Polar RCX5 Heart Rate Monitor (Red)

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Price: $486.57   

Product Feature

• Heart rate monitor offers numerous features and progress-tracking data; Sport Profiles let you switch between different sports; unit helps you improve performance with endurance training programs
• During your workout, you can see your heart rate info even in water, with comfortable and disturbance-free hybrid transmitter
• Smart Coaching features include Race Pace to help you cross the finish line in time, and ZoneOptimizer to help you train at the right intensity
• Polar RCX5 Comes with: Polar RCX5 training computer Polar WearLink �+ Hybrid transmitter Polar DataLink data transfer unit RCX5 Getting Started Guide
• Includes limited two-year manufacturer's warranty

Product Description

For triathletes, runners and endurance athletes.

Polar RCX5 Heart Rate Monitor (Red) Review

If you search for "Polar RCX5 In Depth Review" from DC Rainmaker (I read it but do not know this person), you'll find the most detailed review of any Polar product, showing both GPS features (though Polar has 3 different GPS modules). The reviewer has a lot of experience with GPS and other training devices, but this is his first Polar device using the *.HRM file format for PC connectivity.

As an unbiased user since 1998 (never received any discounts nor any other incentives), and more than a year testing Garmin Edge 500 and Forerunner 305, I can say that the Polar devices are slightly more difficult to set up, but far more flexible for many athletes. The DC Rainmaker reviewer uses hyper-rigid training programs planned in advance. Many people prefer something more flexible. Also, for cyclists out on the road, you do NOT want to have the entire ride programmed to such detail except for the most structured intervals. What you really want is to fuse both structured and unstructured intervals.

The beauty of the Polar products is that you can perform interval training at any time, not worrying about the lap button because you can easily reformat all of the reports after you download the raw data.

Let's say you are out riding and feel like attacking a certain hill. You then wonder, how long did that take me after all? By examining the features in the HRM file, you can assign a lap termination to any sample data.

Let me explain more; the Polar devices work by taking the user-controlled sample rate, anything from 1 second to 60 seconds, and it records the velocity, altitude, cadence, and heart rate. When you press the lap button, it creates a separate sample with all of that same data.

When you recap the data, you can delete or move the special lap buttons, and you can assign a lap indicator to any of the sampled data. So if you are sampling at 1 second (recommended if you connect your Polar device frequently enough to your computer), you can examine your performance without worrying so much about the special "lap sample data." The advantage of hitting the lap button is obvious I hope, but having the flexibility is great too.

The only thing I can't do that I have asked for is to have nested laps. As soon as you mark a subdivision, you lose the calculation in front and behind.

Let's say I have a hill that takes over half an hour to climb, and within that hill I also have sections that I want to hit really hard. These would be nested laps. If I take the lap button at each landmark, I have to manually calculate the sum of the entire hill, or I have to delete the intermediate laps to show the automatic calculation. No big deal, but it would be very useful to redefine laps as the metrics between any pair of lap markers, whereas now they are simply a single point, both terminating one calculate lap and starting the next. If each 'lap' was by definition, any pair of markers, you could leave all of your lap markers (as single samples) and define pairs of those markers as "laps."

Lap marker
Lap termination
Lap pair

So then I hit the lap button at all of the key point, but I might miss one. In the end, I fix the one I miss, then I take the pairs. Lap 1 is the entire hill, so that lap is lap-marker "A" and lap marker "Z." My next lap is the point between marker "B" (or "C") and "D" or whatever. According to the current scheme, I would have subdivided the hill. The laps can only currently be defined by adjacent markers. Any lap you add simply subdivides the adjacent markers you split when entering it.

If that's still confusing, go ahead and ask questions and I'll get back to you.

I'm not going to talk a lot about the redundant information from the DC Rainmaker review. What I suggest is actually to look at the Polar RS800 and CS600x, because these are the devices that can take the latest GPS, and have the best features for hosting *.HRM based files, which are required for the software features I advocate.

The CS600X is the only device that can use the cycling power add-ons (pedals from Look plus the existing chain tension calculator) AND GPS with HRM recaps (the CS500 only recaps summaries, but does not take sample recordings!), BUT it does not AFAIK take the running pod (stride pod). With GPS you can still measure speed of any exercise, but cadence is something athletes often want for running. It's a tough call as a triathlete; running pod or cycling power? This device, the Polar RCX5 does not accept cycling power either.

If you go to
[...]

web dot polar dot fi slash en slash products slash compare?product1=nid_7881

And choose the 3 devices, you'll be able to see in one table which is best for you. This model is probably the most flexible, but truly they each deserve consideration because each of them offer a bundle of features with the excellent *.HRM format (in addition to the GPS files, if you use that add-on). All can take cycling cadence, and it also helps to check frequently for an update, because it is not unknown for Polar to modify the selection by adding to the firmware and uprevving the model. The CS600X is an uprev from the CS600. The letters to the right of the numbers are always indicative of hardware bundles (like RS800CX) or uprevs, like the CS600X.

The only other caveat I have for Polar is not their fault. The Polar HRMs were literally the first portable heart rate monitors, and I believe also the first wireless models. The first model was a cassette recording that simply recorded the tone indicating the rhythm and then calculated back in the lab. The first wireless heart rate strap was a Polar product, and I can't be sure, but I think the first PC connected HRM was a Polar model. They definitely had the first PC connected cycling HRM (recording the HRM file format along with cycling cadence and velocity, which then calculates distance) and in the late 1990s they offered the S-series cycling HRMs with altitude added, and shortly after they offered the power metrics.

The point of all this is that there are a lot of users out there, and many of them purchased products knowing they bought "the best" but never figured out how to use them. I can't tell you how many times I have seen guys riding Polar HRMs with Ir ports, but did not know how to use it. I only know this when they tell me. As a consequence, you'll find lots of message threads posted at various web sites, including Polar's own "community" with unanswered questions. The web site is also not clear that the speed, cadence, GPS, power, running stride pod, and any other accessories are NOT universally usable on their devices. There are rational reasons for this, but they do not in my opinion make it clear while you are shopping that there are at least 3 divisions of products. The lowest cost are ordinary servos that transmit an uncoded tone to read. These can pick up adjacent servos from your cycling group (cyclists ride very close to each other). The next level up are coded to protect against this. All of the downloadable devices use coded servos. This makes a lot of sense. However (remember, Polar was the brand that created this market, others only followed) the next level of performance was desired and when the 2.4GHZ and higher spectrum became available, they created a new class of products used in the CS600, RS800 and now the RCX5. They can be mounted anywhere relative to the watch, you can leave it in your pocket, etc. They are really excellent and have to be "paired" before using them. This eliminates all crosstalk and dropouts. The data integrity is not near-perfect. Maybe it is perfect, I just don't like saying that.

There is one final caveat regarding these servos; the highest quality models seem to have to be sent in to have their batteries changed. In theory, anyone with the tools can do this, but it's not at all clear how you'd even open it! They seem waterproof, and seem sealed completely. I've not ever had to replace one in several years, but I've also tended to purchase new ones every 2 to 3 years. The heart rate strap was once the only device that required sending in for cell change, but they responded to the criticism, now offer a user-changeable cell, and it was in that iteration that they sealed the other servos! I believe only the cycling speed, and cycling cadence have this problem. The running pod, GPS, and power are all user-changeable.

I hope this helps.

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