ride.

I never managed to get the bike mount to work. The connections on the back of the watch just would not line up with those on the mount. Instead of returning the unit like my wife, I used the Dremel tool to "re-center" the mount mold. This did not work and I destroyed the mount in the process, voiding my warranty within days of purchase. Boy do I feel stupid.

Strengths:
- Tells you your heart rate
- Records your "lap" time and avg/max HR for the "lap'

Weaknesses:
- Does not automatically detect heart rate zone
- Bike mount never worked for me
- Max heart rate not always recorded correctly
- Interference is common when close to power lines
- Can't download workout files
- Other reviews here seem to discuss HRMs other than the S150

Price Paid:  $80.00 at Performance

Bike Setup:
Trek5200- Ultegra 9spd

Summary:
I bought this for the Polar name but returned it in 30 days because of multiple issues. For one it gave lots of false readings, anything would throw the HR reading off from Power poles to jersey flapping and sometimes no reason at all and this is not interference from other riders. My cheap $40 db500 from Performance works much better. I also tried the Polar210 which did not have as much false reading (maybe b/c of own code.
the other problem was in order to measure the time spend in each zone, you manually have to change the zone to the range you think you'll be at, this means while you're riding you either only measure 1 zone, or to get 3 zones you constantly have to push buttons based on where you're HR is at, USELESS! The Polar210 and my $40 db500 do not do this!
- the buttons are very hard to press and the functionality is not user friendly and i am a techie!
- you will inadvertantly press the red button after a ride every once in a while and lose you detailed data. need multiple files.
no PC interface. and the Soniclink is not much use.
and to top it off, you need to send it to Polar for a battery change.
after struggling with this HRM for a couple of weeks, I returned it and bought the $40 db500 which works perfectly and it costs the same as a battery replacement for the Polar, so i'll just buy another one if this goes bad and still be ahead. Last but not least the whole Polar S-series is ugly, why can't they make them look more like the F-series?
i never used the bike functions since i have a bike computer.

Strengths:
- lots of functionality and data if it works.
- Polar website has lots of data and they are the

Weaknesses:
- false readings on almost every ride
- can measure only 1 zone unless you manually change zones.
- the dreaded red button will be pushed by mistake and erase your ride data
- battery replacement expensive thru Polar
- Ugly- i would never wear this unless i'm riding which means i will not wear even for the day to enter the data into computer later.

Similar Products Used:
Polar210- If you want Polar this is the cheapest model you want to go with
db500(Performance)- cheap and works great, this is what i use now!
Timex 50lap Marathon- only 1 Zone