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Gentle reminder that you should not use this as an excuse to buy things imo. I see too many people just replacing perfectly good items. It's much better if there's an anti consumption stance (use what you have, repair, buy used, buy, local, buy regionally) in that order.
As an addition: tech from American companies should be replaced. You can't trust it. Android (as it exists in the Google ecosystem) is spyware, same with iOS. If you can't replace those operating systems with your own (which is usually possible but complicated) then it's really not a good idea to have them in your home.
Yeah my response to all the news telling me that "cost will be passed on to consumers" is to just not be a consumer, especially where I don't have to be. "consuming" implies that you're destroying the item in the process, and mostly we end up doing exactly that. It's understandable for food, but vehicles? appliances? technology? We need to get way better about not just finding ways to sustain, repair and reuse older things, but also we need to be holding companies to account when they make that difficult (and they do!)
Right to repair is a step in the right direction, but we also need the right to easily repair, we need the right to have items that are not designed to fail in the first place, that do not have value engineered weak points and planned obsolescence and this culture of making things so cheap they are disposable. We are encouraged to do this by companies that do not have our best interests at heart, only their own profits. And even if we like it this way, we need to stop, it's unhealthy for us, for the planet, and for the future.
Oh yes definitely!
Exactly, if you already have American stuff that doesn't depend on them making still money on it right now, no need to replace it ASAP. Buy when it breaks or need to change, don't buy American again.
Garmin is very good privacy wise as I understand. How is polar in that regard?
https://believeintherun.com/gps-run-tracking-privacy-policies/
Polar is based in the EU, which has the strictest privacy laws in the world under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). However, this only applies to data subjects within the EU, so if youโre using a device in the United States, youโre not covered by the GDPR (even if youโre a European citizen). The likely reason Joe Rogan received an updated notice agreement was because he was within the EU borders at the time. Companies based within the United States also must comply with GDPR data protection when gathering data from European data subjects.
Does Polar sell your data? No. According to Polar, โthe data is used only to offer you the service in question, nothing else. Polar does not disclose, give or sell your data to anyone unless [they] are required to do so pursuant to a mandatory provision of law. [They] may use some of the data in research and development work to improve [their] services, but for such purposes data is cleared from identifiers to the maximum amount possible.โ
According to their policy, data is transferred outside your country of origin because they need the data to give you accurate training metrics and recommendations. All their servers are based in Finland, Ireland, and Sweden, so your information only goes to those servers, all under the EU/EEA umbrella. When transferred, โYour data will not be disclosed or given to any third parties; it is still under Polarโs control and under your ownership.
Now, data may be transferred to Polarโs subcontractors that carry out tasks related to Polar, though it doesnโt say who those contractors are or where they are located.
The good news is that you have a lot of rights under their policy, including access to the personal information they have on you, the right to object to the handling of personal data, and the right to refuse profiling and automated decision-making. There are far more rights granted by Polar than other companies.
Love how even digital clocks are still set to 10:08 on all promotional materials. It's become a standard because that way the hands are facing up, are symmetrical and don't cover the company logo on analog clocks.
I guess there's value to all digital clocks showing the same digits to easily compare fonts etc, but it's neat they keep the 10:08 thing alive.
Isn't Garmin based in switzerland?
According to wikipedia:
Headquarters
- Olathe, Kansas, U.S (operations)
- Schaffhausen, Switzerland (legal domicile)
I'm not really sure if that fully counts as EU/European ๐คท
How does their software compare to Garmin?
Are you missing any features moving over?
Can you take your previous data from Garmin (.fit files iirc) and import them to fill out your "stats"?
Not op, but as a long term polar user...
Their software is OK. I wouldn't call it top tier. What I would call top-tier is their device APIs - I have a polar h10 for example, which I made my own HR monitoring app for in a matter of hours.
The big difference, IMO, is polar is very friendly to 3rd party apps and devices first and foremost, while Garmin I personally feel is Garmin first, then 3rd party friendly. Just my opinion.
So with that, since its so easy to use other tools with them, you dont need to import to polar software. That said, polar works with tcx and gpx which can be converted to .fit easily, couldn't tell you on the other way around.
