Questions about my Polar S725

Triathlon Forum
1

I picked up a Polar S725 through the classifieds and have a few questions for the users of this model:
I mounted the speed sensor on the bike and it seems like the watch will pick it up if I’m in the drops and or on the bullhorns braking and the watch is still on my wrist. I would rather not put the bike mount on the bike so that I can just wear the watch for the swim, bike and run and not have to worry about taking it off and putting it on the bike mount. Do many people do this and does it seem to work well without losing signal from the sensor. How accurate is the altitude tracker? I have compared it to mapmyride.com but I question that sites accuracy as well. Will any irDA work to download data from the watch? If so, will the software show you a graph that shows speed, altitude and hr (like ones I’ve seen from the Garmins) all at once?
Seems like a great training tool, plenty of monitor for what I want to do with it that’s for sure.
Thanks

2

I’ve tried mine many different ways and the most reliable is mounted. Unfortunately you will lose the signal when moving your wrist from the ~3 feet bubble and you will miss a collection interval or two depending on how you have it set (i.e. I have mine at 5 sec and i lose one or two depending on if i’m drinking or “eating”) but it will pick back up without any problems once in range. The altitude sensor works on pressure altitude so it will vary from day to day depending on the weather conditions ( high or low pressure system, cold morning turning to warm/hot afternoon, etc.). From what i have experienced you can use any irDA to download the data. I use what is built-in to my laptop and have never had a problem. I also have the polar usb device connected to my desktop and notice no difference. The software will show you pretty much any and all info you want in any combo (not real user friendly for some of the custom data displays), the color is customizable also.

Hope this helped.
Joe

3

  1. I can’t answer question 1 as I use mine with a Polar Power meter which is not wireless, but I have heard it works fine on the wrist but you may need to boost the output of the sensor by moving a jumper inside it see: http://www.pursuit-performance.com.au/polar/html/local/faq/faq_speed_cade
    nce.html

  2. Its fairly accurate as far as overall ascent/descent is concerned, but as its affected by temperature and air pressure changes it can drift over the course of a long day

  3. mostly and yes - I use my laptops built in irda port, but I have heard that some cheap irda ports have problems. The software is pretty good and you can show graphs with most things on it although by the time you have speed, cadence, altitude, hr, power, L-R balance it can all be look a bit confusing…

4

Thanks.
I am thinking I will try it w/out the mount as I spend 99% of my time on the bars so if I lose a sampling of data here or there then I don’t care.

On the altitude, was just curious.

Also, I was just curious to see a graph showing speed, ascent and HR to see how I’m doing on hills.

THanks again.

5

I had trouble getting the IR connection to work. I asked around and finally got an answer as to why. Apparently, the Polar watch is really primitive in its IR sender/receiver and only uses the oldest standard. Unfortunately, IR is not standard at all and only the more expensive IR adapters (or built in IR ports) can "talk " to the watch unit. The cheapest IR interface chips are made by the same company (sigmatel) which will not work with the s7xx series watches. If you have a built-in IR port your set, but if you have to buy a USB adapter, make sure it isn’t a sigmatel chip- or just buy the polar one ($$$).