Polar WearLink Nike Plus, Transmitter Set HR

After lots of research and reading tons of reviews I decided to give the transmitter a try. It hooked up to my Nike + sports band in a matter of seconds after taking it out of the box. Just make sure your foot sensor is not near when you set it up as stated on the Nike site. Other wonderful thing is if you go to the gym to work out you do not need to have any other sensor because most newer machines will pick up your monitor without you even having to hold the sensors. If you want to workout on the street then you will need some kind of reader like the Nike + item or watch.The strap is comfortable and it fit around me (chest is 42 around) with plenty of room. You hardly know it is there and you can just use water to set the sensor up at first and then sweet will take care of the rest. I found it to be very accurate even more so than the machine only, plus with the sensor I can keep track of the heart rate while lifting weights. The calorie amount burn from heart rate is more accurate than the machine which are know to over estimate.

With a drawer full of old tech fitness trackers/monitors, I ordered this HR monitor to replace both my Cardiosport HR band for the Landice L8 treadmill and something to work with the Nike+ sports watch and shoe cadence sensor. This HR monitor chest strap, although coded, works with the Landice treadmill and the sports watch simultaneously. Landice wants about $100 for the replacement (commercial) Polar T34 non-coded HR chest strap (Polar T31 is the non-commercial version with a shorter range), both are disposable due to the non-changeable battery. The 5.4 kHz frequency is what Landice treadmills operate on.The drawback to this (old tech) HR strap is that the transmitter snaps into the front and then one band end clips into a flimsy nylon tab at the opposite end of the strap. I tried using my older ANT+ Wahoo Soft HR strap by snapping the Polar transmitter into the two buckle ends of the strap and learned that the Polar HR transmitter attached to the Wahoo strap will transmit to both the sports watch and treadmill as with the original Polar strap.I've learned that the Wahoo Soft ANT+ HR monitor and the Wahoo ANT+ shoe stride sensor provide a very accurate HR and pace/distance combination for use on a treadmill (though no connectivity with the treadmill).I've recently returned the Wahoo TICKR RUN HR monitor after being displeased with it's ability to provide a respectable pace/distance (after calculations), nor a suitable HR calculation, too many fluctuations. I'm a big Nike+ fan, though after talking with the Nike+ rep, he said the Nike+ gear (shoes) are all part of something else now and basically obsolete.It would be great if the fitness businesses would get inline and figure out one system that works well for all components, rather than going in opposite directions and putting out a bunch of betta equipment that ends up in a drawer.

Links just fine with Nike+ SportWatch GPS Powered by TomTom (Black/Volt) as well as the cardio equipment in my local gym (and can talk to both at the same time). Seems accurate enough, or at least self-consistent (I have no way to cross-check, but displayed BPM agrees with my sense of level-of-effort, and is consistent across runs). I don't think it's revolutionized my training or anything, but it's another piece of data and the graphs are pretty (the elevation profile of a run, alongside heartrate and pace, gives you a pretty good story of how your workout went).Be aware that this will *not* communicate with the Nike+ app on smart phones; don't let the branding mislead you, the sensors only talk to the watch.The band doesn't really feel constricting when running; wetting it before each run is a bit of a hassle but not as cold as I'd worried it would be (and sweat handles it after that). In a little over a month of running with it, I've had the latch pop open once - it was raining pretty heavily that day, and my shirt might have been dragging against it, but I wouldn't want that to happen if I was wearing this in a race. Otherwise, it's been easy to attach, has always linked immediately with the watch, and basically no problems.

Call Polar before you buy this.This quote here is misleading."Provides heart rate information to nikeplus.com web service with compatible Nike+ devices, 5th generation and above iPods and the iPod nano"I ordered this, and after waiting patiently (okay not so patiently) for it to arrive to my surprise my iPhone 4s would not link with the device. For whatever reason this sensor does not work with iphones, but will it work with iPods (I can't figure out what the nano has that the iPhone doesn't).More then that the tech said that the device will only work with some Nike branded nike+ devices but not all. So all i can say is check with polar before you buy.Polar - if you are reading this, you need to fix your labeling, and i would strongly suggest updating your website and making a compatibility checker.I ordered the polar wearlink H7 which is supposed to work with iphones and polar watches according to that tech.this was my first call to tech support in many years, so i am not some confused tech newbe, but i sure am confused by polars specifications.Update (7/24/2013):I received the H7 version of this device, and based on its performance I am going to update this to 3 stars, the shape, size, and strap are comfortable to run in, and it works. However i will specifically review the H7 to be fair to polar and their products.For my comments on the H7 device please go here.Polar H7 Bluetooth Smart Heart Rate Strap