Hope this helps answer
Thanks for the info. I won't be jumping ship anytime soon as long as my current Garmin works fine but it is good to know for when this watch eventually bites the dust. I've always seen Polar but never really looked into them at all.
No problem! And thats not to say I don't have my gripes.
We originally got the h10 for horse hr, the app they made for that is... Garbage. Which is one of the reasons I made my own app initially. Thats not the same as the regular "for people" app, Polar Beat, which works nicely but its simple and meant to send to third party services through their site IMO.
The M450 I have (bike computer) has also been running strong for like a decade, though the buttons could have better placement IMO.
I also replaced the strap with a 3rd party one that I like a lot more.
This is an example of one of my sessions from the polar beat app:
For me, I really like them overall, I think they have some shortcomings but nothing that would have me looking at competitors again without good reason.
I have been considering a bike computer for a while but for the most part my watch has been sufficient for my needs, I didn't realise they made them as well. Might have to have a look into them.
Thanks for taking the time to screen shot the app too, funnily enough I actually recognise that as a friend of mine sends me screen shots from time to time when we are talking about workouts but he must crop the logo at the top off as I never realised that was a polar interface!
It would be awesome if Polar was supported by GadgetBridge, because then you could have fully offline and private control of the device.
GB recently got Garmin support and it's pretty solid. I switched from the Garmin app to GB exclusively and haven't lost really any features. Besides the social networking, but that omission is a feature, not a bug.
If it's really 3rd party friendly, I wonder how easy it would be to get support.
To be fair, the polar H10 uses the Bluetooth heart rate profile which is very widespread and already built into many dev libraries like zephyr.
Polar seems indeed very good with data export, probably coming from the fact that they were first a research company so being able to export data is very important!
100% on using BT hr, I think that it shows that it was an intentional choice though. Even their H7 was a BT sensor as well, and that (along with the m450) was over 10 years ago - and while it came with the m450, it was early BLE (at the time, "Bluetooth Smart").
I'd have to agree that it was an intentional design choice that pairs with their roots, this is one of the reasons why I've been a fan for so long.
Not that I would ditch a Garmin if I had one just to switch, but I'd definitely say polar should be in the running when someone does need hardware.
Not Bluetooth in general. There are specific Bluetooth or BLE profiles instituted by the Bluetooth SIG that makes standards on how to format certain data so that it can be universally read as long as a device supports that profile. There are BLE profiles for SPO2, activity tracking (that nobody uses because they all use proprietary crap because it is faster to implement), as well as audio and like 50 different niches that Bluetooth is used in. It's quite cool.
Though I didn't realize that polar actually were the people driving getting it adopted! https://www.bluetooth.org/docman/handlers/downloaddoc.ashx?doc_id=239865 it was adopted in 2011 so maybe they even pushed for it specifically because of the m450
I know, I'm pointing out that they were early adopters with Bluetooth smart (now BLE), leading from the m450 & h7 to the h10.
Thereโs also suunto, which is Finnish
Suunto is owned by Chinese company Liesheng. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suunto
Good to know, Polar shall be my Garmin replacement I recommend going forward. I was otherwise also recommending Suunto
Sadly not anymore. Owned by the chinese since 2022
Noooo!
I plan to get one of these watches this year for running, biking and swimming. I was planning on getting some kind of Garmin as I understand I can use those without any account and hook it up to Gadgetbridge, but reconsidering now. What are the options for Polar? I would not want a Polar account either, regardless of them being based in EU.
Polar is not supported by Gadgetbridge (yet?), you can find the supported devices here.
Normally I would advice Bangle.js, but it is not great for swimming.
Good share, I probably switch to them when my Instinct 2 dies. Which they had a monochrome option through.
I've been using the polar chest HR strap for a few years, it's been great
No contactless payment feature unfortunately. Polar watches need a special wristband for that.
Garmin Pay supports only american cards anyway. There's much more options for contactless European payments using your phone and bank apps.
Debit Mastercard is pretty much the only game in town around here.
I just wish that Polar had a bit better quality.
I can't speak to their current products, but my M400 is still going strong after 10 years of daily use. My wife's Garmin stopped holding charge after 2 years.
Polar's app leaves something to be desired, though.