Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Running Diary 0038: Revolutionary sport watch, wearable market killer, Polar V800

8 Jan 2014, 23C, sunny.
12.4km in 1:36. The easy pace was not so easy. I felt sluggish so after 8km I accelerated ~1km, at the pace below 5min/km. It was like Fartlek. And I think there was be no stress since no repeating. Just to relax the stress came from monotonous movement.
During lunch one colleague showed me a news of Polar's new sports watch V800. Later I checked DC Rainmaker's blog for the comprehensive preview. It is a revolutionary sports watch with its breaking new feature. First it is the first wearable smart watch that independent of a smart, unlike Magellan Echo, Pebble, Gaxy Gear etc. It has it's own GPS, computer and can work without the presence of a smart phone. Second, it is first GPS sports watch not only recorded Swim Bike Run, but also integrated with activity tracker, infringing another wearable market just developed by Nike Fuelband and FitBit. Third, it armed with Bluetooth Smart (less power drain during communicating with sensors and smart phones) and has a astonishing extended battery life of 50hrs, which is only come with two other brands' flagship products: Garmin Fenix and Suunto Ambit. I'm also interested in the Smart Coaching function by analyzing recorded HR data. It is more useful that Garmin FR620's Vo2max analysis. For endurance sports, fatigue and recovery analysis are more key indices. Polar is more professional that Garmin in this field. And in his review, Rainmaker marked V800's GPS signal receiving as "awesome". It was a leap-attack to Garmin.
Polar was aggressive and ambitious, it combined all key points of a sports watch the customer desired, unlike other manufacturer who want to separate in several product line. I'm love to see it.
The only thing I regretted with this piece was it's display. It was still a cheap TFT display used in a outdated smart phone, with a glaring glass that make it unreadable under sun. I will not recommend to use colored display or touch screen that introduced by Garmin 620/220. Any serious runner/ triathlete knows it's useless.  I only recommend to use E-ink technology used in E-books like Kindle. High quality display without glare and power saving.
Looking forward more manufacturer listening to the customer and introduce more device like Google Glass, Polar V800 to the market.

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