Polar S610 and Coach comparison (long)

For those of you who might be interested this is a comparison of the Polar Coach and the Polar S610. I've been using the S610 for about a month now and the Coach for over a year. Previously I've used an Accurex and a much older Cardiosport. Comments below are based on my own experience and any bugs etc are as on my system and my watch - I cannot promise that they can be repeated by anyone else.

Transmitter and belt

The S610 transmitter (T61) seems much better fitting than that for the Coach. Perhaps this is due to the slight tension in the transmitter itself or its more curly shape but it certainly holds in place without having the belt done up tight. I found with the Coach that I was forever tightening the belt (and it wasn't due to loss of weight!). I noticed quite a few drop-outs or misreadings with the Coach which so far the S610 has not repeated. However these were often with a particular (Ron Hill coolmax-type) t-shirt which generates static (and pushed the HR up to the magic 220) and I haven't yet worn this shirt with the S610. I ran with the S610/T61 in the London marathon without noticing either.

Software

The PC software that comes with the Coach (Polar Coach Lite) is very simple but enables you to print off all the basic details. With the S610 you get Precision Performance Pro which is a much more sophisticated beast. I particularly like the ability to overlay runs on top of each other and the wealth of graph customisations available. On the other hand PPP does not enable you to print off details such as lap or split times with a graph. I have also discovered quite a few bugs in the information displayed below a graph - for example, a mismatch with the distance entered on the diary view and sometimes a spurious set of second heart rate zone details appear when none have been set. (This is with the latest version downloaded from the Polar web-site). PPP lets you change the settings for your S610 and then download them (see below), thus saving a bit of fiddling on the watch itself. Despite the watch being able to hold 5 user defined sessions I would have liked the ability to save a library of more than 5 sessions on the PC and select them for downloading at some later point.

Connection

The Coach uses sonic tranmission to get data from the watch to the PC. This works more or less OK though it means that you need to have a relatively quiet environment else the process errors. The S610 adds an infra-red interface and the ability to download data from PPP. Sessions are quickly read from the watch (just a few seconds for 60 mins of data with samples every 5 seconds) and settings downloaded just as quickly. Users of Windows 95 may be able to use their PC's own IR but later editions need the separate Polar interface (see the Australian Polar forum -details below - for a discussion).

Watch

The S610 is a slightly bigger watch, presumably to hold the IR unit. But it fits even my slim wrists very well. The Coach seems slightly less modern in comparison but this is hardly a bit deal. The buttons on the S610 are noticeably harder to press and the lap button in particular seemed a bit sticky at first.

The S610 can record data at either 5, 15 or 60 second intervals and with 5 second intervals it can hold just over 22 hours of data from many sessions (or 260 hours at 60 second intervals) in up to 99 separate sessions. This is plenty enough even for a heavy week's running. The Coach records at between 30 seconds and 8 minute intervals and only holds data from one session at a time - old sessions are recorded over. The latter can be a bit of a bummer if you're away from the PC so you can't upload data. The Coach changes sampling settings according to the length of session whilst you can change the S610 settings manually (and different sessions can be recorded at different sample rates). With the S610's large memory I find I can just upload data at the end of the week.

One of my bugbears with the Coach was the setting of HR limits which you incremented by the use of just one button - if you missed the number first time you had to cycle round again. This was worse than the Accurex. Both of these could only hold one session definition so for those of us who run different intensities on different days quick setting of HR limits is very important. The S610 is more sophisticated - it can save 5 user defined and user named sessions (plus one other) and setting them is much easier either on the watch itself (an up and a down button!) or via PPP. It's certainly quicker to change the settings via PPP but not too difficult on the watch since the display more or less guides you through it. Choosing a definition is very easy using the up-button.

The display on the S610 can be customised very easily on the run - pressing the down button changes the main line between stopwatch or laptime, the up-button cycles the top-line through stop-watch, time of day or lap-time. The 'heart touch' feature can be customised to tell you the current time of day or other display option, current HR limits or setting a lap time. So by raising the watch to your chest you can see one of these details. Useful but I've always found this is a bit too sensitive and when trying to change HR limits I set off this feature instead and have to wait till it stops before continuing.

