A week with Polar Flow

I've had my Loop for a whole week and it's been interesting looking at the data. The is very simple to set up. It has only 3 options when it comes to your activity level and goal setting as far as I can see. I chose "Mostly Moving" from the list and the software set a few parameters automatically from the information I supplied (max. heart rate, aerobic and anaerobic heart rates, VO2 max). There is a fitness test you can do to get a better VO2 max by the looks of things, but I haven't explored that yet.

You can also pair a heart rate monitor with the Loop. I have a monitor, but I've only used it once and I paired it with Polar Beat on my iPhone. I might try pairing it with the Loop while playing tennis one day just to see what happens with my heart rate over the course of a single match.

I charge the Loop each evening at the end of the day and put it back on just before I go to sleep so that I get the data for sleep. There isn't much information about how the Loop collects the data and what algorithms are used to analyse it and how accurate you can expect it to be. After a week, I'd suggest that it provides a reasonable reflection of how active you've been but some of the numbers are less accurate than you might want them to be. The only evidence I have for that comes from comparing the steps taken as recorded by a simple pedometer and by the Loop. My pedometer is an Omron Walking Style II. I've been using one of these for years to record my daily steps. Comparing the two devices the difference is quite significant.

	Pedometer	Loop	Difference
Friday	11933	14918	2985
Saturday	12978	18469	5491
Sunday	12974	17050	4076
Monday	14779	22373	7594
Tuesday	16168	26273	10105
Wednesday	13345	18875	5530
Thursday	11946	16217	4271
Total	94123	134175	40052

The Loop consistently records more steps than the pedometer. Now that is probably due to the fact that you wear it on your wrist and it must therefore be influenced by the movement of the wrist. The magnitude of the difference might well be a reflection of the amount of tennis I play!

Once you've synchronised the Loop with either the desktop app or the mobile app you get an analysis of your data in numbers and pictures.

The graphical image gives you an overview of the day and shows you when you've had an inactivity alert. The two in the image here are when I was in the car. The heart symbol indicates a time when a heart rate monitor was in use.
As you can see, activity is broken down into 5 categories from lying down to running. The hatched area is when the Loop was charging and therefore not being worn. The small hatched area at around 1:00am is a mystery!

There's also a summary in the form of a table.


Knowing how much sleep you get is good, but I have no idea whether the restful sleep figure is meaningful or not. And the inactivity stamps are okay, but it would be nice to get some sort of alert via the Loop or maybe even via the 'phone app.

Polar have two web based applications that you can access for free. Polar Flow is where you get to see all your data and the personal training website, polarpersonaltrainer, is also available for doing more detailed training management.

I quite like my Polar Loop, but if I were wanting to get significantly more serious about monitoring my training and progress I'd probably be wearing something with more functions. But, if you're interested in getting a broad picture of your activity level and need something to give you a little motivation to get out and do some exercise, then the Loop is a great gadget if you like gadgets.