Product Description
Optimizes strength training by providing guidance on how to long to rest between sets, delivering the information in an easy-to-read graphical display (see image above)
Amazon.com Product Description
If there's one word to describe people who train seriously for athletics, it's dedication. And if there's one heart rate monitor that's dedicated to helping you achieve maximum workout efficiency, it's the Polar FT80. The FT80 starts by checking your daily condition, and then guiding you to the ideal training intensity for your age and fitness level. Knowing your heart rate not only helps you reach your personal fitness goal, but also improves your physical condition in general, as it's vitally important to train at the appropriate intensity level. If you exercise too hard, you may quit before you reach the real benefit, but if you work out too leisurely, you'll struggle to lose weight at all. The FT80 helps overcome these problems by encouraging you to map out a complete fitness routine.
The FT80's intelligent training computer also helps you work toward achieving your exercise goals in other ways. For example, the watch offers a Polar Star personalized training program that adapts to your workout habits. By giving you weekly training targets and providing constant feedback, the watch guides you without being too strict, helping you reach your goals more efficiently. The watch also displays heart rate info in several ways, including as a percentage of your maximum heart rate, as beats per minute, and within a graphical target zone indicator. And should your heart rate exceed or dip below your target zone, the FT80 will sound an alarm that helps you return to form.
Users will also love the variety of proprietary Polar functions, including ZonePointer, Polar Strength Training, and Polar OwnCal modes. The ZonePointer is an audible and visual feature on the display of your FT80 that shows you where your current heart rate sits within your target heart rate zone. The Polar Strength Training mode, meanwhile, helps you optimize your strength training by reading your heart rate and informing you when your body is ready for the next set--an ideal way to optimize your weight training. Finally, the Polar OwnCal mode shows your energy expenditure during one exercise session, as well as your accumulated kilocalories during several exercise sessions. You can also set daily and weekly exercise goals in terms of calorie expenditure, helping you achieve both short-term and long-term goals.
Other watch features include a built-in fitness test that measures your aerobic fitness at rest in just five minutes; a ZoneLock mode that lets you activate a target zone in the midst of training with the press of a button; a Polar OwnZone mode that provides a customized target zone for individual exercise sessions; an OwnCode mode that prevents crosstalk from other heart rate monitors nearby; a recording mode that tracks your average and maximum heart rate, calorie expenditure, distance, and total exercise time, and then puts it in an exercise file (with 100 total files); water resistance to 50 meters; a 12/24-hour clock with a day/week indicator; a built-in backlight; an alarm with a snooze; a low battery indicator; and a Polar FlowLink connection for transferring data between the FT80 and a computer. Sporting an attractive black housing, the watch carries a two-year warranty.
Manufacturer's Warranty
The original purchaser of this heart rate monitor is backed by a limited warranty that states that this product that the product will be free from defects in material or workmanship for two years from the date of purchase.
About Polar
The first EKG accurate wireless heart rate monitor was invented by Polar back in 1977 as a training tool for the Finnish National Cross Country Ski Team. The concept of "intensity training" by heart rate swept the athletic world in the eighties. By the 1990s, individuals were looking to heart rate monitors not only for performance training needs, but also for achieving everyday fitness goals. Today, the same concept of heart rate training is being used by world-class athletes as well as everyday people trying to lose weight. Polar is the leading brand among consumers, coaches, and personal trainers worldwide and the company is committed to not only producing the best products, but also being the leading educator on the benefits of heart rate based exercise.
- Black heart rate monitor watch with several innovative training features
- Intelligent training computer helps you achieve maximum workout efficiency
- Displays heart rate as percentage of maximum, bpm, and within target zone indicator
- Polar Star personalized training program delivers feedback and weekly training targets
- Offers ZonePointer and Polar OwnZone modes; water-resistant to 30 meters; 2-year warranty
Polar FT80 Heart Rate Monitor Watch (Black) Reviews
119 of 126 people found the following review helpful 
Nice looking, plagued with funcitonal problems..., December 25, 2008 By This review is from: Polar FT80 Heart Rate Monitor Watch (Black) (Sports) Sadly I must report quite a bit of disappointment with this product:
1) The screen is so poorly contrasted it's nearly impossible to read except in the best of light and the backlight only makes it tolerable -- and only for 5 seconds in a row.
2) I've unfortunately fallen victim to a problem that has affected hundreds of people as represented on the Polar forums -- the inability (over time, randomly) to synch to the web service. This bug is a software/synch. issue between the watch, windows software and the web service. It prevents the upload of your training results and if you're using the STAR program means you don't get the adaptive training routine downloaded to your watch. Further, it means you don't have access to the snazzy zone/interval graphs.