A regalar session for me would involve a warm-up at something like 130-140 and then intervals, fartlek or a tempo period at eg 150-160 or 160-170. These are easily set up on the S610 (and the Coach subject to the points above). I preferred the method used to change limits on the Coach - a quick press on the top right button - to the S610 - a long hold on the same button. When doing intervals a quick press is much easier, I found with the S610 I was often changing the top display line instead of the HR limits.

Similarly I got confused at first with stopping and restarting on the run with the S610. To stop a run you press the button left button and to restart you press the centre (lap) button). First time I had to do this I used the old Coach method of bottom? left button to stop and then again to restart - I think this is more intuitive. On the S610 this has the effect of stopping then reverting the time of day display - the session cannot then be restarted. But I guess I will get used to the S610's way over time.

Both the Coach and the S610 give you specific interval modes. They seem quite similar though the S610 adds in warm-up and warm-down periods before and after the intervals proper. All very sensible. Both interval modes work best for time-based intervals, eg 3 mins hard, 2 easy, and you can only set one lot of intervals (the S810 will bring in much more sophisticated profiles for sessions). As you might have guessed I prefer manually changing the limits since most of my interval work is distance based.

For me, a major difference between the Coach and the S610 is the recording of the time within, above and below different HR limits. The Coach will record these times only when the particular HR limit is active whilst the S610 will record the times regardless of whether an HR limit has been active in the session. As an extreme example, suppose I had 130-140 as HR limit 1 and 160-170 as HR limit 2. Say I wanted to be in HR1 for both a 10 minute warm-up and warm-down then in HR2 for 10x3 min efforts with 10x3 min HR1 recovery intervals). The Coach would record 50 minutes in HR1 and 30 minutes in HR2. The S610 would record, for HR1 50 mins in and 30 above and for HR2 50 below and 30 in. This must be a flaw and not what they intended. What should matter is whether you were in your target HR zone while that zone was active. Perhaps I'm just being too retentive.

The S610 does not record the end HR, the Coach does. Both enable you to record recovery information either by reference to the drop in HR over a set-time (eg 2 mins) or the length of time it takes for your HR to drop to a set HR (eg 120). I found this a useful feature to record over the years to get an early warning of potential over-training - the higher the drop in HR for a similar run the 'fitter' I am. But I must admit to cheating somewhat - hitting the last 400 metres or so hard so that the end HR is higher and therefore leading to a higher HR drop! I doubt this is sensible. The S610 does not record final recovery data after a warm-down phase in interval mode but it does record the drop after each hard effort.

Both record lap/split information though for some perverse reason the S610 does not record the last lap - so the best lap information excludes what might be the fastest section in a race. The best lap calculation only works with 3 or more laps (I think). The Coach does record last lap information but excludes a best lap calculation.

If asked what I would like to change on the S610 I would say:

* first fix PPP (I've reported the bugs to the UK Polar reps without much feedback) * add the ability to save a library of more than 5 session definitions on the PC * change the way the S610 records data on time in different HR limits * save the last lap data * (a biggy) develop a Palm OS application that communicates with the S610 so that you can set the watch and download run data - that would be a great nerd app!

I would be interested in any views on this review.

I'm posting this to both rec.running and the Polar HR forum at

A couple of notes for you. 1. When reviewing lap time information with the software it will tell you your end heart rate of the lap split.

2. Although the watch doesn't record the last lap time, you can manually enter the last lap on the heart rate curve, this will then give you the information on this final segment of the exercise.

3. You can save a library of more than 5 exercise files, just press the save button when in the exercise set mode in the software and give the fileset a name. You have the ability to send your exercise session settings to your coach or clients etc if they also use PPP3 software.

Polar are constantly working on any problems they become aware of and are regularly bringing out updates. A new one is available on approximately 15 May 2001.