3) The feature set is misleading as it comes to being able to use certain functions; the realtime graph and rest interval display is really only available in the strength training routines and not for... Read more
40 of 40 people found the following review helpful 
Worth it.. Updated review after a year of use., November 12, 2008 This review is from: Polar FT80 Heart Rate Monitor Watch (Black) (Sports) Figured I would expand on my review now that I have used the product now for quite some time.
Overall I think the FT80 is worth the price, and is a fantastic tool that has completely transformed my life and motivated me to workout more. I will outline the the pros/cons below and hopefully I can shed some light on some other reviews as well from having the product for so long now.
What I love : The star training program and fitness test have worked as my complete motivator and those two features combined have helped me get back in shape after a longish layoff. The star program helped me not overtrain and burn myself out in the begining which was very important and the improvements shown in ownindex kept me motivated along with the trophies.
The design is great and I get complimented on it all the time. I have never had an issue with the display, yes it is reverse black/white but once I got use to it I actually prefer this now.
It was dimmer, but... Read more
54 of 56 people found the following review helpful 
Avoid the FT80 until the technical issues are solved, January 15, 2009 By Amazon Verified Purchase This review is from: Polar FT80 Heart Rate Monitor Watch (Black) (Sports) I purchased an FT-80 just prior to Christmas. Whilst I was fairly happy with it for the first couple of weeks (the dim back-light and anemic audio tones notwithstanding), I came across a significant bug in the workout data tracking that renders it useless. There is clearly an issue with the firmware or the memory - after my Monday workout the stats for the week switched to 255 sessions, 65535 calories burned and 99:59:59 hours of exercise. Anyone familiar with computers will realize the significance of these numbers - it looks like the entire data slot got corrupted.
I thought this might be an isolated incident until I checked the Polar forums for the FT80. The posts are full of people complaining about this same issue, along with a host of other issues. There has been no official response from Polar, which is extremely poor. I contacted Polar technical support and have not heard back yet.
I strongly suggest anyone considering this model checks the Polar forums... Read more
› See all 44 customer reviews...
| 119 of 126 people found the following review helpful Nice looking, plagued with funcitonal problems..., By This review is from: Polar FT80 Heart Rate Monitor Watch (Black) (Sports) Sadly I must report quite a bit of disappointment with this product:1) The screen is so poorly contrasted it's nearly impossible to read except in the best of light and the backlight only makes it tolerable -- and only for 5 seconds in a row. 2) I've unfortunately fallen victim to a problem that has affected hundreds of people as represented on the Polar forums -- the inability (over time, randomly) to synch to the web service. This bug is a software/synch. issue between the watch, windows software and the web service. It prevents the upload of your training results and if you're using the STAR program means you don't get the adaptive training routine downloaded to your watch. Further, it means you don't have access to the snazzy zone/interval graphs. 3) The feature set is misleading as it comes to being able to use certain functions; the realtime graph and rest interval display is really only available in the strength training routines and not for... Read more 40 of 40 people found the following review helpful Worth it.. Updated review after a year of use., This review is from: Polar FT80 Heart Rate Monitor Watch (Black) (Sports) Figured I would expand on my review now that I have used the product now for quite some time.Overall I think the FT80 is worth the price, and is a fantastic tool that has completely transformed my life and motivated me to workout more. I will outline the the pros/cons below and hopefully I can shed some light on some other reviews as well from having the product for so long now. What I love : The star training program and fitness test have worked as my complete motivator and those two features combined have helped me get back in shape after a longish layoff. The star program helped me not overtrain and burn myself out in the begining which was very important and the improvements shown in ownindex kept me motivated along with the trophies. The design is great and I get complimented on it all the time. I have never had an issue with the display, yes it is reverse black/white but once I got use to it I actually prefer this now. It was dimmer, but... Read more 54 of 56 people found the following review helpful Avoid the FT80 until the technical issues are solved, By Amazon Verified Purchase This review is from: Polar FT80 Heart Rate Monitor Watch (Black) (Sports) I purchased an FT-80 just prior to Christmas. Whilst I was fairly happy with it for the first couple of weeks (the dim back-light and anemic audio tones notwithstanding), I came across a significant bug in the workout data tracking that renders it useless. There is clearly an issue with the firmware or the memory - after my Monday workout the stats for the week switched to 255 sessions, 65535 calories burned and 99:59:59 hours of exercise. Anyone familiar with computers will realize the significance of these numbers - it looks like the entire data slot got corrupted.I thought this might be an isolated incident until I checked the Polar forums for the FT80. The posts are full of people complaining about this same issue, along with a host of other issues. There has been no official response from Polar, which is extremely poor. I contacted Polar technical support and have not heard back yet. I strongly suggest anyone considering this model checks the Polar forums... Read more |
› See all 44 customer reviews...
